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• FamilySearch ID: KN92-J6B
• Book Article: A Biographical Dictionary of Historic Scholars, Museum Professionals and Academic Historians of Art

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FamilySearch ID:
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Book Article:
Dinsmoor, William Bell [Sr.]
Date born: 1886
Place Born: Windham, New Hampshire
Date died: 1973
Place died: Athens, Greece

Architectural historian of classical Greece; Columbia University Professor of Art and Archaeology. Dinsmoor graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor of science degree in 1906. After working in an architectural firm, he joined the American School of Classical Studies in Athens in 1908 and in 1912 became the School's Architect. Dinsmoor joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1919. In the early 1920s, he consulted on the erection of the concrete replica of the Parthenon in Tennessee (a wooden structure had previous been at the Nashville site). His assumptions regarding the original construction were verified by the construction, which took roughly the same number of years as the orginal. From 1924-28 he returned to the American School as professor of Architecture. He married Zillah Frances Pierce (1886-1960). During those years he compiled his magum opus, a rewritten edition of the Architecture of Ancient Greece by William Anderson (1844-1900) and R. Phené Spiers (1838-1916), which appeared in 1927. In 1929 he received an [honorary?] doctorate from Columbia. In 1934, following the resignation of S. Butler Murray (q.v.), the Department of Fine Arts was reorganized to include the Department of Archaeology and Dinsmoor was made chair. He held this position of executive director of the Department of Fine Arts and Archaeology until 1955. During the mid-1930s, Dinsmoor took on a celebrated debate on the configuration of the three phases of the Parthenon with the eminent Acropolis scholar Wilhelm Dörpfeld (q.v.). In 1935 he was named professor of archaeology at Columbia. Between 1936 and 1946 he was president of the Archaeological Institute of America. During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Dinsmoor chair of the Committee for the Protection of Cultural Treasures in War Areas. For much of his career he taught at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens as Fellow in Architecture and Professor of Architecture. Dinsmoor returned to the American School in 1947 as a visiting lecturer. He retired from Columbia University in 1963. In 1969 he was awarded the gold medal for his archaeological achievements by the Archaeological Institute of America. He died of a stroke while in Greece, just short of his 87th birthday. His son, William B. Dinsmoor, jr., (q.v.) was also a distinguish classical architectural historian.

Dinsmoor's reputation rests on two key works. The first is his complete rewriting of The Architecture of Ancient Greece (1927). Although Dinsmoor always allowed much credit for the work to Anderson and Spiers, the revision of the book was essentially a unique accomplishment of Dinsmoor's. In 1931 Dinsmoor published his discovery of the archons from the Propylaia in Athens. These lists of magistrates assisted greatly in the study of other objects exhumed from the Athenian Agora. Dinsmoor gleaned the original design to the Propylaia in Athens, but never published his complete findings.

Home Country:  United States

Sources:   Medwid, Linda M. The Makers of Classical Archaeology: A Reference Work. New York: Humanity Books, 2000 pp. 86-88; [obituaries:] "W. B. Dinsmoor, 87, an Archaeologist; Expert on Greece Is Dead--Long on Columbia Faculty." New York Times July 3, 1973, p. 26; Archaeology 26 (October 1973): 308; A History of the Faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957, p. 54, 263-64; Nicgorski, Ann M. "Dinsmoor, William Bell." Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 363-64.

Bibliography: [complete bibliography:] "Bibliography of William Bell Dinsmoor." Hesperia 35 (1966): 87– 92; (1st Dinsmoor edition:) Anderson, William J., and Spiers, Richard Phené. The Architecture of Ancient Greece: an Account of its Historic Development, being the First Part of the Architecture of Greece and Rome. 2nd ed. New York: C. Scribner's,1927; The Architecture of Ancient Greece: an Account of its Historic Development. 3rd ed. New York: Batsford, 1950; Observations on the Hephaisteion. Baltimore: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1941; The Archons of Athens in the Hellenistic Age. Cambridge, MA: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Harvard University Press, 1931; "Anchoring two floating temples [of the Agora, Athens]." Hesperia 51 (October/December 1982): 410-52; [Parthenon date debate:] "The Burning of the Opisthodomos at Athens. I: The Date." American Journal of Archaeology 36 (1932): 143-172; "The Burning of the Opisthodomos at Athens. II: The Site." American Journal of Archaeology 36 (1932): 307-326; reply, Dörpfeld, Wilhelm. "Der Brand des alten Athena-Tempels und seines Opisthodoms. American Journal of Archaeology 38 (April 1934): 249-57; reply, continued, Dörpfeld, Wilhelm. "Parthenon I, II und III." American Journal of Archaeology 39 (October 1935): 497-507; [rejoinder by Dinsmoor] "The Older Parthenon, Additional Notes." American Journal of Archaeology 39 (October 1935): 508-9.

