Oscar Wenderoth (1871–1938) was an American architect who served as director of the

Office of the Supervising Architect The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939. The office handled some of the most important architectural commissions of the nineteenth ...

from 1912 to 1915. He is identified as the architect of many government buildings built during that period, including some listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. Wenderoth was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

in 1871 and was the son of the noted photographer

Frederick August Wenderoth Frederick August Wenderoth or F. A. Wenderoth (1819 – 1884) was a German-born American painter and photographer. Born and educated in Cassel, where he first learned to paint from his father, he established a lifelong friendship with Charles Ch ...

, a pioneer "...in addressing the public's desire for colored photographs." Early in his architectural career Oscar worked for the New York City firm of Carrere and Hastings. He first joined the Office of Supervising Architect as a senior architectural draftsman in 1897, working in the office for three separate time periods before being appointed as its director. He was appointed to the directorship by President William Howard Taft in 1912. He resigned in 1915 without providing a public explanation of his resignation.''New York Times''
April 11, 1915 Soon after his resignation he joined Weary & Alford in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

as Supervising Architect, where he worked for five years. In the ensuing years his sight failed, leading to blindness and retirement in 1920. He died in 1938 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

."Oscar Wenderoth, Architect, Was 67, Designer of Federal Buildings Had Been Blind Since 1920" in ''New York Times'', April 16, 1938, 13.

Selected government buildings

File:Former post office in Bowling Green.jpg,

United States Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the ...

(later Senior Citizen's Center),

Bowling Green, Ohio Bowling Green is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, Ohio, United States, located southwest of Toledo. The population was 30,028 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Toledo Metropolitan Area and a member of the Toledo Metropolitan Are ...

, 1913 File:Blue Island Post Office.jpg, United States Post Office,

Blue Island, Illinois Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois, located approximately south of Chicago's Loop. Blue Island is adjacent to the city of Chicago and shares its northern boundary with that city's Morgan Park neighborhood. The population was 22,558 ...

, 1914 File:Old Post Office Oneonta NY Apr 10.jpg, United States Post Office,

Oneonta, New York Oneonta ( ) is a city in southern Otsego County, New York, United States. It is one of the northernmost cities of the Appalachian Region. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Oneonta had a population of 13,079. Its nickname is "City of the Hil ...

, 1915 File:Miles City MT - post office.jpg, United States Post Office,

Miles City, Montana Miles City ( chy, Ma'xemâhoévé'ho'eno) is a city in and the county seat of Custer County, Montana, United States. The population was 8,354 at the 2020 census. History After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, the U.S. Army created fo ...

, 1916 File:John F. Kilkenny United States Post Office and Courthouse Pendleton in 1917.jpg, United States Post Office and Courthouse,

Pendleton, Oregon Pendleton is a city and the county seat of Umatilla County, Oregon. The population was 17,107 at the time of the 2020 census, which includes approximately 1,600 people who are incarcerated at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution. Pendleton ...

, 1916 File:James A. Redden Federal Courthouse - Medford Oregon.jpg, James A. Redden Federal Courthouse,

Medford, Oregon Medford is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Oregon, in the United States. As of the 2020 United States Census on April 1, 2020, the city had a total population of 85,824 and a metropolitan area population of 223,259, making the Me ...

, 1916 File:Port Jervis post office.jpg, United States Post Office,

Port Jervis, New York Port Jervis is a city located at the confluence of the Neversink and Delaware rivers in western Orange County, New York, United States, north of the Delaware Water Gap. Its population was 8,775 at the 2020 census. The communities of Deerpark, ...

, c.1920 File:U.S. Post Office (Allston Way, Berkeley, CA).JPG, U.S. Post Office,

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, 1914 File:United States Post Office Clarksville Wiki (1 of 1).jpg, United States Post Office,

Clarksville, Texas Clarksville is a city and county seat of Red River County, Texas, in the United States in the northernmost part of the Piney Woods region of East Texas. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 2,857. Geography Clarksville is located at ...

, 1914

References

20th-century American architects 1871 births 1938 deaths Architects from Philadelphia 19th-century American architects United States Department of the Treasury officials Taft administration personnel {{US-architect-stub