Henry Rutgers Marshall

Henry Rutgers Marshall (22 July 1852 – 3 May 1927) was an American architect and psychologist. In 1881, Marshall married Julia Robbins Gillman, who died prematurely in 1888. He had one daughter with Gillman, who also predeceased him. Marshall was largely a loner. His lack of familial contact led him to focus greatly on his work in architecture and his other interests. He died and was buried in Woodbury, Connecticut in 1927.

Henry Rutgers Marshall was born on July 22 in 1852 in New York City to Henry Perry and Cornelia Marshall. Related to the famous Rutgers family of New York City and New Jersey, Henry had a privileged upbringing. He had a privileged childhood and attended the finest New York private schools as a child. He then continued his education and Columbia College. Marshall studied architecture as both an undergrad and graduate student. He graduated from Columbia College with master's degree in architecture in 1876. At this time in Marshall's life, psychology wasn’t a concern to him.

He began practicing architecture, his lifelong career, two years after graduating in 1878. His most famous designs include Rudyard Kipling's house in Cornwall, New York, the Congregational Church in Colorado Springs, and the Old Buildings of Brearley School in New York. He was most known for his designs of country houses. Marshall's accomplishments in the world of architecture did not go unnoticed. He was elected to be a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and was eventually given the honor of becoming president of the Institute's New York Chapter. Henry was also active with the Art Commission for the City of New York, where he served as the executive secretary.

Aside from his devoted career in architecture, Marshall became fascinated by psychology and philosophy, and began studying paths where the two subjects intersected. Marshall pursued these subjects without any formal training in psychology or philosophy, whatsoever; rather, they were merely interests to him. He developed a wide range of interests in topics including intelligence, sensation, consciousness, emotion, religion, instinct, synesthesia and dreams. Marshall began writing about these topics but they largely went unnoticed until the publishing of his first book.

His first major appearance came with the publishing of his book Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics in 1894, known as his most famous and influential work. In this book, Marshall rejected the structuralist ideals of physiological and anatomical evidence pointing to pleasure and pain sensations. He further criticized the work of Goldsheider, who discovered pressure spots, cold spots, and heat spots on the surfaces of skin. Marshall believed that Goldsheider was too quick to cite physiology for his findings.

In Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics, Marshall further went on to argue that beauty is a matter of the hedonic effect, characterized by pleasure. He believed that no single characteristic was common among all beautiful things except for the ability to please. William James, now known as one of the most influential American philosophers, praised Rutgers’ book endlessly. James described the work as "epoch-making" and "full of shrewd and original psychology." James and many others believed that Marshall had made a great contribution to psychology in this book.

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