Background
Howard Judson White was born in 1870 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Howard Judson White was born in 1870 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
He attended the city’s public schools of Chicago, and began architectural study at the Manual Training School.
At the age of eighteen he entered D. H. Burnham’s office as junior draftsman, and two years later became a partner in the firm of D. H. Burnham & Company. After continuing practice in that association until Mr. Burnham's decease, in 1917 he joined three other members of the office, Ernest Graham, Peirce Anderson and Edward Probst in re-organizing the firm of which he remained a member the rest of his life.
With his partners Mr. White continued active in practice, and in a few years Graham, Anderson, Probst & White became one of, if not the leading architectural office in Chicago. Among the firm's major achievements in design were the Marshall Field & Company Stores; Wrigley Building (1921); State Bank of Chicago; Pittsfield Building at Washington and Wabash; Field Museum of Natural History, opened in 1921; #20 Wacker Street Office Building; Continental Bank Building, Adams and LaSalle Streets; . Union Station (1922); Civic Opera House (1930); the huge Merchandise Mart; Strauss Building; new Marshall Field Store and Annex; the Shedd Aquarium (1930), and the Marshall Field Office Building, 1934, all in Chicago. Equally important works of the firm in other cities include the Frick Office Building in Pittsburgh (18 stories); large Department stores in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Cleveland; Chase National Bank in New York; Terminal Tower Building in Cleveland (1930); Coppers Bank Building in Pittsburgh, Penn. R.R. Terminal in Philadelphia, and the Selfridge Stores in London, England. Mr. White’s busiest period was between 1924 and 1930 when he was in charge of the erection of more than thirty structures.