Shepherd Stevens papers

The papers, spanning 1789-1961 (bulk 1840-1961), consist of correspondence, architectural drawings, sketches, diaries, photographs, lecture materials, writings, and other documents pertaining to the life of Shepherd Stevens (1880-1962), an American architect and professor of architecture at Cornell (1915-1920) and Yale (1920-1947) universities who was educated at Columbia University (1899-1903) and trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris, France, where he received his diplôme in 1908. The papers are a particularly rich and valuable resource for the study of architectural education and pedagogy in the early decades of the twentieth century. Also included in the collection are materials pertaining to the lives of several of Stevens’s family members.

Among the twelve records series documenting Stevens’s academic, professional, and personal activities, the most significant and extensive include Series II, Correspondence, and Series III, Diaries and Calendars, both of which record Stevens’s time as a student, a practicing architect, and a professor of architecture, as well as his travels throughout the world; Series IV, Drawings and Sketches, which comprise student projects, assignments, and sketchbooks undertaken at Columbia and the École, and some professional work Stevens pursued during his brief stint as an architect; Series VI, Lecture and Class Material, which includes student writings, lecture notes,and assignments, as well as teaching materials from Yale; and Series IX, Photographs, which contains images of Stevens, portraits and snapshots of various friends and family members, and a variety of travel photographs, including a series of images taken after World War I in France, where Stevens worked for the American Red Cross documenting wartime destruction. The final series, Series XIII, comprises the papers of several family members who were close to Stevens, including his aunt Charlotte Cordelia (Shepherd) Davenport and uncle William Bates Davenport; these papers consist of correspondence, photographs, writings, and other records documenting a range of personal and professional activities, including events relating to the American Civil War and World War I.