Abram Garfield

Who was Abram Garfield?

Abram Garfield was the youngest son of President James A. Garfield and Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, and an architect who practiced in Cleveland, Ohio.

Garfield received a bachelor of arts from Williams College in 1893 and a bachelor of science in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology three years later. By 1898, Garfield had joined with Frank Meade to form the architectural firm Meade & Garfield in Cleveland, Ohio; the firm was noted for its residential designs. When the partnership ended in 1905, Garfield opened his own firm, which he ran until 1951. Garfield specialized in residential architecture, designing large houses in Shaker Heights and other Cleveland suburbs, but his work also included more modest houses for the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority and institutional projects such as schools and a hospital. Garfield served as chairman of the Cleveland Planning Commission from 1930 to 1942 and was a founder and first president of the Cleveland School of Architecture, which became part of Western Reserve University in 1941.