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Born: 4/29/1881, Died: 4/23/1950 A gifted designer, most of whose recognition came after his death, Julian Abele was the first African-American student to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Architecture. Born in Philadelphia, the son of Charles R. and Mary A. Abele, he had attended the Institute for Colored Youth and Brown Preparatory School in Philadelphia before entering the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (PMSIA), where he gained his Certificate in Architectural Drawing in 1898, earning the Frederick Graff Prize of $25.00 for work in architectural design, evening class students, 1898. From PMSIA he continued to the University, where he would graduate in 1902. His undergraduate career was distinguished by a number of awards which recognized both his design and rendering abilities, including a first prize for the Pretty Memorial of 1902, the Haverford Memorial Gateway (1901), the Arthur Spayd Brook Memorial (also 1901), and the T-Square Club membership prize. In fact, even as the effort of an undergraduate, Abele's work often appeared in the annual exhibitions held by member societies of the Architectural League of New York. In 1901 he exhibited at the Toronto Architectural Club ("A Loggia in a Park"); in 1901/02 his design for a "bird house" appeared in the T-Square Club annual exhibition; and in 1903, after graduation, his work was included in the Pittsburgh Architectural Club's annual show ("A Metropolitan Cathedral"). In 1902/03 Abele also attended classes in architectural design at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.While still an undergraduate Abele worked for Louis C. Hickman in the evenings, and after graduation, he assumed the role as a designer in that firm into 1903. From 1904-1906 Abele practiced in Spokane, WA, where he designed a house for his sister, Elizabeth Abele Cook, wife of John F. Cook, who had held the post of Collector of Taxes for the District of Columbia for a number of years before accepting a position as Postmaster General in Bonners Ferry, ID (information from Alfred Branam letter to Sandra L. Tatman, 5 December 1981; Abele's application for Membership in the AIA, March 27, 1942). By March, 1906 Abele was back in Philadelphia and began his long association with Horace Trumbauer. Initially he assisted Trumbauer's then chief designer Frank Seeburger; but when Seeburger left the office in 1909, Abele succeeded him as chief designer and retained that position until Trumbauer's death in 1938. Among his first designs in the Trumbauer office, according to a now-missing volume of pay records, were residences for Edgar Scott and Ida Silverman. After Trumbauer's death Abele and William O. Frank continued the firm under the name "The Office of Horace Trumbauer." Abele's career with Horace Trumbauer included responsibility for many of the office's larger country houses (Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, PA; Miramar, Newport, RI; James B. Clews Residence, Long Island, NY), the Free Library of Philadelphia, and buildings at Duke University. Most clients, however, never realized that Abele was chief designer; and due to his race, his name was not well-known outside of Philadelphia architectural circles until after Trumbauer's death. Nonetheless, his friends in Philadelphia, like Henry Magaziner, vividly remember his personality and taste: "He drew with unmatched facility. He worked in many mediums: water color, lithography, etching, pencil; in wood, iron gold, silver. He designed all his own furniture and made it, even doing the petit point himself. . . . While he knew many historic styles, he seemed to love Louis XIV French most of all. . . . However, he was conscious of good architecture everywhere and very careful to relate his buildings to what was around them . . ." (Henry Magaziner, "As I Remember Julian Abele.") With Trumbauer's support, Abele traveled to Europe in 1913-14, spending considerable time in France (records document his return on May 26, 1914, with a newly discovered sketchbook that he had purchased in Paris dated "[May or Nov.] 1st, 1913"). While family history and accounts by his contemporaries assert that Abele attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris during this time, no records, from the Ecole document his attendance. This does not mean, however, that Abele did not work in the atelier system established by the Ecole. Often students would attend an atelier on an informal basis, never attaining the diploma but nonetheless gaining important Beaux-Arts experience. In 1914 Abele also traveled to Italy, where he was granted permission to sketch historic ruins (Abele Family Collections). Both Italian and French sketches would appear in the T-Square Club Annual Exhibition (1915: "Gothic House, Tours, France" and "Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza, Italy") and he exhibited sketches of a "ruined Greek temple; ... a scene at Taomina (sic); [and]...a bit of the garden a of the Alhambra" in a 1919 exhibition. On his 1942 application for membership in the American Institute of Architects, Abele confirmed that he had traveled to England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. He also visited Bermuda, for his honeymoon in 1925. Although Abele early became a member of the T-Square Club, it was not until 1942 that he applied for membership in the AIA; and this was with the encouragement of Warren Powers Laird of the University of Pennsylvania.
Written by William Whitaker, and Sandra L. Tatman. Clubs and Membership Organizations
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![[European Travel Sketches, ca. 1913-14] [Church from Plaza] (Julian Abele) Julian Francis Abele Collection, Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania. Local ID #: 188.3](/pab/iiif.cfm/7C9E0848-FB0C-4B7E-B0CD319C559509BD/full/400,/0/default.jpg)