Asher Benjamin (1773-1845), an American architect, educated two, and possibly three, generations of 19th-century architects through his writings.

Asher Benjamin's importance to the architectural profession can be understood only in relation to late-18th-and early-19th-century trends. All architectural thought from the 14th to the mid-18th century was dominated by the writings of the Roman architect of the Augustan Age, Vitruvius. Sir Christopher Wren (1631-1723), his follower James Gibbs (1683-1754), and the 18th-century "Palladians," including Colen Campbell, were the last of the major English Vitruvians. Gibbs and Campbell published architectural books from which lesser-known architects copied, and these books were imported to the United States. Benjamin adapted many of the designs to American use; he changed the stone details of expensive, monumental English buildings to constructions in wood to fit the scale and finances of the New England communities. Benjamin stated in his The American Builder's Companion...