>> and this building made his reputation. it was something that even came up in models. people would talk about the famous bank of pennsylvania by benjamin latrobe. now if we could have the next slide. unfortunately, our destructive efforts as americans resulted in

the demolition. here we are in 1872. this slide gives you some indication of how large the bank was. it was being demolished for reasons that i have never been clear about. but ultimately, it ended up -- this particular block -- as a parking lot. something of a sad indication of taste and what we believe is important. go on to the next slide. here is the famous charles wilson peale portrait of latrobe which was painted while he was living in philadelphia. latrobe was a great friend of

the peale family. the peales ran museums, etc. and this is a portrait that is now in the white house. latrobe was an architect who couldn't see very well -- [laughter] glasses were very essential to his career. it seems to me he's looking forward. he's just come to the united states. he's designed and built the famous bank, and he's looking forward to being an american. this idea of being an american became one of the themes that i played with. when i first began with, i thought that because latrobe had been expelled from school and was a rebel, i thought, well, that's what this guy is. but it turns out he was not a

rebel. and i kept looking as i wrote the biography about what is the central theme of his life. and the search went on. let's see the next slide. as latrobe struggled to be an american and to play the role of a patriot, he did everything that one should do. he joined a militia company. he even wrote a treaty on pocahontas and john rolfe. he tried in many ways to celebrate with george washington by creating a possible monument for george washington. on the other hand, there's always a side of latrobe in his

life in the united states when he's a critic of what is going on. first of all, he hate our politics. no doubt we can all understand that today. [laughter] he thought that american politics were cramped and local. he talked about political mania. he also hated our social system. he went to dinner parties in philadelphia and found that the butcher was there with him, and that offended him no end. there is simply no doubt that we would call latrobe a ferocious english snob. but nonetheless, one of the most important of his criticisms of the united states is slavery. this is a famous, famous water

color that is used in many textbook withs. it has latrobe's cynical title, oversere or doing his duty -- overoverseer doing his duty. and here we have the enslaved women working guard. latrobe was a critic of american slavery, and yet on the other hand, twice this his life he certainly had men who took care of his horses and his carriage when he could afford one, men who were indentured servants or enslaved. and it is this difficult compromise that i think many of the -- undertook. yes, intellectuals hate slavery. but, in fact, practically they

often used slaves. let's go to the next. by 1803, latrobe having lived in philadelphia during the period after he left virginia, he needed a job. his kind of architecture rapidly dried up commissions because he only designed expensive buildings. none of this carpenter's -- [inaudible] he appealed to his friend thomas jefferson. to me, this is one of the great friendships that perhaps is forgotten in american history, and it's that of thomas jefferson and benjamin henry latrobe. jefferson, like samuel fox, the quaker who was head of the board

of the bank of pennsylvania, appreciated latrobe's genius and appointed him surveyor of buildings which gave him control over what we called then the president's house and, of course, the u.s. capitol. the two most important pieces of civic architecture in the early nation. this was the, a view of latrobe's vision of our capitol. you will see that it replicates his neo-classism. there are the domes, there's the portico, there's the balanced symmetry and the idea of a harmonious building where everything or fits together. i believe -- and, of course, this is speculation, latrobe is

long dead -- that he would have hated the huge dome that so many americans celebrate over our capitol today. in any case, he and jefferson collaborated. and there were times when they both were at odds over how to light, whether there would be lanterns in the turrets or would there be skylights. and they had a falling out, and so latrobe produced this water color and sent it to jefferson in hopes that their relationship could be repaired. let's see next slide. this is a digitized, a digitized

image of latrobe's -- and i think it is very accurate. and it gives you some sense of how inspiring his architecture was. there is a terrific room. however, members of congress found it to be much too eking lab rate for a new republic. and they started to complain about how they couldn't hear, especially dowdy old don randolph of virginia who said that none of the speeches could be herald. and you could see and tell that in an age without microphones, it would be very hard to hear. latrobe responded to this criticism by saying that the speeches weren't very good anyway. [laughter]

however, congress -- more and more to try and control and cut back on the spending that they gave to latrobe. and there was a falling out by 1809, and latrobe was no longer the surveyor of public buildings. i do want to say, although i have no slides of this, that latrobe also contributed to the president's house. he believed that it was the blandest building possible, that it simply replicateed a banal municipal building in dublin. and so it's to latrobe that we owe the famous -- in the front of the white house, and it's to

latrobe that we owe the idea for the -- back on the south side of the white house. so let's go to the next slide. having worked so hard on the capitol anding is having anticipate thed -- and having anticipated that he might also work on the rotunda, in 1814 the u.s. capitol was destroyed by an invading british army. the army had found, and many of the officers said so in their report, that there was, there were only two buildings worth destroying and paying attention to in early federal washington and, of course, the capitol was one of them. the british took all of the wood and the furniture and then fired

