Hops at the History Center: Bernard Maybeck vs Julia Morgan with Robert M. Craig
March 12, 2024 6:30 PM
“Don‘t Believe Everything You Read: Seven Decades of Misinformation regarding Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan, and the Principia commission.
The importance of archives is the conclusion and theme of this illustrated talk by Robert M. Craig in his continuing series of free public lectures on architecture, sponsored by the DeKalb History Center. Referencing, as a case study, the respective roles of Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan (two AIA Gold Medal architects) in the design of Principia College (now a National Historic Landmark), Professor Craig addresses and corrects seven decades of published misinformation and misattribution of design credit, setting the record straight. Addressing errors published by various biographers of both architects, Craig shows how misinformation can continue to be published—the snowball effect of simply repeating uncritically what you read. The lesson is clear as Dr. Craig demonstrates how primary sources, oral history, and original correspondence, reports, drawings, and primary historical records preserved in archives ultimately confirm or negate information published in secondary sources (biographies, monographs etc.). Researchers and writers who make claims counter to archival evidence merely initiate or contribute to “fake news.”
March 12, 2024, 6:30-7:30 PM
