The head-scratching reaction of the average tourist to the National Monument to the Forefathers at Plymouth, Massachusetts, measures the degree to which the present age has lost contact with the allegorical and iconographical meanings of older public monuments. This paper recreates the historical context for the architect Hammatt Billings's original design (1854) for the monument and its ultimate realization (dedicated 1889) by revealing the design process and its relationship to the historical and oratorical ideals of the 1850s. The original design not only existed as heir to the allegorical tradition of western art and architecture; it was formed by the hopes and fears of the decade previous to the Civil War. It reflected the reading of the nation's legendary past employed by New England orators and statesmen, such as Daniel Webster and Edward Everett, who espoused a common filiopietism in support of a sacred Union that they saw unraveling before them. The divisive Civil War accordingly delayed the erection of the monument to a common heritage. Although it was reduced and altered in postponed execution, the original design was well known from engravings and statuettes given as premiums for contributions to the building fund, and served as one precedent for Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi's better-known Statue of Liberty.

During what until recently has been seen as the lean years between Bulfinch's departure and Richardson's arrival in Boston (1818-1874), the population of the city rose from 41,000 to nearly 300,000, and the number of architects from a handful to over one hundred. Only now are the designers who gave shape to this urban growth beginning to receive the serious research they deserve. This paper outlines the careers of two of these men, the little-known Hammatt Billings (who was born the year Bulfinch left and died the year Richardson arrived), and his lesser-known brother, Joseph. Together, separately, and in collaboration with others, the Billingses designed a large number of buildings across New England, beginning with the Boston Museum (1845-1846) and ending with the original buildings for Wellesley College (1869-1875). In addition, the universally talented Hammatt contributed overtly and covertly to the work of other architects to a degree that may never be accurately measured.

Despite its central position in the history of architecture, H. H. Richardson's Marshall Field Wholesale Store remains a largely mythical building, known primarily from a limited number of photographs often reproduced and from Louis Sullivan's eulogy in the Kindergarten Chats. This paper presents a factual history and description of the building conceived by the client in 1881, designed in 1885, and quietly opened in 1887. It was U-shaped and red originally, rather than Sullivan's "four-square and brown." Since it was not innovative either in design or in technology (although aspects of both are remarkable), its historical reputation is attributed to its fortuitous location in time and place, the reputation of the architect, the cohesiveness of its design at an urban scale, its symbolic impact as an urban commercial structure, and the quality of its execution.