their famous rockets into the center of the building. and essentially, the building was, at least as far as the interior was concerned, it was mainly destroyed. you will note here that the famous rotunda has not been with finished, and latrobe and jefferson both hoped that he'd be able to work on the creation and refurbishing of the building and also the creation of the rotunda. he did change his design, and we see some of his design on the evening news. if you watch clearly behind the politicians who are being

interviewed, you will see what is grecia marble. latrobe liked to use native elements, and he has discovered this what was called puddle stone. it's gray and it has flecks of purple and red and yellow. it's gorgeous. and he used this in the new version of the assembly room. and i encourage you all when you're listening to the politicians talking about current events to look behind them in statutory hall at those gray columns. that is latrobe's enduring contribution to our civic culture: having returned to the capitol, latrobe had hoped that he might stay there.

but again there really was not enough, there were not enough architectural commissions for him to do so. he had had a short interim time when he had left washington, and he had gone to design a steam boat, if you can imagine. i bring this up just to suggest how broad his career was, how many things he did. he went to pittsburgh as an employee of robert fulton to design a steam boat. he was always looking to some kind of an avenue to create a secure financial move for his family. he had married again in philadelphia, and he had three children whom he needed to

educate, and the problem with architecture and public architecture is he never knew when he was going to be paid. he also didn't know when he would be fired. and he was, in fact, fired a second time. at that point he moved to baltimore. let's see the next slide. here is a portrait, a later-day portrait of latrobe. i love the fact that the eye glasses that have been such a constant part of his portraits have now, they're now on his face. i love the idea that the curly hair is still somewhat uncontrolled. now, this is the rembrandt portrait of latrobe, rembrandt

peale was charles wilson peale's son. this in a family, just to give a short shout out to the peale family, charles wilson peale named his son rembrandt, rafael, and this is rembrandt's view of latrobe as he moved to baltimore. let's go on. latrobe had to declare bankruptcy in washington. he had -- when he lost his job at the capitol, he no longer had a salary. he was in debt because his steam

boat project had failed in pittsburgh. and so with some humiliation, la latrobe declared bankruptcy and came to the city of baltimore in 1816. he had been working on the basilica for a number of years before that, and so he knew the city. this is the cross-that i include because it -- cross-section that i include because it seems to me to characterize the sophistication of latrobe's presentations to clients. one said it was too attractive, that that's not what architects should do. you shouldn't get client ares because you could make pretty

pictures. but nonetheless, here is a view, a cross-section of the capitol basilica in baltimore. it remains the, one of the city's most impressive and most important buildings. what is significant about it is that it is the so different from most cathedrals and basilicas. it is light, it is airy. there is a double dome that permits light. and latrobe was always playing around with the idea of light and shadow. in an era without constant electricity to give us light, this was important illumination of all his buildings. it was also significant because this is high stage

neo-classicism. we have the porticos, and, of course, we have the massive design that was so important to the whole notion of architecture. the building remains, and i hope that many of your listeners, viewers, whatever we are will take a visit that baltimore and investigate what is a great triumph of benjamin henry latrobe's. let's go on to the -- this is another building that latrobe did in baltimore. it's a merchants' exchange. i think of it as is sort of a -- [inaudible] where you include there's a bank in here, there's a post office,

there's a meeting room. and here is this dramatic dome, but it is still a low dome. that lighted the whole building. it came at a time in baltimore's history when the city was going through something of a -- [inaudible] after the war of 1812. and, again, it suggested that their city was important and that through its buildings it would indicate that to others. now, this is the last of the slides. but there is a final chapter to latrobe's life, and it involves his move to new orleans.

latrobe, again, hoping for some kind of ingenuity, some kind of way to have a stable income, moved to new orleans in 1818. he had previously built a water system in, a municipal water system in philadelphia. and now he had been hired by the new orleans city council to create a similar municipal water system in new orleans. and so he worked there for several years until, tragically, in the summer of 1820 during the many epidemics of that city's yellow fever epidemics, he died of yellow fever, and he is

buried in new orleans. i think maybe because we're in the midst of our own difficulties with what we call a pandemic, it's interesting to note that in the 19th century yellow fever was the great killer. it was not a pandemic in the sense that internal communitiesed had epidemics because it was carried by mosquitoes. we know how we get our coronavirus. they did not know how they were exposed to this lethal illness that killed about half of the people who were infected. but interestingly enough, they

also used scarfs and pieces of cloth which they would put in -- [inaudible] to are prevent the manifestation of the disease. things change, but they sometimes stay the same. i want to conclude, and i hope there's some questions from your audience, i want to conclude with the contributions that i think that a rah latrobe made to our great culture. he designed almost every kind of building that exists from what he called rational, private homes in which he designed a far more reasonable kind of setup in terms of where the kitchen was, to churches. remember st. john's church in

washington? it's recently been in the news. he designed educational institutions. he and jefferson collaborated on some of the buildings in jefferson's famous campus at the university of virginia. he designed barns. he designed almost anything that you can think of. always behind this was the idea that he was building an america that was permanent and that had important understanding of how significant buildings can be. you know, winston churchill once said -- i think this is when westminster was being rebuilt -- that we create buildings, but then they shape us.

