John Wellborn Root (1850-1891) lent his name and artistic genius to one of nineteenth-century America's most famed architectural firms, Burnham and Root. Their Chicago office designed and built some of the tallest commercial buildings in the world. Root's structural innovations helped create the first modern office blocks in history.

Root was born on January 10, 1850 in Lumpkin, Georgia. His father Sidney, who had wanted to be an architect when he was young, ran a dry-goods store. Educated at home until he was ten, Root emerged as a gifted artist as a child who loved to draw and play the piano. Eventually the family moved to Atlanta, but during the American Civil War Root was sent to England, where he stayed in Liverpool with business associates of his father's. By this time the senior Root was profiting handsomely from a fleet of ships he owned that were able to evade...