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Spencer Jr., Robert Closson

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Robert Closson Spencer Jr. was born in Milwaukee and graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in 1886. After graduating he moved to Boston to study at MIT as a Special Student in Architecture from 1887 to 1888. Spencer then worked in the offices of two prominent Boston architecture firms: Wheelwright & Haven and Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. He was the 1891 recipient of the Rotch Travelling Scholarship, funding two years of travel in Europe. For most of his architectural career Spencer was based in Chicago, exhibiting at the Chicago Architectural Club and publishing in important regional periodicals such as "Inland Architect and News Record"/"Western Architect." His houses were featured at length in important national publications such as "Architectural Review" and "Architectural Record." Spencer was a well-known proponent of what became known as the Prairie Style of architecture and popularized house designs of this type in a series of articles in "Ladies’ Home Journal" in 1900 and 1901. In 1905 he entered into a partnership with Horace S. Powers that lasted until 1923, after which Spencer continued to practice on his in Chicago. From 1928 to 1930 Spencer taught architecture at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University) before relocating to Florida, where he taught architecture, painting, advertising, and pictorial illustration at the University of Florida until 1933. Spencer died in 1953.

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