Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 1980. / Vita. "Chronological list of writings, speeches and unpublished papers by Cret": leaves 219-223. "Writings about Paul Philippe Cret and his architecture": leaves 224-230. Bibliography: leaves 237-250.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Architecture and Environmental Studies)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1993. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 2, p. 371-395). / This dissertation examines the dominant conventions of architectural practice in the United States between 1919 and 1933. It proceeds from two assumptions: first, that by the 1900s, both the American Institute of Architects (AlA) and the numerous professional journals available to architects across the country solidified the profession nationally and yielded a coherent field within which practitioners could debate the content of their professional service; second, that within the context of its national discourse, the architecture profession drew inspiration for its effort to identify a social function for itself from the White City Movement which forged a link between the architect and a national political, industrial and cultural leadership drawn together by American Progressivism. The study focuses on the period following the demise of the White City Movement during which American architects cast off their allegiance to its traditional aesthetic formulae but retained the aspiration to associate themselves and their work with prevailing trends in a national political and social milieu. It demonstrates that in their efforts to redefine the terms of their professional service, American architects invoked the popular terminology of Scientific Management, Technocracy, Fordism, and the nostrums of the 'New Era' and promised 'efficiency' in their work and in the industries they presumed to manage. It reveals that within these efforts of professional redefinition, the professional ideology supporting the architect's aspirations for work converged with a modernist idealism espousing the value of technical expertise as a medium of social emancipation and progress. By giving evidence of a widespread and indigenous modernism that perceived a social benefit in the architect's capacity to utilize industrial technology, this project amends the dominant historical view which attributes the re-emergence of an American Modem Movement in the 1930s to the 'diaspora' of European artists and intellectuals before to WW II. This study has two parts. In Part One, it examines first the canons of Beaux-Arts Classicism and their gradual dissolution after World War I under the pressure of criticism from writers such as Ralph Adams Cram, Louis Sullivan and Lewis Mumford and through the work of the AlA's PostWar Committee; and second, the institutional structure of the AlA and its organizational ideologies in the 1920s. In Part Two, it looks more closely at the evolving conventions of professional service, demonstrating that American architects reached a consensus about the necessity of a 'new' architecture which identified itself in three areas: first, in its rejection of the Beaux-Arts method of interpreting a building program through a stylistic rendition of its social 'character' in favor of design strategies that maximized usable space; second, in its abandonment of the visual paradigm of the White City in favor of the expansionist rhetoric of Regional Planning; and third, in its disavowal of stylistic conventions based on historical precedent in favor of styles that both demonstrated a discontinuity with the past and celebrated an evolving consumerist 'utopia' populated by industrial commodities. / by Paul Louis Bentel. / Ph.D.

The tradition of placing objects and symbols within, under, on, and around buildings for supernatural protection and good luck, as an act of formal or informal consecration, or as an element of other magico-religious or mundane ritual, has been documented throughout the world. This thesis examines the material culture of magic and folk ritual in the eastern United States, focusing on objects deliberately concealed within and around standing structures. While a wide range of objects and symbols are considered, in-depth analysis focuses on three artifact types: witch bottles, concealed footwear, and concealed cats. This thesis examines the European origins of ritual concealments, their transmission to North America, and their continuation into the modern era. It also explores how culturally derived cognitive frameworks, including cosmology, religion, ideology, and worldview, as well as the concepts of family and household, may have influenced or encouraged the use of ritual concealments among certain groups. / Cultural-historical background -- Witch bottles and other bottle charms -- Concealed footwear and associated deposits -- Concealed cats -- Other concealments -- Discussion and conclusions -- Recommendations for practical applications and future research. / Department of Anthropology

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2010. / Prepared for: Dept. of Art History. Title from resource description page. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 529-547). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xxvi, 547 leaves, bound in 2 v. ill., maps, plans 29 cm

The nineteenth-century American building world assembled an unprecedented armature of professional knowledge. This dissertation reconstructs that armature by sampling from the profusion of technical and institutional documents that helped architects, engineers, and builders reckon with the enigmatic abstractions of liberal and industrial capitalism— along with the regimes of labor, infrastructure, and resource management they introduced. Typically ignored by architectural historians, these documents form a valuable archive of cultural texts and evidential indices. As a system of knowledge, they tether design to a series of political-economic conflicts. Revolutionary Philadelphia carpenters and reactionary Anglican specifiers alike found in printed numbers sources of authority and claims on temporal power. Postbellum architect-engineers like John C. Trautwine and Frank Kidder used pocketbooks to transfuse the logics of locomotives and lumber mills into the core of architectural practice. Through a professional sleight of hand, institution-builders like Richard Upjohn and Richard Morris Hunt distanced themselves from the appearance of calculation while depending upon it ever more, encrypting it in drawings, institutional scripts, and legal precedent. In their work with architect H.H. Richardson, general contractors James and Orlando W. Norcross most fully realized the potentials of this system, synthesizing technical literature, industrial capital, and a proprietary mythos of materials to achieve the apotheosis of American architecture. I plumb this obscure world of literate builders and architect-engineers to map such architecture as an expanded field of infrastructural practice, arguing that industrial modernity was perhaps best glimpsed not in an iron frame but in a carefully-sourced palette of quarry-faced sandstone.

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