and to that extent, benjamin henry latrobe had a great influence on early republic and on our subsequent lives. >> thank you so much. i think this has just been really fascinating, and i've enjoyed so many of your insights on latrobe as you know gone through the various moments in his life. reading your biography of him, it almost feels like a series of cliffhangers as you go from one the city to another, one, you know, one crisis to the next. what's he going to do next, how is he going to get out of this. and yet he doesn't come across as discouraged, curmudgeonly, but he seeks to always be hopeful and looking forward.

>> that's true, yes. he was -- excuse me. he was an optimist. and that got him in trouble. because he was a speculator. he would invest in some of the schemes. for example, the idea of a ski run textile machine. he invested in all kinds of different projects including his own steam engines, steam boat -- [laughter] and some of them were unsuccessful. but he kept going and kept trying. and one of the important everyone cease in his life was always his family. latrobe was a devoted family man. and one of the legacies that he has left my home city is his

children after he died in new orleans, they returned because they had a sponsor in baltimore, and they lived in baltimore. and that became important -- they became important businessmen and engineers. and his grandson, ferdinand, was a seven-time mayor of the city of baltimore. and so i think we have a special allegiance to this creative genius. >> and since you brought up his family, i wanted to ask you a little bit about his wife, mary elizabeth. and her role in his career. >> she's fantastic. one of the things that is so upsetting when one does a biography of a man is that there are no pictures. i could never find images of

mary latrobe. there are all these wonderful portraits that we have of latrobe, but there is no image. but my view of her, because he writes really sexualized for that generation letters about i wish i could hold you and feel your bosom, etc., etc. it's amazing. but he always compliments her figure and how even though after six children, she's gotten a little bit stouter. nonetheless, she has the best figure of any of the women many washington. but mary latrobe was willing to go wherever latrobe went and to maker for him the best -- make for him the best possible home. she's there at the end. she has left the east coast and

traveled with her two young children to new orleans. she -- they have rented a house. and latrobe is special in this way because he never designed all these houses for people, and he never had his own house. but they have a small house in new orleans, and mary and the two children have come down to make for him a proper domestic setting. and i think without her he would have been miserable. >> i think i want to open it up if we have any questions from the audience at this point. let's see, cynthia asks: going back to the beginning of your talk and i'll just share with the audience that first chapter of your book you've titled itchy ears, which is fascinating. but cynthia asks, interesting about the moravian connection.

how much did that background play a part in his future career? >> thank you, cynthia miller, for that question. i think it played a fair share, a lot of importance. first of all, there's an intellectual contribution that the trading in moravian schools gave him. it's really a first class education. it's especially strong in math, in geometry, in his talents as a artist. and beyond that just the mental discipline of moravian education. however, and i think the i might have a quote here which i, if i can find it, easily -- i think

that, i probably won't, so i will just paraphrase it. ah, here it is. he always disputed how important the moravian education was. i think he never forgave his father for the fact that he did not have this emotionally close relationship with his relatives. .. how could such a man deprived

of independent fortune expect to go through the world otherwise as i have done? so i would argue that yes, in terms of intellectualprowess , the background helped but in terms of his abilityto get along in the world , it hindered him. >> i think that's a really interesting point and you see that in your book in so many ways as he goes through his life but i think that unusual upbringing that he had in his childhood, but yet he goes on to create a much more affectionate family in his own life. tammy asks, did try and stop latrobeserve as a mentor to

other architects ? did they share his affinity for low tones ? >> not all of them. you can trace latrobe's influence through architecture down to frank lloyd wright. the critical influence here is probably robert mills but he did have, when he was living in philadelphia he began to take some young men and into mentor them. sometimes it was successful, sometimes it was not. but in terms of mentoring other architects, one can go through the list to louis sullivan down to frank lloyd wright and it's a wonderful

kind of geological architectural tree. again, there weren't a lot of architects so one, when one looks at latrobe's career, one of the things to understand is that he really tried to establish architecture as a profession. and that was hard. it was hard because there was so much competition from carpenters, books and from artisans who simply houses without any desire to make kind of splendid spaces that he wanted to. now, as far as load domes i would answer no. others did not share his affinity for low domes.

