Carl W. Condit

Carl Wilbur Condit (September 29, 1914 – January 4, 1997) was an American historian of urban and architectural history, a writer, professor, and teacher. He wrote numerous books and articles on the history of American building, especially in Chicago, and founded the History of Science Department at Northwestern University, where he taught for over 30 years. His research specialty was the architecture of Chicago, Illinois, and he lived in Chicago most of his life, having moved there in 1945 in order to study its urban and technological development.

Condit was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 29 September 1914. His parents were Arthur Condit and Gertrude Pletz Condit. He enjoyed drawing when he was young, and created precisely drafted line drawings of trains which he saved for the rest of his life. He attended Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, then went on to Purdue University to study engineering and drafting. After completing his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering at Purdue in 1936, he returned home and entered graduate school in English Literature at the University of Cincinnati, from which he received a M.A. (1939) and a Ph.D. (1941), writing a dissertation on Geoffrey Chaucer. He was a Teaching Scholar at the University of Cincinnati, 1939–1941, and an Instructor in Mathematics in the College of Engineering at Cincinnati, 1942-1944. During 1941-1942 he also served as a Civilian Instructor in Mathematics and Mechanics for the United States Army. In 1944-1945 he was an Assistant Design Engineer in the Building Department of the New York Central Railroad in Cincinnati, the only architectural design he ever did himself.

Carl married Isabel Marion Campbell on 19 June 1943 in Cincinnati, Ohio. They raised three sons together, Steven Campbell (born 11 November 1947, died 12 May 1986), Richard Stuart (born 29 March 1956), and Kenneth Arthur (born 7 January 1958). All three were born in Evanston, Illinois, where Carl and Isabel moved from Cincinnati in 1945. Carl and Isabel subsequently moved to Morton Grove, Illinois in 1955 and remained there for the rest of Carl's life. The Morton Grove house had an unusual, prairie-school design relative to the surrounding suburban tracts, and Condit chose it for that reason.

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