Talbot Hamlin

Early years

Born in New York City, Hamlin was the fourth child of Alfred Dwight Foster Hamlin (1855-1926), a professor of architecture at Columbia University. He attended Amherst College, where he received his BA degree in 1910. He then enrolled at Columbia University, graduating with a degree in architecture in 1914. This was the beginning of a 46 year relationship with the university.

Career

Architectural projects early in his career include Wayland Academy, Hangzhou, China, 1919; Peking University, Peking, China, 1919-1922; and Ginling College, Nanking, China, 1919-1925. The Ginling College campus was to play an important role during the Rape of Nanking in 1937.

Hamlin was hired as a draftsman in the New York architectural firm of Murphy and Dana. He became a partner of the firm in 1920 and the firm's name was changed to Murphy, McGill and Hamlin, following Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'s (1879-1933) departure in 1921. The firm lasted until 1924, when Henry Killam Murphy (1877-1954) withdrew and the firm became known as McGill and Hamlin. This partnership with Henry J. McGill (d. 1953) ended in 1930 when Hamlin began his own firm, which lasted until the Depression, when commissions became scarce.

In 1934, he relinquished his professional practice and accepted the full-time position of Avery Librarian for the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.

Hamlin was also an active member of the Society of Architectural Historians

Published works include

The Enjoyment Of Architecture (1916)

The American Spirit in Architecture (1926)

Some European Architectural Libraries (1939)

Architecture through the Ages (1940)

Greek revival architecture in America (1944)

Architecture: An Art for all Men (1947)

Forms and Functions of Twentieth Century Architecture (1952)

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, (1955)

won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for biography

We took to cruising; from Maine to Florida afloat (1962)

Hamlin received the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for his book on the American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, (Oxford Univ. Press) He also received the 1955 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award for the book,

Political activity

Hamlin’s political activities were noted in a report, “Prepared and released by the COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES, U. S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON, D. C. April 19, 1949.
The committee included California congressman Richard Nixon.

"Talbot Hamlin was a sponsor of the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace which ran from March 25–27, 1949 in New York City. It was arranged by a Communist Party USA front organization known as the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions. The conference was a follow-up to a similar gathering, the strongly anti-America, pro-Soviet World Congress of Intellectuals which was held in Poland, August 25–28, 1948. The list of names listed in the report are:

At another point in the HUAC report Hamlin is noted in a section that reads:

”Letter protesting ban on entrance of Oscar Niemeyer, 1948 (total 3): Thomas H. Creighton, Talbot Hamlin, Jacob Moscowitz"