Buffington and the Invention of the SkyscraperAuthor(s): Hugh MorrisonSource: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Mar., 1944), pp. 1-2Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3046920 .

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BUFFINGTON AND THE

INVENTION OF THE SKYSCRAPER

The long-standing controversy concerning Buffington's part in the invention of the skyscraper is reopened in the two articles in this issue by Mr. Tselos and Mrs. Christison. As a background for the general reader, the following introduction written by Professor Hugh Morrison of Dartmouth College summarizes the previous history of the Buffington claim. Ed.

B UFFINGTON'S fame in the history of American archi-

tecture has been due to his oft-asserted claim that

he was the "inventor of the skyscraper." It is curi-

ous that during the sixty-odd years since the skyscraper was

invented no one has been able to prove, with reasonable

finality, the truth or falsity of Buffington's claim. A ques- tion of prime historical interest, concerning an event that

has had incalculable practical import and that occurred in

an era recorded in millions of inches of printer's ink, has

remained unsettled for nearly a lifetime. Finally new ma-

terial has been found and new light has been shed. The

two articles in this issue of the ART BULLETIN make a thor-

ough analysis of the Buffington claim and, in my opinion,

they resolve the question conclusively. It may be appropriate to introduce them by a brief ac-

count of Buffington's life, and a history of his part in the

skyscraper controversy, so far as it has been known prior to these recent investigations. The story is at times an in-

tricate one.

Leroy Sunderland Buffington was born in Cincinnati on

September 22, 1847. He studied architecture and engineer-

ing at the University of Cincinnati, graduating in 1869. In

187 he began to practice architecture in St. Paul, and

two years later opened a Minneapolis office. Buffington had

a flourishing practice in the seventies and early eighties. He occupied large offices, and at one time employed thirty draftsmen. Among the buildings he designed were the

old state capitols at St. Paul, Bismarck, and Charleston, W. Va., several of the University of Minnesota buildings, the old Union Station at St. Paul, and the Minneapolis Post Office. He had an extensive practice in hotels - in-

cluding two as far west as Yellowstone Park - and he

did several churches, auditoriums, schools, apartment-

houses, and residences. He became a Fellow of the Ameri-

can Institute of Architects. Buffington remained in active

practice until the last year of his life. He died in Minne-

apolis on February 15, 1931. It is now generally acknowledged that the first build-

ing which actually incorporated the essential principle of

skyscraper construction was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, by William LeBaron Jenney. It was designed in May, 1883, and built in 1884-85. Buffington never

claimed to have built the first skyscraper, but he did argue,

with considerable effect, that he invented the principle be-

fore Jenney, or anyone else. The conception first came to

him, according to his own account, in the winter of 1880- 8 1. The credibility of his claim, and the evidence recently

brought forth to support it, are thoroughly analyzed in the

following articles, which we need not anticipate. The subsequent history of the claim, however, may be

surveyed to bring us up to date. As is well known, Buffing- ton applied for a patent on skyscraper construction on No- vember 14, I887, and the patent was granted on May 22, 1888. He published an article in the Northwestern Archi- tect of March, 1888, clearly setting forth the advantages of the new type of construction. This is the first published account that demonstrates a complete grasp of the essential

principle of the skyscraper and states clearly its manifold

structural and economic advantages over the old-fashioned

masonry construction. The article was reprinted in pam-

phlet form and distributed widely to architects and builders

all over the country. The latter half of 1888 saw his arti-

cle and his 28-story skyscraper project reprinted in several

newspapers and architectural magazines. A good many of

them ridiculed Buffington as a crank and a visionary; some

looked on the new-fangled invention with mingled toler-

ance and skepticism.

Typical of the reaction, perhaps, was the garbled en-

thusiasm of an article entitled "An Architect's Dream"

published in the Building Record (N.Y.) in i888. "An

architect of Minneapolis, Minn., who is neither a crank nor

an ignoramus, proposes to go New York eight stories bet-

ter, and has actually drawn working plans for a twenty-

eight story office building. His principle of construction is

peculiar. It is said that some of his devices are patented and

his plans copyrighted. As nearly as we can gather, each

story is supported independently, and is a continuous skele-

ton of metal. By this marvellous plan he expects that any one story will be built to stand alone, and by this means the

weight of the upper sections are carried on shelves to sup-

port the skeleton, thus doing away with thick walls, as from

twelve to fifteen inches is all that is needed on any story. As in all such schemes, the details are not for the public, this enterprising individual is regarded by his fellow citi-

zens as an architect of no ordinary calibre. .. . The West

takes the persimmons, and no mistake."

