Photo: Martiacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons¹¹

Charles Amos Cummings

American architect and architectural historian

Charles Amos Cummings (June 26, 1833 – August 11, 1905) was a nineteenth-century American architect and architectural historian who worked primarily in the Venetian Gothic style. Cummings followed the precepts of British cultural theorist and architectural critic John Ruskin (1819–1900).²

From Wikipedia’s article on Charles Amos Cummings (this version), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born Jun 26, 1833, died Aug 11, 1905.¹

About

Cummings help to found the Boston Society of Architects in 1867.

From Wikipedia’s article on Charles Amos Cummings, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.²

Companies

Cummings and SearsFounder¹⁰

Early life and education

Date not recordedRensselaer Polytechnic Institute³

Career

Occupation: architect.⁵

Date not recordedFounded Cummings and Sears⁴

Known for: A history of architecture in Italy.⁶

Personal life

BornJun 26, 1833, Boston⁷
DiedAug 11, 1905, Boston⁸
CitizenshipUnited States⁹

Cummings was married in 1869 to Margaret Joseph Kimball (daughter of Moses Kimball), and they had one daughter and two sons. One son, Charles K. Cummings (1870-1955), was also an architect in Boston. His works include Willowdale in Topsfield, built in 1902. The other son, Francis Hathaway Cummings (1872-1897), died of tuberculosis after hiking in the U.K.

Cummings collected a vast number of medieval sculptures, and on his death bequeathed the collection to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, also funding the Charles Amos Cummings Bequest Fund for the collection and care of ancient sculpture for the museum.

Cummings was descended from Isaac Cummings (1601-1677) who immigrated from Mistley, Essex in England to Massachusetts in 1635 and was among the founders of the towns of Ipswich and Topsfield, Massachusetts.