General Lew Wallace Study

Last updated

Gen. Lew Wallace Study
Lew Wallace Library Crawfordsville Indiana.jpg
Gen. Lew Wallace Study
USA Indiana location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location200 Wallace Ave., Crawfordsville, Indiana, United States
Coordinates 40°2′26″N86°53′40″W / 40.04056°N 86.89444°W / 40.04056; -86.89444
Built1895
ArchitectWallace, Gen. Lew
Architectural styleGreek Revival, Other, Romanesque
Part of Elston Grove Historic District (ID92000187)
NRHP reference No. 76000013
Significant dates
Added to NRHPMay 11, 1976 [1]
Designated NHLMay 11, 1976 [2]
Designated CPMarch 25, 1992

The General Lew Wallace Study & Museum, formerly known as the Ben-Hur Museum, is located in Crawfordsville, Indiana. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976, [2] and in 2008 was awarded a National Medal from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. It is located in the Elston Grove Historic District. The museum is associated with the life of Lew Wallace and his 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ . The study, designed by Wallace, and accompanying carriage house are the only structures pertaining to Lew Wallace that have retained historical integrity. Both of these buildings now make up the museum and exhibit many of the artifacts that Wallace used during his lifetime, as well as many objects pertaining to his literary legacy. [3] Guided tours of the study are available for a small admission fee; the Carriage House Interpretive Center and grounds are open to the public free of charge.

Contents

History

Lew Wallace is most famous for his military service and his novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880). He served in the Union Army during the American Civil War, participating in the Battle of Fort Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, and Battle of Monocacy as well as managing operations for the Union Army in Indiana in July 1863 when Confederate general John Hunt Morgan invaded the state during Morgan's Raid. After the war, he served on the military commission that tried John Wilkes Booth's assistants in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, as well as presiding over the court that resulted in the execution of Henry Wirz for the Union deaths at Andersonville prison.

In the postwar years, he began seriously writing, publishing his first novel in 1873. In 1880 he published Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ , a novel set during the time of Jesus Christ in the Roman Empire; it sold poorly at first, but soon became the bestselling novel of the nineteenth century, [4] and continued as first until the publication of Gone with the Wind. Considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century," it has never gone out of print, and has been adapted for four films. [5] In addition, Wallace worked as a lawyer, governor to New Mexico Territory, and ambassador to Turkey. His creative pursuits included a total of seven books: novels and biographies; art, inventing, and music.

Wallace was said to have built the study because he wanted "a pleasure-house for my soul," that would be "a detached room away from the world and its worries." [6] Wallace died in his home on February 15, 1905. [7] Upon his death, his family allowed the public to tour his study. In 1941 the city of Crawfordsville was given the property by a local civic organization, which purchased the property to donate it to the city. [8]

Wallace's former house was mostly razed, with only its dining room, living room, and floored central hall remaining as part of a modern ranch-style house; it is not part of the National Register designation. [3]

The carriage house opened in 2006 as the Carriage House Interpretive Center, and is now the launching point for visitor experiences. Formerly used by the Girl Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls, [8] it houses an exhibit that changes annually, gift shop, orientation video, offices and collection storage.

Architecture

The study took three years to finish, from 1895 to 1898, and cost $25,000–$30,000 to build. Wallace built the eclectic structure with influence from Byzantine, Greek, and Romanesque styles. It is one-story and made of garnet-colored brick. The domed copper roof is 30 feet (9.1 m) tall, with a cupola of copper, glass and steel protecting a large skylight over the main room. Bedford limestone, native to southern Indiana, was used for the porches and exterior trim. The limestone frieze, crowning the top of the walls, was hand-carved. A face in the center of the frieze on each side of the building represents characters from two of General Wallace's books. On the tower is Princess Irene, on the back is the Prince of India, both from The Prince of India; to the east is Ben-Hur's sister, Tirzah, and over the entry is Judah Ben-Hur, both from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. [3] The small curved room in the back of the building was the mechanical room, housing light switches, levers that opened windows in the cupola on the dome, and other features related to the building. The bricks used to make the semicircle are curved. The study includes a 40 feet (12 m) tall tower on the west side. The tower was designed with Roman arches that were originally bricked in except for two stained glass windows. The tower, besides being decorative, served as a chimney and storage for the water tank that supplied the original bathroom in the basement. The full basement can be seen through round porthole windows on the east side of the building. It holds the workbench which General Wallace used when creating his nine inventions, the furnace used to heat the building, and the Wallaces’ carriage. The underpinnings of the study are also visible: Carnegie steel I-beams, corrugated metal, and concrete. [9]

