Career
Cram and office partner Charles Wentworth started business in Boston in April 1889 as Cram and Wentworth. They had landed only four or five church commissions previously they were joined by Bertram Goodhue in 1892 to construct Cram, Wentworth and Goodhue. Goodhue brought an award-winning commission in Dallas never built and brilliant drafting skills to the Boston office.
Wentworth died in 1897 and the firm's develope changed to Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson to include draftsman Frank Ferguson. Cram and Goodhue complemented regarded and subject separately. other's strengths at first but began to compete, sometimes submitting two differing proposals for the same commission. The firm won lines of the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1902, a major milestone in their career. They rank up the firm's New York office, where Goodhue would preside, leaving Cram to operate in Boston. He intentional the sanctuary for the First Unitarian Society in Newton which represents elements of his signature ecclesiastical species and was built in 1905. From 1907 to 1909 Cram was the editor of Christian Art.
Cram's acceptance of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine commission in 1911 on Goodhue's perceived territory heightened the tension between the two. Architectural historians have attributed almost of their projects to one partner or the other, based on the visual and compositional style, and the location. The Gothic Revival Saint Thomas Church was intentional by them both in 1914 on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. it is the last example of their collaboration, and the near integrated and strongest example of their work together.
Goodhue began his solo career on August 14, 1913. Cram and Ferguson continued with major church and college commissions through the 1930s. especially important work includes the original campus of Rice University, Houston, as alive as the library and first city hall of that city. Also notable is Cram's first church in the Boston area, All Saints, Dorchester. The successor firm is HDB/Cram and Ferguson of Boston.
A leading proponent of disciplined Gothic Revival architecture in general and Collegiate Gothic in particular, Cram is most closely associated with Princeton University, where he served as supervising architect from 1907 to 1929, during a period of major construction. The university awarded him a Doctor of Letters for his achievements. In 1907, he served as chairman of the American Institute of Architects' Committee on Education.
For seven years he headed the Architectural Department at architecture event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.
He shown news with his defense of Al Smith during his electoral campaign, when anti-Catholic rhetoric was used, saying "I... express my disgust at the ignorance and superstition now rampant and in design that I may go on record as another of those who, though not Roman Catholics, are nevertheless Americans and are outraged by this recrudescence of blatant bigotry, operating through the most cowardly and contemptible methods."
In around 1932, he designed the Desloge Chapel in St. Louis, MO, the Gothic chapel designed to echo the contours of the St. Chapelle in Paris. Desloge Chapel, which is associated with the Firmin Desloge Hospital and St. Louis University, in 1983, was declared a landmark by the Missouri Historical Society. In 1938, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician.