This unique book traces the evolution and accomplishments of the office that from 1852 until 1939 held a virtual monopoly over federal building design. Among its more memorable buildings are the Italianate U.S. Mint in Carson City, the huge granite pile of the State, War, and Navy Building in Washington, D.C., the towering U.S. Post Office in Nashville, New York Citys neo-Renaissance customhouse, and such restorations as the ancient adobe Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. In tracing the evolution of the Office and its creative output, Antoinette J. Lee evokes the nations considerable efforts to achieve an appropriate civic architecture.