and that's why we have the capital today . in fact, you probably know this on the eve of the civil war, the great dome of thomas walter was being directed and congress wanted to have more. congressman liked them and they wanted to have domes over the house of representatives over the senate . so latrobe was very special in that way and i don't know whether this is an issue take . it's my own view that latrobe was searching always or a harmonious structure and that's why i suspected he would have not liked theus capitol building today . >> fascinating. i was so interested that you mentioned frank lloyd wright because you talked briefly about in your book about the

wall house in philadelphia that mission is what my colleagues at the philadelphia is the art and was very deciding house tassels on the and that's the kind of control right liked to have. >> that's new. architects didn't always go inside. this is what gets latrobe into the view of dolly madison. he and dolly madison worked hard on the interior furniture, etc. in the white house . when he came back to redo the white house. >> we have another question now from neil who asked how did latrobe extend neoclassicism within the embrace of classical ideals so that architectural visual

counterpart is a political ideal. >> yes. i'm not sure i'm going to answer the question the way it's presented. but this is what i'm going to say. the reason that i argue that latrobe was a founder of the united states, not of its political ideals, but of its building is that he connected with them because they too if one reads the federalist papers, one understands this, they too were looking at some ancestor, some precursor. if you have a revolution against the british, you're not going to look to british

ideals and political theorists. you're going to have to find yourideals somewhere else and latrobe found them as did hamilton , madison, jefferson, washington found them in the roman and greek republics. so here we have this other path that is being taken. there politics here which is being based on classic ideas of non-monarch all regimes and there's latrobe who is building these buildings that represent those ideals. in terms of how he changed or extended neoclassicism, it's different. one can look if you're looking just at the architecture you can look at the pantheon see that latrobe has changed it.

there are more columns. often the capitals are different and there's a sense of having more light, many more windows that one finds on latrobe's buildings and when one would find in the antecedents in greece and rome. >> i think it is getting late and you've given us much to think about so i think we have time for just a couple more questions if you can stick with us that long . tony asks in the not so deep distant past the basilica was restored. do you think it was a faithful restoration to its original design? >> i'm going to pass on the onion polis but latrobe said

that the basilica would endure forever unless it was an earthquake. he actually said that and then there was an earthquake and there were all kinds of cracks and so the archdiocese decided that a restoration, it is a restoration to its original design. i think it's a faithful restoration. i think they did a superb job and i think if one compares to what had happened, this is what happens to buildings though. they get encroached upon and the basilica in the night before the restoration was full of all these g jaws and decorations that latrobe hated. he was very limited in terms of his agreeing ever to decorations and the colors in

the basilica before it was restored were just simply terrible. they were dark and whatever. and i'm going to leave the onion coppola's question because i'm not sure anyone, there's a huge controversy which is why going down one of alice in wonderland radicals as far as i'm concerned . >> we will go on to the last question from adam who asks this is changing the subject of it, that's an impressive library behind you . if you'd read one book other than your own what would you encourage us to pick up and read ? >> years just to keep in. see this? this is a new book on latrobe

. can you see it? it's all about his workbook. so of course it's just the one that's nearest to me, sorry. >> that seems like a good one and i will certainly look forward to seeing it . it's got scott albritton on the cover so what's not to love ? doctor baker, you have graciously agreed to write an article for us for our upcoming magazine on latrobe's visit to mount vernon in 1796 so i think that's something allour members and followers can look forward to . and we really appreciate your passion. you've certainly gotten me fired up to go and look at many of these buildings with different eyes to look for

latrobe's handedness and his role in the buildingof america . i want to thank you for joining us tonight and i want to thank all of our listeners and viewers for joining us. it is your support that makes it possible for mount vernon to continueoffering these great programs . i hope that you will continue to join us for those and come to see us at mount vernon as opportunity presents and continue to support mount vernon and our mission to really support american history and learn about american history so thank you so much forjoining us . >> you are watching tv on c-span2. every weekend with thelatest nonfiction books and authors .

tv on c-span2, created by america's cable television companies and brought to you by these companies to provide book tv as a public service . >> in her latest book what can i do, actress and activist jane fonda reflected on her efforts to speak out against environmental issues. she offers her thoughts on the state of the federal government . >> we also have to dig deep in our self and figure out whowe are . who do we want to be? and we have to fundamentally, and i hope we will and i think we will. we have to change the way we think and feel and function and learn to care for each other and not let these dog whistling politicians who really don't care about us at all lead us down a dead-end road which is what's happening now but i always tend to look at the bright side. covid didn't break us, expose where we were already broken