Ralph Adams Cram embodied medieval architecture within the United States until its decline in the mid-20th century.

The renowned Ralph Adams Cram was born in Hampton Falls, NH, on December 16, 1863. Cram moved to Boston at seventeen and worked at Rotch & Tilden architecture firm. Under this firm, Cram began to travel the world, which assisted his growth in architectural knowledge since he did not obtain a degree. However, his impactful career provided Cram with honorary degrees from Princeton, William, Yale, and Exeter.

At twenty-four years old, he and Charles Wentworth established an architectural firm. Then, they added Bertram G. Goodhue to their firm in 1891, which created Cram, Wentworth & Goodhue. However, the firm dissolved because of Wentworth’s death and Goodhue’s individual ambitions. Ralph Adams Cram formed his final partnership, Cram & Ferguson, until his retirement.

In 1914, Cram’s responsibilities grew to include being MIT’s president of architecture and a leading Boston City Planning Board member. He pushed for Boston to create an island in the Charles River that resembled the Île de la Cité of Pairs. Ralph Adams Cram’s legacy continues to impact the history of American architecture through his gothic-style buildings, especially churches and colleges.

Cram left an impression throughout American cities with a diverse portfolio ranging from colonial to Japanese influence structures. However, his Gothic commissions became his career staple, like West Point’s Chapel in 1910. These gothic structures’ origins stemmed from Cram’s religious identity.

John Ruskin exposed Cram to the Anglo-Catholic sect of Roman Catholicism, which became the guiding factor in his American dream and architectural works. Cram sought to create an American tradition based on the Middle Ages instead of Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis. He appeared to promote that the Middle Ages represented the birth of modern liberty and individualism through obtaining freedom from feudal and ecclesiastical oppression. However, the United States lacked the physical monuments of the times.

For Cram, architecture became the link between the medieval revival’s philosophical and physical components because he believed that “architecture must form with music, painting and poetry what he called the “dynamic units.” Thus, Cram focused on combining the environment, the dynamic units, and the building’s intended purpose to create meaningful spaces under a gothic foundation.

One example is the prestigious Princeton University, where he implemented the “university plan” by adding three gothic structures. As Princeton’s supervising architect, Cram's architectural development provided a nationwide college blueprint adaptable to any American landscape, like his Spanish design of Rice University in 1912.

Moreover, Cram became recognized as an ecclesiastical architect with defined gothic structures like the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Saint Thomas Church. At St. Paul’s E. Church, Rev. Kinser highlighted Cram’s ability to create a space where heaven and earth meet for the spirit of the church. He said, “In the upper echelon of the tower, there are four windows with an archangel in each. However, we cannot see them, so why are they up there? The answer they’re for God to peer into the place of his creation’s worship.”

Ralph Adams Cram brought this environment to Scenic City with Father Robertson's, of Christ Church Episcopal, aid in the late 1920s. Cram donated his architectural skills to the church.

Cram constructed and conducted the remodel of the 1906 Christ Church on Douglas Street. On March 26, 1930, the remodel began with exterior work of “lowering the floor to sidewalk level, a beautiful entrance, with stone tracery and lead glass windows.”

The total interior remodels included widening the entrance, adding the west gallery for the choir, and installing Gothic elements like arches throughout the chapel. Moreover, the remodel contributed to local architects Louis H. Bull and Norbet G. Monning, who worked under Cram’s leadership on this project.

Cram’s commission in Chattanooga provided the South with one of the first gothic revival works that remain for the enjoyment of the present Church members and community.