John H. Edelmann was a socialist-anarchist who worked as an architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 in the office of Alfred Zucker, a successful commercial architect of the 1880s and 1890s in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. As an architect, Edelmann's sole surviving monument is the former headquarters of the Decker Brothers

Decker Brothers

Decker Brothers was an American piano manufacturer located in the John H. Edelmann designed Decker Building in New York, New York, on the national register of historic places...

 Piano Company, the Decker Building

Decker Building

The Decker Building, periodically also named the Union Building, located at 33 Union Square West in Manhattan, New York City was built in 1892 for the Decker Brothers piano company, to designs by the radical anarchist architect John H. Edelmann, working in the office of Alfred Zucker...

 (1893), at 33 Union Square

Union Square (New York City)

Union Square is a public square in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York.It is an important and historic intersection, located where Broadway and the former Bowery Road – now Fourth Avenue – came together in the early 19th century; its name celebrates neither the...

 West, New York. Paul Sprague, a professor of architectural history at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, reports that Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan

Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...

 credited Edelmann with the idea for his maxim, "Form follows function

Form follows function

Form follows function is a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose....

," a watchword of Modernism.

Before coming to New York, Edelmann had worked as a draughtsman for the Chicago architects William LeBaron Jenney and Dankmar Adler

Dankmar Adler

Dankmar Adler was a celebrated German-born American architect.-Early years:...

. It was Edelmann who introduced the young Louis Sullivan to Adler, with whom he formed a partnership. The late Prof. Donald Egbert of Princeton indicates that Edelmann came to New York in 1886 to work in the mayoral campaign of Henry George

Henry George

Henry George was an American writer, politician and political economist, who was the most influential proponent of the land value tax, also known as the "single tax" on land...

, the most influential proponent of the "Single Tax" on land

Land (economics)

In economics, land comprises all naturally occurring resources whose supply is inherently fixed. Examples are any and all particular geographical locations, mineral deposits, and even geostationary orbit locations and portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Natural resources are fundamental to...

, also known as the land value tax

Land value tax

A land value tax is a levy on the unimproved value of land. It is an ad valorem tax on land that disregards the value of buildings, personal property and other improvements...

. Edelmann worked in the offices of Alfred Zucker from 1891 to 1893.

The Socialist Labor Party expelled him for his outspoken anarchist ideas, and so he and a group of anarchists founded a Socialist League

Socialist League

Socialist League may refer to one of several organisations:*Socialist League *Socialist League *Socialist League *Socialist League *Socialist League *Socialist League...

 in 1892. He was on hand to welcome the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin

Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...

 on his first lecture tour in America; Kropotkin stayed in the Edelmann apartment on East 96th Street during his stay. Edelmann had married Rachelle Krimont, an Eastern European immigrant whose family were radicals. In 1893 he and other radicals published an anarchist journal Solidarity, and after it folded his contributed articles to The Rebel, published in Boston. These activities brought him into the circle of the eminent American anarchist and writer Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....

.

Edelmann died during the deadly heat wave of July 1900. After his death his widow took their children to England, and brought them up at Whiteway Colony

Whiteway Colony

Whiteway Colony is a residential community in the Cotswolds in the parish of Miserden near Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. The community was founded in 1898 by Tolstoyans and today has no spare land available with over sixty homes and one hundred and fifty colonists...

.