Charles River Editors - Frank Lloyd Wright: The Life and Buildings of Americas Most Famous Architect

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change. Frank Lloyd Wright

The world-famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, was born on June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin Frank Lloyd Wrights grandparents were early arrivals in Ixonia, Wisconsin, when Richard Lloyd-Jones, his wife, and seven children immigrated from Wales to their new home on the Wisconsin prairie. Unlike many immigrants at the time, the Lloyd-Jones family traveled by water from one land to the other, rather than pioneer wagon, first aboard an ocean liner, then via canal boats, followed by a lake-steamer.

But pioneers they were. Richard Lloyd-Jones established a farm in Wisconsin at a time when Native Americans still lived in the Midwest.

In addition to being a farmer, Richard Lloyd-Jones was a Unitarian preacher. He established a Unitarian church in Ixonia where he declared speech was free because men were. Truth was the hallmark of grandpa Lloyd-Jones, as evidenced by the Druid symbol he took for his family crest which stood for Truth against the world. His commitment to truth in all things deeply impacted Frank Lloyd Wrights life, and he spoke of it often.

Richard Lloyd-Joness fourth child, Anna, was only five years old when the family arrived in the United States. She later became Frank Lloyd Wrights mother, making him a first generation Wright.

The familys respect for truth manifested itself in the belief that education was mans salvation. To that end, Anna became a country schoolteacher, riding on horseback to various schoolhouses.

Frank Lloyd Wright failed to inherit his mothers confidence in the educational system. In his autobiography, Wright said, Were I a Rockefeller Ford or Dupont, I mean as rich, I would buy up our leading universitiesclose them and hang out the signclosed by the beneficence of one, Frank Lloyd Wright. That is not to say he did not respect intellect, education, and enlightenment. He simply had less trust in organized education than did his mother.

During her tenure as a country schoolteacher, Anna met a circuit rider from Hartford, Conn., who was traveling through Wisconsin, making his rounds. William Russell Cary Wright was educated at Amherst College where he originally studied medicine before deciding it wasnt for him. Then he studied the law, becoming a circuit-rider and meting out justice in the Midwest.

When Anna and the young William Russell Cary Wright married, they each left their horse-riding days behind.

Anna stopped teaching, and Mr. Wright became a music teacher, but he eventually gave that up as well. Changing occupations yet another time, he became a preacher.

Anna and Williams first child was Frank Lloyd Wright, the grandson of immigrant Richard Lloyd-Jones. According to Frank, his father was jealous of his mothers attention to her newborn son. She predicted that Frank Lloyd Wright was to build beautiful buildings, and she would stop at nothing to make that happen.

Even before he was born Anna had decided that Frank would be an architect. To that end, she decorated his babys room with ten wood-engravings of English cathedrals. The first images the future architect would see were great, celebrated buildings. Frank did become the architect of his mothers dreams, but he detested the gaudy European stone buildings she'd chosen for him. As an adult, he made a career out of helping architecture to evolve in a new and innovative way, changing how buildings of any kind were designed. As far as Wright was concerned, the ornate trim and gargantuan domes were things to be done away with.

Three years later, the Wright family welcomed a baby girl, little Jane Wright. At about the same time, the now Reverend William Russell Cary Wright was called to a church at Weymoth, near Boston. As a result, Frank and Jane spent their first few years in a Boston suburb, far from the familys Wisconsin home. But it was a Baptist church, and very much in contrast to the Unitarian teachings Frank had previously learned from his mother and her family.

It was while the family lived in Boston that Anna Lloyd-Jones Wright discovered Friedrich Froebel's concept of kindergarten, which was a new and foreign concept to her. Anna decided her very young children would benefit from Froebels approach. She discovered that, in the United States, Milton Bradley had embraced Froebels concept, well before kindergarten had become a part of the American school system, and had begun to manufacture learning products. Milton Bradley created blocks of different shapes with which to teach basic skills, and called them Kindergarten Gifts. Anna Wright eagerly bought these Kindergarten Gifts in order to teach preschoolers Frank and Jane, but as far as Anna was concerned, there never seemed to be enough education, so Frank also attended Miss Williams private school, a fashionable school in the Boston suburbs, for some years.