American architect
Samuel Sloan (March 7, 1815 – July 19, 1884) was a Philadelphia-based architect and best-selling author of architecture books in the mid-19th century. He specialized in Italianate villas and country houses, churches, and institutional buildings. His most famous building—the octagonal mansion "Longwood" in Natchez, Mississippi—is unfinished; construction was abandoned during the American Civil War.
Early life, marriage, and family.
Born on March 7, 1815, in Honeybrook Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, the son of William Sloan and Mary Kirkwood, Sloan trained as a carpenter and came to Philadelphia in the mid-1830s. He is said to have worked with John Haviland on Eastern State Penitentiary and with Isaac Holden on the former Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.
Samuel Sloan married Mary Pennell in 1843. Their children were Ellwood Pennell, Howard L., Laura W., and Ada. He had three grandchildren by his eldest son, Ellwood. They were Maurice, Helen and Samuel A. Sloan.
Career.
By 1851, Sloan had won a commission for the Delaware County, Pennsylvania, courthouse and jail, and designed Andrew Eastwick's villa "Bartram Hall" near the site of Bartram's Garden in Philadelphia. These successes prompted him to begin to list his vocation as "architect".
Authorship.
Sloan became a prolific author on architecture most notably for "The Model Architect" as well as "City and Suburban Architecture" and "Sloan's Constructive Architecture" (1859). In 1861, he wrote "Sloan's Homestead Architecture and American Houses", and "A Variety of Designs for Rural Buildings". Sloan also reached thousands of potential customers through the pages of "Godey's Lady's Book", which began publishing his designs in 1852.
"The man who has a home," wrote Sloan in 1871, "feels a love for it a thankfulness for its possession and a proportionate determination to uphold and defend it against all invading influences. Such a man is, of necessity . . . a good citizen; for he has a stake in society."
Economic downturns and work outside Philadelphia area.
Economic downturns in the late 1850s as well as the American Civil War put a halt to his professional success and Sloan briefly left Philadelphia for New York in 1867. Important examples of his later work are found outside Pennsylvania, notably in Morganton, North Carolina's Western State Asylum for the Insane. Sloan ended up building about 20 hospitals for the insane based on the "Kirkbride Plan System".
Sloan enjoyed some later success in North Carolina, opening an office in Raleigh, where he died on July 19, 1884. His body was buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery, Philadelphia, Lot 11 Sec 20.
Associated architects.
Architects associated with Sloan include: Charles M. Autenrieth (1828–1906), Edward Collins (1821–1902), Willis G. Hale (1848–1907), Addison Hutton (1834–1916), John S. Stewart and Thomas Webb Richards (1836–1911), Isaac Pursell (1853–1910), and Charles Balderston (1852–1924). his half-brother, Fletcher Sloan, was also an architect.
Work.
Designated U.S. National Historic Landmarks:
References.
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