Dalzell, Robert F., Jr. 1937- (Robert F. Dalzell, Robert Fenton Dalzell, Jr.)

PERSONAL:

Born April 28, 1937, in Cleveland, OH; son of Robert F. (a business executive) and Lucile C. (an art teacher) Dalzell; married Lee Baldwin (a librarian), June 18, 1960; children: Frederick, Jeffrey, Victoria, Alex. Education: Amherst College, B.A., 1959; Yale University, M.A., 1962, Ph.D., 1966.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Williamstown, MA. Office—Department of History, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267.

CAREER:

Yale University, New Haven, CT, acting instructor, 1962-66, assistant professor of history, 1966-70; Williams College, Williamstown, MA, associate professor, 1970-75, professor, 1975-77, Ephram Williams Professor of History, 1977—. Member of advisory committee for Historic Deerfield.

MEMBER:

Berkshire County Historical Society (vice president; member of board of directors).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Guggenheim fellow, 1973-74; Charles Warren fellow at Harvard University, 1973-74.

WRITINGS:

American Participation in the Great Exhibition of 1851, Amherst College (Northampton, MA), 1960.

Daniel Webster and the Trial of American Nationalism, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1973.

Enterprising Elite: The Boston Associates and the World They Made, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1987.

(With wife, Lee Baldwin Dalzell) George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998.

(With Lee Baldwin Dalzell) The House the Rockefellers Built: A Tale of Money, Taste, and Power in Twentieth-Century America, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Robert F. Dalzell, Jr., is particularly known for his two books, written with his wife, Lee Baldwin Dalzell, about prominent American houses and their builders. In George Washington's Mount Vernon: At Home in Revolutionary America, the Dalzells describe the forty-five-year process of constructing Mt. Vernon and explore the ways in which Washington's vision for his estate paralleled his vision for the new American nation. New York Review of Books contributor Erick L. McKitrick praised the book, noting that "there are insights in it about the character of George Washington that don't emerge from the rest of the Washington literature."

The history of Kykuit, the Hudson Valley summer home of the Rockefeller family, is the subject of The House the Rockefellers Built: A Tale of Money, Taste, andPower in Twentieth-Century America. As the Dalzells point out, family patriarch John D. Rockefeller disliked showing his wealth in ostentatious ways and wished his new summer estate to be constructed along modest lines. His son, however—known as Junior—felt that the family home should set a standard of grandeur and good taste, and insisted on shaping the estate along those lines. Several years in the making, Kykuit cost more than two million, seven hundred thousand dollars; by 1912, the estate covered more than 2,000 acres and included ninety outbuildings in addition to the imposing main house. The Dalzells provide copious detail about the construction process, each step of which was fraught with conflict between father and son; they also discuss the many post-construction renovations that were necessary to correct major defects in design.

Observer Web site reviewer Adelle Waldman was not convinced by the Dalzells' argument that Kykuit's history is important. Describing their approach as overly respectful, as if their material were "the stuff of epic," the critic concluded that "all this chronicle offers are a few juicy anecdotes about the extravagances of the rich." New York Times contributor Dominique Browning also noted the book's overwrought element, observing that "the Dalzells try to turn the building of Kykuit into an epic father-son battle" but adding that this "heavy breathing has an unintended comic effect." Jay Freeman, however, writing in Booklist, found The House the Rockefellers Built an appealing work; a writer for Kirkus Reviews described it as a "stately study of the best-endowed historical property in America."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 2007, Jay Freeman, review of The House the Rockefellers Built: A Tale of Money, Taste, and Power in Twentieth-Century America, p. 27.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2007, review of The House the Rockefellers Built.

New York Review of Books, November 4, 1999, Eric L. McKitrick, "Washington the Liberator."

New York Times, August 19, 2007, Dominique Browning, "Total Manor Makeover."

Publishers Weekly, June 4, 2007, review of The House the Rockefellers Built, p. 45.

ONLINE

Observer,http://www.observer.com/ (February 27, 2008), Adelle Waldman, review of The House the Rockefellers Built.