Talbot Hamlin

Career

Architectural projects early in his career include Wayland Academy, Hangzhou, China, 1919; Peking University, Peking, China, 1919–1922; and Ginling College, Nanking, China, 1919–1925.

Hamlin was hired as a draftsman in the New York architectural firm of Murphy and Dana. He became a partner of the firm in 1920. In 1921, both Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1879–1933) and J. Duncan Forsythe departed, so with the addition of Henry J. McGill ( - 1953), the firm became Murphy, McGill and Hamlin. That combination lasted until 1924, when Henry Killam Murphy (1877–1954) withdrew and the firm became known as McGill and Hamlin. This partnership with Henry J. McGill ended in 1930, and Hamlin began his own solo practice, which lasted until the Depression, when commissions became scarce.

In 1934, he relinquished his professional practice and accepted the full-time position of Avery Librarian for the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University. and the 1955 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award.

Political activity

Hamlin's political activities were noted in a report, "Prepared and released by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, United States House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. April 19, 1949.The committee included California congressman Richard Nixon. "Talbot Hamlin was a sponsor of the Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace which ran from March 25–27, 1949 in New York City. It was arranged by a Communist Party USA front organization known as the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions. The conference was a follow-up to a similar gathering, the strongly anti-America, pro-Soviet World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace which was held in Poland, August 25–28, 1948.

At another point in the HUAC report Hamlin is noted in a section that reads: "Letter protesting ban on entrance of Oscar Niemeyer, 1948 (total 3): Thomas H. Creighton, Talbot Hamlin, Jacob Moscowitz"