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Harland Bartholomew was born in Stoneham Massachusetts in 1889 and died in St. Louis in December 1989. He came to St. Louis in 1916 at the invitation of the Civic League of St. Louis, with the charge of creating a comprehensive plan for the city of St. Louis. In 1919 he was appointed City Planning Commissioner, the first full-time planner employed by an American city. He served in that capacity until 1950. In 1919, he established Harland Bartholomew and Associates and served as its chairman until his retirement in 1962.
Harland Bartholomew and Associates designed city plans for several hundred cities across the United States. Many of these plans are represented in the collection. The firm's projects in the St. Louis area included the 1920 Comprehensive Plan, the 1932 Major Street Plan, the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and the 1920 Comprehensive Plan for University City. The firm also helped plan the Metro system and the George Washington Parkway, in Washington D.C. In 1984 the firm was purchased by the Parsons Corporation, and its flagship offices were moved from St. Louis to Memphis, Tennessee.
One of Harland Bartholomew's business partners, Eldridge Lovelace, authored the book
Harland Bartholomew:
His Contributions to American Urban Planning (Urbana, IL: Dept of Urban & Regional Planning, 1993), which provides a history of Bartholomew's life and career. The full-text of this book can
be downloaded in PDF format from:
http://stlouis-mo.gov/archive/harland-bartholomew/
Copies of this title are also available from the Washington University Libraries.
The finding aids are available in .PDF format.
Five series, arranged as follows, each described in a seperate finding aid:
Series 01:
Unbound city planning reports, 1920-1969, arranged alphabetically
by city name. 11 boxes.
Series 02: Bound city planning reports, 1919-1977. over 90 volumes.
Organization within each volume is alphabetical by city, but there is a
great deal of alphabetical and chronological overlap among the volumes.
There are several sets of bound volumes, each with a different
color binding:
(Please note binding color when referencing reports from series 02)
Series 03:
Norman Johnston Dissertation materials. Correspondence
and research notes re: Norman John Johnston, "Harland Bartholomew:
His Comprehensive Plans and Science of Planning"
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1964). 1 box.
Series 04: Speeches, articles, and reprints of
Harland Bartholomew 1 box, consisting of 3 bound volumes. Each volume
arranged chronologically.
Series 05: Correspondence and Data files. 48
reels of microfilm. Finding aid not available online; paper
finding aid available from the Washington University Archives.
Series 06: Historical Information, 1917 - 1991. Primarily compiled by Eldridge Lovelace while researching his book
Harland Bartholomew:
His Contributions to American Urban Planning.
7 reels of the microfilmed correspondence open only by permission of Harland Bartholomew and Associates. Researchers should contact the Washington University Archives for further information. Other parts of the collection are open without restrictions.