History Focus
September 23

French architect of the 17th century. Died on September 23, 1666. Some sources list his death as September 3, 1666.

You've probably heard of Mansard - but can't quite place where. Yes, that's right the mansard roof. Francois Mansart is the architect remembered popularly for the mansard roof. Mansart did not invent the roof, but he used it extensively in his popular designs. The mansard roof is a roof with two separate slopes on every side. As an architect, Francois Mansart, was successful in combining classical design with peculiarly French requirements and traditions.

Over the years more than half of his work has been demolished. Much of what remains of his work has been altered. His chateaus and hotels "show a masterful massing of architectural volumes and plan solutions for irregular sites and precisely correct spacings between openings and classical design elements." Three surviving chateaus illustrate his genius: Balleroy, south of Bayeux, built about 1626; Blois (1635-38), only one wing built; and Maisons (1642-48), "probably the most perfect building ever erected in France." In the 1660s he was asked to draw plans for the east wing of the palace of the Louvre but he never completed these plans. Later he was asked to draw plans for a royal chapel at the end of St-Denis, but it was never built.

Mansart was born in Paris on January 13, 1598. He was the son of a master carpenter. He was trained by his father and by a sculptor and mason who were relatives. Although he never received formal training in architecture, he was a recognized for his abilities by the mid-1620's. By this time he was receiving commissions for chateaus and churches. Some requests were for entire structures and others were for additions or alterations to existing buildings. He also gained a reputation as being rather difficult. He planned without regard for cost. As a perfectionist he often tore down what had been built and built again. Mansart died in Paris on September 23, 1666.

Sources: | On this Day| Microsoft(R) Encarta(R)

Born on September 23, 1838, in Homer, Ohio Victoria Chaflin Woodhull was an unconventional American reformer who at various times championed such diverse causes as woman suffrage, free love, mystical socialism, and the Greenback Movement. She was the first female stockbroker of Wall Street, the first female to produce her own newspaper, and the first woman ever to run for the U.S. presidency (1872).

She was reared in an atmosphere of spiritualism. She and her sister, Tennessee, traveled in a family medicine and fortune-telling show, offering psychic and their "elixer of life" and "cancer cure" along with other remedies to the public. At the age of 15 she married Canning Woodhull. After the marriage she and her sister continued to give demonstrations in clairvoyance. At the age of 26 she divorced Canning Woodhull and is married Colonel James H. Blood. Colonel Blood introduced her to a number of 19th-century reform movements.

In 1868 the entire family moved to New York City, where the two sisters gained the favor of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the railroad promoter, through their mutual interest in spiritualism. She was also influenced by Stephen Pearl Andrews, an aberrant philosopher who involved her in his socialist group called "Pantarchy"--a theory rejecting conventional marriage and advocating a perfect state of free love combined with communal management of children and property.

In 1870 the two sisters began to publish Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly, advocating among other things equal rights for women and a single standard of morality for both sexes. Early her advocacy of free love made her suspect by leaders of the woman suffrage movement, but she won their support after pleading for woman suffrage before the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. When a dissident group called the National Radical Reformers broke away from the National Woman Suffrage Association in she was nominated for the presidency by the Equal Rights Party.

In November of 1872, she and sister were indicted for sending obscene material through the mails after they printed an accusation of adultery against prominent clergyman Henry Ward Beecher. Although they were acquitted, their public career was over. In 1877 the sisters went to England, where both married wealthy businessmen and where they lived for the rest of their lives.

Sources: | Encyclopedia Britannica | Microsoft(R) Encarta(R)