Pioneer Information
Born in Marietta, Ohio, Bosworth earned a degree in 1889 in architecture from the Beaux-Arts-oriented Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while working as a draughtsman for architect H. H. Richardson in Boston. He subsequently worked for Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge in Boston and Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot in Brookline, Massachusetts, before opening his own practice. In 1896 he moved to Paris, France, to continue his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts. Upon his return in 1900 Bosworth joined the Carrère & Hastings architecture firm in New York before restarting his practice in New York the following year. His project work primarily comprised residential and institutional design, including the new campus for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1913–1916), and the AT&T building in New York City (1917).
Bosworth received major landscape commissions as well, such as those for the gardens for Kykuit (1907–1916), the Pocantico Hills, New York, estate for John D. Rockefeller, Sr., and the grounds of Greystone (now Untermyer Park and Gardens) in Yonkers, New York, for Samuel Untermyer in 1915. He also designed the Major L’Enfant Monument in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia (1912) and collaborated with sculptor Charles Keck to design the Booker T. Washington Monument in Tuskegee, Alabama (1922).
In 1924 John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donated money for the rehabilitation of several significant French landmarks, including the Palace of Versailles, Château de Fontainebleau, and Reims Cathedral, and hired Bosworth to oversee their restorations. Bosworth completed this work in 1936 and, for his achievements, was awarded the French Legion of Honor and the Cross of the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. Bosworth continued to live in France until his death at the age of 97. He is interred in Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris.
