Monastery at Large

Words About G.L. Norrman: The Ideal Southern Gentleman (1902)

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G.L. Norrman. Gable detail of Bisbee Building (1902). Jacksonville, Florida.1 2 3 4

The Background

As if he hadn’t already gushed enough over G.L. Norrman, in a December 1902 article for The Augusta Chronicle, Wallace Putnam Reed — under the pen name Major Junius — pontificated on why he considered Norrman “the ideal of the best type of southern gentleman”.

These were Reed’s final published remarks about Norrman — he died less than 5 months later, in April 1903.5

Article Excerpt:

In Mr. G.L. Norrman, the well-known Atlanta architect, I have found my ideal of the best type of the southern gentleman of the old school. To me this is somewhat remarkable because Mr. Norrman is a foreigner by birth—a member of one of the noble families of Sweden.

He is a sort of “Admirable Crichton,” the master of many arts and accomplishments, a scholar, philosopher, man of society and a recognized leader in his profession.

Sam Small once said that a man could not ride a few hours side by side with Norrman in a car without getting enough ideas from him to fill a bright, strong, original book.

He is an instructive, fascinating talker, and a polished, epigrammatic writer whose contributions are always welcomed by the press. His views of character, conduct and life are those which made our ante-bellum southern gentlemen recognized the world over as the most honorable and chivalric of men. Some of his ideas were so strikingly expressed some time ago in his lecture on “Architecture As Illustrative of Religious Belief, and as a Means of Tracing Civilization,” that I hope he will be induced to deliver it again, in Atlanta and in other cities. It is just the kind of lecture to interest broad-minded, cultured fearless thinkers.6

References

  1. “Plans Made for Bisbee Building”. The Florida Times-Union and Citizen (Jacksonville, Florida), September 17, 1901, p. 6. ↩︎
  2. “Filling in the Blank Spaces”. The Florida Times-Union and Citizen (Jacksonville, Florida), February 24, 1902, p. 5. ↩︎
  3. “Dr. Armstrong Back.” The Sunday Times-Union and Citizen (Jacksonville, Florida), May 25, 1902, p. 5. ↩︎
  4. “H.C. Seaman.” The Sunday Times-Union and Citizen (Jacksonville, Florida), June 1, 1902, p. 5. ↩︎
  5. “Wallace P. Reed Yields to Death”. The Atlanta Constitution, April 18, 1903, p. 1. ↩︎
  6. Junius, Major. “Pen Pictures of Well-Known Atlanta Men”. The Augusta Chronicle (Augusta, Georgia), November 23, 1902, p. 11. ↩︎

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