Albert Randolph Ross
Albert Randolph Ross was an American architect, known primarily for designing libraries, especially those funded by Andrew Carnegie. His father, John W. Ross, was an architect based in Davenport, Iowa, and the architect of its city hall.
Education and career
Albert Randolph Ross was born in 1868 in Westfield, Massachusetts, a son of architect John W. Ross. In 1874, the father relocated his practice to Davenport, Iowa, where Albert Ross graduated from high school in 1884.After working from 1884 to 1887 as a draftsman in his father's office, Ross moved to New York where he studied sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He worked for a year for architect Charles Day Swan in Buffalo, New York, and beginning in 1891 through 1897, for the
architecture firm McKim, Mead and White in New York. In 1898, he formed a partnership under the name of Ackerman & Ross with architect William S. Ackerman, a partnership they dissolved in 1901.
In 1927, when he was awarded a $10,000 prize in a competition to design a new courthouse for Milwaukee out of 33 who submitted proposals, he told the Milwaukee Journal why he settled on a traditional design:
Principal architectural works
Ackerman & Ross
- Carnegie Library of Washington D.C., Washington, DC, an NRHP-listed work of Ackerman & Ross.
- Carnegie Library, Atlanta, Georgia, by Ackerman & Ross.
- Carnegie Laboratory of Engineering, Stevens Institute, Hoboken, New Jersey, by Ackerman & Ross.
- Carnegie Library, San Diego, California, by Ackerman & Ross.
- Port Jervis Free Library, Port Jervis, New York, by Ackerman & Ross.
Albert Randolph Ross
- Carnegie Library, Atlantic City, New Jersey.
- Taunton Public Library, Taunton, Massachusetts.
- East Orange Public Library, East Orange, New Jersey, now the East Orange Municipal Court Building.
- Nashville Main Library, Nashville, Tennessee.
- Needham Public Library, Needham, Massachusetts
- Needham Free Public Library, Needham, Massachusetts.
- Old Town Public Library, Old Town, Maine.
- Gloversville Free Library, Gloversville, New York, Beaux Arts building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
- Pittsfield Public Library, Pittsfield, Maine; NRHP-listed for its architecture.
- Union County Courthouse, Elizabeth, New Jersey as Ackerman & Ross."
- Public Library, Penn Yan, New York,.
- Cragin Memorial Library, Colchester, Connecticut.
- Uinta County Library, Evanston, Wyoming, now the Uinta County Museum.
- Pennsylvania Memorial, Vicksburg National Military Park, with Charles Albert Lopez, sculptor.
- Original portion of the Main Library of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system, Columbus, Ohio.
- Carnegie Library, Good Will Home Association, Hinckley, Maine.
- McKinley Memorial, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with Charles Albert Lopez and Isidore Konti, sculptors.
- Exterior design for Draper Hall, State University at Albany, Albany, New York.
- Union [Soldiers and Sailors Monument], Baltimore, designed by Ross with sculpture by Adolph Alexander Weinman.
- Carnegie Library, Denver, Colorado; now the McNichols Civic Center Building.
- Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey.
- New Rochelle Public Library.
- Public Safety Building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Milwaukee County Courthouse, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.