Today

When the city of Crawfordsville acquired the structure, it became known as the Ben-Hur Museum; it is officially called the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum. It still exhibits many of the 1,200 books Wallace owned. The furniture in the study is original, including the chair that Wallace used when writing his masterwork, Ben-Hur (which he completed long before building the study). Among the other artifacts in the collection are his military uniforms, artwork, musical instruments, and the fishing rod he invented. Art includes the portrait of the daughter of the sultan of Turkey, which he gave to Wallace in 1885. [6] The annual exhibits in the Carriage House Interpretive Center highlight different facets of Wallace as a Renaissance man; previous exhibits include Collective Influence: The Wallace Women, Lew Wallace - Gentleman Scientist, and Embattled: General Wallace's Leadership in the Civil War. The 3.5 acres (14,000 m2) of land on which the study sits is a public park, and many use it as a place to picnic, walk dogs, and take family photographs amid the flower beds. In recent years it has seen increased use from geo-cachers searching for a cache on site.

Guided tours of the study are available for a small admission fee; the Carriage House Interpretive Center and grounds are open to the public free of charge.

Notes

  1. ↑ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. 1 2 "General Lew Wallace Study". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved May 9, 2009.
  3. 1 2 3 Adams Sec. 7, p. 1
  4. ↑ Adams Sec. 8. pp. 1, 5
  5. ↑ "Ben-Hur: The Book That Shook the World" Archived 2015-10-15 at the Wayback Machine , Humanities, November/December 2009 Volume 30, Number 6, Accessed 2010-04-20
  6. 1 2 Wolfsie p. 288
  7. ↑ Adams Sec. 8, p. 6
  8. 1 2 Adams Sec. 7, p. 2
  9. ↑ "Indiana State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database (SHAARD)" (Searchable database). Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. Retrieved May 1, 2016.Note: This includes George R. Adams and Ralph Christian (December 1975). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: General Lew Wallace Study" (PDF). Retrieved May 1, 2016. and Accompanying photographs.

Related Research Articles

Ben-Hur or Ben Hur may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lew Wallace</span> American general, politician, and author (1827–1905)

Lewis Wallace was an American lawyer, Union general in the American Civil War, governor of New Mexico Territory, politician, diplomat, artist, and author from Indiana. Among his novels and biographies, Wallace is best known for his historical adventure story, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a bestselling novel that has been called "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crawfordsville, Indiana</span> City in Indiana, United States

Crawfordsville is a city in Montgomery County in west central Indiana, United States, 49 miles (79 km) west by northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,306. The city is the county seat of Montgomery County, the only chartered city and the largest populated place in the county. It is the principal city of the Crawfordsville, IN Micropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Montgomery County. The city is also part of the Indianapolis–Carmel–Muncie, IN Combined Statistical Area.

<i>Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ</i> 1880 novel by Lew Wallace

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a novel by Lew Wallace, published by Harper and Brothers on November 12, 1880, and considered "the most influential Christian book of the nineteenth century". It became a best-selling American novel, surpassing Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in sales. The book also inspired other novels with biblical settings and was adapted for the stage and motion picture productions.

<i>Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ</i> (1925 film) 1925 film by Fred Niblo

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a 1925 American silent epic adventure-drama film directed by Fred Niblo and written by June Mathis based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by General Lew Wallace. Starring Ramon Novarro as the title character, the film is the first feature-length adaptation of the novel and second overall, following the 1907 short.

<i>Ben Hur</i> (1907 film) 1907 American film

Ben Hur is a 1907 American silent drama film set in ancient Rome, the first screen adaptation of Lew Wallace's popular 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Co-directed by Sidney Olcott and Frank Oakes Rose, this "photoplay" was produced by the Kalem Company of New York City, and its scenes, including the climactic chariot race, were filmed in the city's borough of Brooklyn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Palace of the Governors</span> Historic house in New Mexico, United States

The Palace of the Governors is an adobe structure built in the Territorial Style of Pueblo architecture on Palace Avenue in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Located within the Santa Fe Historic District along the Santa Fe Plaza between Lincoln and Washington avenues, it has served as the seat of government for New Mexico for centuries, having been established as the capitol building of Nuevo México in 1610.

Lew Wallace High School was a four-year (9-12) public high school of the Gary Community School Corporation in Gary, Indiana, United States.

