William Le Baron Jenney
(1832-1907)

William Le Baron Jenney, architect, engineer, teacher, land-
scape and urban designer, was born on September 25, 1832, in
Fairhaven, Massachusetts.

Jenney studied architecture in Paris from 1859 to 1861, and his
classical training influenced his later works. He returned to the
United States and served with distinction in the Civil War from
1861 to 1865 as an engineering officer. He left the Federal army
with the rank of major, practiced engineering and architecture in
Chicago from 1868 to 1905, and taught architecture at the Uni-
versity of Michigan, Ann Arbor, from 1876 to 1880.

Jenney is widely credited with the successful application of skele-
ton construction, a development that made possible the modern
skyscraper. His design for the Leiter Building in Chicago (1879) was a
first step in this direction, more fully implemented in the
Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago (1884-85). The
Home Insurance Company Building, enlarged in 1891 and demol-
ished in 1931, is generally considered to be the first tall building sup-
ported by an internal frame or skeleton of iron and steel rather than
by load-bearing walls and the first to incorporate steel as a structural
material. Among the architects who worked under Jenney and made
his approach the foundation of the Chicago School were Louis Sul-
livan, Daniel Burnham, John Wellborn Root, and John Holabird.
Jenney's other Chicago buildings include the Manhattan Building
(1889-90), said to be the first sixteen-story structure in the world
and the first in which wind-bracing was a principal part of the design;
the Fair Store (1891-92); and the second Leiter Building (1889-90),
which became Sears, Roebuck & Company's Loop store.

Jenney joined the Chicago Literary Club in 1878. He presented
three papers: The Fossils of History on April 16, 1883; Personal Rem-
iniscences of Vicksburg on December 14, 1885, and An Age of Steel
on October 27, 1890.

Read before the Club: October 19, 1998