Background
William Mitchell Kendall was born in 1856 at Jamaica Plain (in greater Boston), Massachusetts, United States.
William Mitchell Kendall was born in 1856 at Jamaica Plain (in greater Boston), Massachusetts, United States.
The youth received a formal education at Harvard University where he graduated in 1876, and after two years of architectural study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology supplemented his early training in offices in Boston and New York, and a year of travel and advanced study in France and Italy.
Beginning his career as draftsman in the employ of New York s most famous architectural firm, he was successively promoted to higher positions until 1906 when he was taken into partnership. In subsequent years Mr. Kendall was responsible for the design or architectural details of many of McKim, Mead & White's outstanding works in this country and Europe, among which were the old Madison Square Gardens, Morgan Library and the Washington Arch in New York; Butler Art Gallery, Youngston, Ohio; City Hall, Burlington, Vermont; restoration of St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C.; The American Academy at Rome, Italy; Municipal Building, New York; the main New York Post Office Building; Savoy Piara Hotel; Library at Columbia University; Knickerbocker Trust Company; School of Business at Harvard University; Ira Allen Memorial Chapel, at the University of Vermont; Olin Memorial Library, Wesleyan University at Middletown, Conn.; Arlington Memorial Bridge, Washington, D.C.; the Mckinley Memorial, Niles, Ohio; War Memorial at Newport, R.I.; the John Weeks Memorial Bridge, Cambridge. Mass., and the Plymouth Rock Memorial at Plymouth, Mass.
In 1922 Mr. Kendall was appointed a member of the U. S. Commission to visit Europe and offer recommendations for a general plan and treatment of the permanent cemeteries in France, Italy, and England. Later he was chosen architect to design several War Memorials in Italy and France, and in 1930 Wesleyan University granted him a M. A. degree.