07/29/2021
Dr. George Maceo Jones
Born: 8/25/1900, Died: 12/24/1970
Born in Albany, GA, to Richard and Eliza Brown Jones, George Maceo Jones enrolled in Atlanta University in 1919 and spent two years there before moving to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He earned a B.S. in Architecture there in 1924 and a M.S. in Architecture in 1925, and finally a doctorate in Civil Engineering in 1934.
In between his bachelor and masters degrees, Jones worked in Gary, Indiana, for William Wilson Cooke (1925 to 1926); in 1927, when Jones moved to Washington, DC, he worked for John Anderson Lankford, with whom he remained as an architectural draftsman until 1934.
Even before the award of his doctorate, George Maceo Jones became Dean of the Trade School at Florida Agricultural & Mechanical College in Tallahassee, FL, maintaining his connection to Lankford through the architect's office in Florida. By 1931, still with Lankford, Jones became an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture at Howard University, where he would remain until 1938, only taking his sabbatical at the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago.
After finishing his stint with Howard University, Jones returned to Chicago and maintained an independent practice there from 1938 to 1950.
In 1950 Jones entered government service as development director for the Cook County Housing Authority. Two years later he returned to independent practice, but in 1954 he became architectural advisor to the Government of Liberia, appointed by the U.S. Department of State. Later he performed this job for New Delhi, India.
Returning to Chicago, he served as engineer to the Housing and Home Finance Agency in the Public Housing Administration, retiring in 1966.
Written by Sandra L. Tatman.
Source: https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/1160308