Henry Rutgers Marshall (July, 22 1852 – May 3, 1927) was an American architect and psychologist.
Early life
Henry Rutgers Marshall was born July 22, 1852, in New York City to Henry Perry Marshall and Cornelia Eliza Conrad. His mother was descendant of Everardus Bogardus. Related to the famous Rutgers family of New York City and New Jersey, Marshall had a privileged upbringing. He attended the finest New York private schools as a child, and studied architecture as both an undergrad and graduate student at Columbia. He graduated from Columbia College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1873 and from Columbia University with a Master of Arts degree in architecture in 1875. At this time in Marshall's life, psychology wasn't a concern to him.
He began practicing architecture, his lifelong career, two years after graduating in 1878. His most famous designs include Rudyard Kipling's house Naulakha in Dummerston, Vermont, the First Congregational Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the Old Buildings of Brearley School in New York City. He was most known for his designs of country houses. Marshall's accomplishments in the world of architecture did not go unnoticed. He was elected to be a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and was eventually given the honor of becoming president of the Institute's New York chapter. Marshall was also active with the New York City Art Commission, where he served as the executive secretary.
Contributions to psychology
Aside from his devoted career in architecture, Marshall became fascinated by psychology and philosophy, and began studying paths where the two subjects intersected. Marshall pursued these subjects without any formal training in psychology or philosophy, whatsoever; rather, they were merely interests to him. He developed a wide range of interests in topics including intelligence, sensation, consciousness, emotion, religion, instinct, synesthesia, and dreams. Marshall began writing about these topics but they largely went unnoticed until the publishing of his first book.
His first major appearance came with the publishing of his book Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics in 1894, known as his most famous and influential work. In this book, Marshall rejected the structuralist ideals of physiological and anatomical evidence pointing to pleasure and pain sensations. He further criticized the work of Goldsheider, who discovered pressure spots, cold spots, and heat spots on the surfaces of skin. Marshall believed that Goldsheider was too quick to cite physiology for his findings.
In Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics, Marshall further went on to argue that beauty is a matter of the hedonic effect, characterized by pleasure. He believed that no single characteristic was common among all beautiful things except for the ability to please. William James, now known as one of the most influential American philosophers, praised Rutgers’ book endlessly. James described the work as "epoch-making" and "full of shrewd and original psychology." James and many others believed that Marshall had made a great contribution to psychology in this book.
Soon after the publishing of this famous book, he wrote a series of lectures on aesthetics, which he delivered as an honorary lecturer at Columbia University, his alma mater. Rutgers also lectured at Harvard University, the Nineteenth Century Club of New York City, the Contemporary Club of Philadelphia, and Yale Art School. In 1904, he gave a principle address on aesthetics before the St. Louis International Congress of Arts and Sciences.
Marshall's views on aesthetics were a combination of sensational aspects, proposed by Hermann Lotze, emotional aspects, discussed by James and Mill, and intellectual factures, focused on by Immanuel Kant and Ladd. Marshall combined all of these aspects into his own system that held pain and pleasure as the basis for all esthetic experiences and judgments.
He wrote on topics including the nature of emotion, desire, pleasure, pain, and evolution. His published articles and books in addition to Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics are Aesthetic Principles, in 1895, Instinct and Reason, in 1898, The Relation of Aesthetics to Psychology and Philosophy, in 1905, Human and Other Types of Consciousness, in 1905, War and the Ideal of Peace, in 1915, Mind and Conduct, in 1919, and The Beautiful, in 1924.