ABSTRACT
Julian Francis Abele was one of the most prolific American architects of the Gilded Age and ensuing Country Estate Era between 1890 and 1920s, having designed over 200 buildings as senior designer for the Office of Horace Trumbauer in Philadelphia. He considered himself an artiste beyond racial classification-neither Black nor White. Abele was the living embodiment of Dr. W.E.B.DuBois’ characterization of “double consciousness”: outwardly Black, living in White America “an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled stirrings, two warring ideals in one dark body.”1