The New York Daily Graphic published a full ac- count of the 28-story project; Engineering (N.Y.) had a brief commendatory paragraph; the Architectural News

sneered, and the New York Sun was lenient, conceding that "the cranks of this generation are sometimes the

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2 THE ART BULLETIN

prophets of the next." One thing seems certain: the au- thors of all these articles published in 1888 had never heard of skyscraper construction before. Buffington was the first

successfully to publicize it. On November 18, 1892, Buffington and his brother,

A. L. Buffington, and E. H. Steele signed articles of in-

corporation forming "Buffington's Iron Building Com-

pany," capitalized at $I,ooo,ooo. This was ostensibly for the manufacture of all parts needed in Buffington's type of construction; in reality it was to finance lawsuits for the

infringement of his patent. A pamphlet announcing the

corporation, published in 1893, includes facsimiles of the

patent papers, and after a laudatory preface concerning Mr. Buffington's contribution to the art of building con-

cludes as follows: "We are now prepared to furnish licenses in this and foreign countries for a fair consideration. Cor-

respondence solicited. Yours respectfully, BUFFING-

TON'S IRON BUILDING COMPANY."

This step occasioned another flurry of newspaper pub-

licity. Buffington proposed to collect 5 per cent on the cost

of buildings erected under his patent. The announcement

was greeted with mingled dismay and ridicule. The Ameri- can Architect "had not supposed that he would seriously at-

tack those who unmindful or ignorant of his monopoly have erected such buildings," while the New York Tribune

jibed: "Mr. Buffington is on the warpath . . . and it is no

small game by any manner of means, that he is after. Mr.

Buffington is an architect with ideas - a large collection of long ideas. . . . It is plain that [he] has taken a large contract, but in his survey of the future he is courting dam-

ages amounting to hundreds of millions." The Chicago Tribune published an interview with Bufflngton, and men-

tioned that he had had a patent attorney in Washington for three months during the preceding winter (1892-93) who reported that the Buffington patents were inviolable.

The first actual suit for infringement of the patent was filed on December Io, 1892. This has been reported on in

Upjohn's article. During the proceedings mention was made of an important article by Jenney published in the

Sanitary Engineer of 1885, but apparently it was not real-

ized that Jenney was there describing the principles of sky- scraper construction and Jenney's place as the builder of

the first skyscraper was not discussed in the trial. On the

other hand, Buffington lost the suit because of prior appli- cation of the idea in various earlier patents, none of which were really germane to the question. In effect, the court made the right decision for the wrong reason. In any event, various subsequent suits were also lost. Buffington's Iron

Building Company spent some $30o,ooo000 in fruitless liti-

gation. After the failure of his claim, Buffington seems to have

subsided. No further references in print are made to it un-

til the American Architect in June, I907, carried an edi-

torial article stating that the American Institute of Archi- tects had made an investigation of claimants to skyscraper honors, and that it had awarded the palm to Jenney as

against Bradford L. Gilbert (Tower Building, New York, 1889) or Buffington. This article elicited, the following month, the interesting letter by Fitzpatrick quoted in Mr. Tselos' article.

From this time, the controversy lapsed, or at least be- came quiescent, for more than twenty years. Buffington doubtless made verbal claims, to his friends and associates, but if he did, nothing convincing ever came of them. It is

noteworthy that during all these long years, Buffington evidently considered his own unsupported word as sufficient evidence of his priority in the invention of the skyscraper, and failed to submit for the consideration of impartial his- torians any documentary evidence that might have proved his case. At any rate, the "modern" history of the Buffing- ton claim, if so we may denote the period of recent investi-

gations, evidently began as late as 1929. On January 29 of that year Professor Frederick M.

Mann, of the College of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Minnesota, published a letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Journal, supporting Buffington's claim. Professor Mann had come to know Buffington during his last years, and was persuaded of the validity of his claim,

though as Professor Mann later pointed out, he had not

pursued the investigation in any exhaustive or scientific

way. Perhaps as a result of this renewed discussion, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published on May 5, 1929, an illus- trated feature article on Bufflngton which remains today the most complete published account of his life and work, apart from the extensive literature dealing specifically with the skyscraper question.

The first serious and scholarly analysis of the Buffington claim was Upjohn's admirable article in the ART BULLE-

TIN, in March, 1935. It is noteworthy that here, for the first

time, documentary evidence, in the way of drawings and

sketches, appears on the scene. Buffington's Memories, written during the last years of his life, also was made

available. Since then, the drawings have been donated to the University of Minnesota Library, and although the

original of the Memories remains in the possession of Miss Ella Buffington, an edited and annotated copy, prepared by Mrs. Christison, is in the University Library.

For the first time, the complete documentary material is available for proper study. Lacking positive external evi- dence, the long-standing Buffington controversy can be re- solved only by the internal evidence in these documents. Mrs. Christison and Mr. Tselos, working independently, investigated them. The two studies supplement and con- firm one another on all major points, and taken together, I believe, resolve the Buffington controversy conclusively.

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