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Harry E. Donnell

American architect, business owner (1867–1959)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ5668526
Source-derived summary

Harry Ellingwood Donnell (May 2, 1867 – February 25, 1959) was an American Beaux-Arts architect who designed many commercial and residential structures in New York City and Long Island between 1894 and 1915.

Biography

Donnell (don-Nell) was born in Portland, Maine. The Donnell family moved to New York City in 1875. Donnell graduated from City College of New York in 1886 and the Columbia School of Mines in 1887. In 1890, he was hired by architect Richard Morris Hunt to serve as the superintending architect for the construction of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. Today, this includes buildings such as the one housing the "master clock" for U.S timekeeping, and the U.S. Vice President's residence.

Donnell attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, entering in 1893 and returning to the United States in 1894. He entered into partnership with another Beaux-Arts architect Francis Kimball in 1895. Their firm designed many buildings in lower Manhattan, including 111 Fifth Avenue and the Brunswick Building at 225 Fifth Avenue. From 1900 to 1915, Donnell designed numerous residential homes on the North Shore of Long Island, including community libraries such as the Carnegie Library in Northport, New York.

In 1915, his father-in-law offered Donnell the opportunity to own and manage one of the family's Long Island companies, the S.S. Hepworth Machine Company, the largest manufacturer of rotating milling machines for the sugar cane industry.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Harry E. Donnell” is american architect, business owner (1867–1959). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Harry, Donnell and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1867, 1959, 1894, 1915—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1867-05-02. For this dossier, Harry, Donnell and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american architect, business owner (1867–1959)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5668526. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1867, 1959, 1894 and 1915.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Harry E. Donnell”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Harry E. Donnell primary sources, Harry E. Donnell archive and Harry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Harry E. Donnell”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Harry E. Donnell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.