<i>Ben-Hur</i> (play)

Ben-Hur was an 1899 theatrical adaptation of the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) by Lew Wallace. The story was dramatized by William W. Young and produced by Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger. The stage production was notable for its elaborate use of spectacle, including live horses for the famous chariot race. The hippodrama had six acts with incidental music written by American composer Edgar Stillman Kelley. The stage production opened at the Broadway Theater in New York City on November 29, 1899, and became a hit Broadway show. Traveling versions of the production, including a national tour that ran for twenty-one years, played in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. By the end of its run in April 1920, the play had been seen by more than twenty million people and earned over $10 million at the box office. There have been other stage adaptations of Wallace's novel, as well as several motion picture versions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Wallace</span> American author and poet (1830–1907)

Susan Arnold Elston Wallace was an American author and poet from Crawfordsville, Indiana. In addition to writing travel articles for several American magazines and newspapers, Wallace published six books, five of which contain collected essays from her travels in the New Mexico Territory, Europe, and the Middle East in the 1880s: The Land of the Pueblos (1888), The Storied Sea (1883), The Repose in Egypt: A Medley (1888), Along the Bosphorus, and Other Sketches (1898), and The City of the King: What the Child Jesus Saw and Heard (1903). She was also the wife of Lew Wallace, a lawyer, American Civil War general, politician, author and diplomat. Susan completed the manuscript of Lew Wallace's two-volume autobiography following his death in 1905, with the assistance of Mary Hannah Krout, another Crawfordsville author. Wallace died in Crawfordsville in 1907.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catlin Covered Bridge</span> Bridge in Parke County, Indiana

The Catlin Covered Bridge is a single span Burr Arch truss covered bridge structure that was built by Clark McDaniel in 1907.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thorpe Ford Covered Bridge</span> Place in Indiana listed on National Register of Historic Places

The Thorpe Ford Covered Bridge is northeast of Rosedale, Indiana. The single span Burr Arch Truss covered bridge structure was built by Joseph A. Britton in 1912.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry S. Lane House</span> Historic house in Indiana, United States

The Lane Place was the home of Sen. Henry S. Lane and Joanna Lane (1826-1914). It is located at 212 South Water Street in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Helen Elston Smith, the Lanes' niece, inherited the house after Joanna's death. She willed the house and its contents to the Montgomery County Historical Society on February 26, 1931. 85%-90% of all of the furnishings are either original to the house or belonged to the Elston Family. The house has been a museum since 1931 even though Helen continued to live in the home until the mid-1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sycamore Dale</span> Historic house in West Virginia, United States

Sycamore Dale is a 19th-century Greek Revival plantation house overlooking the South Branch Potomac River southwest of Romney, West Virginia. Sycamore Dale is one of several historic estates along South Branch River Road. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 2, 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Age of Indiana Literature</span>

The Golden Age of Indiana Literature is a period from 1880 to 1920 when many nationally and internationally acclaimed literary works were created by natives of the state of Indiana. During this time, many of the United States' most popular authors came from Indiana. Maurice Thompson, George Ade, Booth Tarkington, Theodore Dreiser, Edward Eggleston, Frank McKinney Hubbard, George Barr McCutcheon, Meredith Nicholson, Gene Stratton Porter, Lew Wallace, and James Whitcomb Riley were foremost among the Hoosier authors.

The Tribe of Ben-Hur was a fraternal organization based on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace. In 1930 it became the Ben-Hur Life Association.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gene Stratton Porter Cabin (Geneva, Indiana)</span> Historic building

Gene Stratton-Porter Cabin, , known as the Limberlost Cabin and the Limberlost State Historic Site, was the former home of Gene Stratton Porter, a noted Indiana author who lived in the home from 1895 to 1913. The two-story, fourteen-room log cabin is located near the Limberlost Swamp on the outskirts of Geneva in Adams County, Indiana. Stratton-Porter designed the Queen Anne-style rustic home with the help of an architect. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Blacherne</span> Apartment building in Indiana, US

The Blacherne is a historic apartment building located at Indianapolis, Indiana. It was built in 1895, and is a large seven-story, 6 bay by 15 bay, red pressed brick building on a limestone foundation. It features two circular projecting bays at the corners and a semicircular limestone Romanesque Revival style entry portal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Statue of Lew Wallace</span>

Lew Wallace is a statue by Andrew O'Connor that has been produced in both marble and bronze versions.

Kalem Co. v. Harper Bros., 222 U.S. 55 (1911), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held producing a motion picture based on a dramatic work can be copyright infringement. The producer of the motion picture is liable even they are not the exhibitor. This does not extend to a restriction of the dramatic work's ideas; it is a recognition of the author's monopoly powers granted by Congress.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.