William married Zillah Frances Pierce on 18 Sep 1910 in Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. Zillah was born on 27 Sep 1886 in Pigeon Cove, Essex Co., MA; died on 28 Sep 1960 in Gloucester, Essex County, Massachusetts; was buried after 28 Sep 1960 in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Gloucester, Essex Co., MA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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• FamilySearch ID: KT7F-C5P
• Book Article: A Biographical Dictionary of Historic Scholars, Museum Professionals and Academic Historians of Art

Notes:

FamilySearch ID:
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Book Article:
Dinsmoor, William B[ell,] Jr.
Date born: 1923
Place born: New York, New York
Date died: 1988
Place died: Athens

Classical archaeologist and architectural historian, son of William Bell Dinsmoor, senior. Dinsmoor was born to William Bell Dinsmoor (q.v.) and Zillah F. Pierce (Dinsmoor,1886-1960). His father was an eminent classical era architectural historian. The younger Dinsmoor attended Phillips Exeter Academy and then Columbia University, taking time out for active service in the military during World War II. After service in Indian and China, he returned to Columbia where he received a B.A. in modern languages in 1947. Like his father, he trained in practicing architecture, achieving a Bachelor's (1947) and Master's (1951). Moving to El Paso, Texas, Dinsmoor ran a small business as an architect and engineer. Dinsmoor returned to Greece to assist Lucy Taxis Shoe Meritt (1906-2003) with her survey of Greek architectural moulding and Carl W. Blegen (1887-1971) on his books on Troy and Pylos. Dinsmoor's archeological experience came working with Oscar Broneer (q.v.), then publishing his find of the temple of Poseidon in Athens. He was the 1962-63 Olivia James Fellow at the Archaeological Institute of America. In 1966 Dinsmoor was appointed Architect for the Agora archeological excavations, a position which he held until his death. In 1971 Dinsmoor began publishing his own research, mostly on Athenian architecture, but also on Corfu and Stobi. He was editing a work of his father's, the Propylaia of Athena, at the time of his death. A work on Athena Sounias, with Homer Thompson (1906-2000), also failed to appear in his lifetime, though Thompson had planned to publish it after Dinsmoor's death.

Dinsmoor's research established the configuration of the entrance way before the Propylaia, a work he published in The Propylaia to the Athenian Akropolis, volume one, The Predecessors (1980).

Home Country: United States

Sources: [obituaries:] Camp, John McKesson. American Journal of Archaeology 93 (April 1989): 233-4; American School of Classical Studies at Athens Newsletter no.22 (Fall1988):14.

Bibliography: The Propylaia to the Athenian Akropolis. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1980; and Camp, John McKesson. Ancient Athenian Building Methods. Athens: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1984.

Died:
William Bell Dinsmoor Jr. was a second generation archeological architect. He spent the last twenty-five years of his life in Greece.

William married Mary Higgins on 4 Sep 1948 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California, and was divorced in 1967. Mary (daughter of Clark Freeman Higgins and Margaret Johnston Davidson) was born on 26 Feb 1923 in Melrose, Middlesex County, Massachusetts; died on 11 Jun 2008 in El Paso, El Paso County, Texas; was buried on 16 Jun 2008 in Memory Gardens of the Valley, Santa Teresa, Dona Ana County, New Mexico. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

M.P. married W.V.". Loveless [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

D.M. married D.K. Morgan [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

W.B. married E.R.".". Fleming [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

R.D. married S.E.". Shardlow [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

D.W. married M.M. Griffin [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

L.M. married A.T. Cavanah [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]