James W. McLaughlin was born on November 1, 1834, the second son of William and Mary McLaughlin. His family was "largely" Scots-Irish and his father William was an early Cincinnati merchant who had moved in 1818 to the developing city from Sewickley, Pennsylvania outside Pittsburgh. His younger sister Mary Louise McLaughlin became a ceramic artist. When the American Civil War broke out, McLaughlin left his architectural practice to serve in the Union Army. During the war he became a lieutenant in the infantry body guard of General John C Fremont. After the war he published "a book illustrated with his vivid vignettes of army life based on his experiences with General Fremont in California."
Architectural career
At the age of fifteen McLaughlin entered the tutelage of James Keys Wilson. In 1855, the first year of his independent practice, he built the dry goods store on West Fourth Street. Architect Samuel Hannaford was his rival in the city. McLaughlin's design for the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens "produced the earliest completed structures specifically for that purpose in the United States, and displayed his sense of humor and flexibility in housing specimens in buildings inspired by their geographical and ethnically associated origins."
Affiliations
McLaughlin helped organize the Cincinnati Chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 1870. He served as the group's president from 1878–1882 and 1889–1893. He was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1870, served on its board, and "was active in their national meetings, including that held in Cincinnati in 1889, when the AIA and the Western Society of Architects merged."
Projects
St. Francis Seraph Church at 1600 Vine Street in Cincinnati
Motch Jewelers building at 613 Madison Avenue in Covington, KY
Cincinnati Zoo Historic Structures at 3400 Vine Street in Cincinnati, Ohio, a luxury 10-floor building that was considered a retail palace. This was renovated and adapted for residences in what is called The Lofts at Shillito Place.
Cincinnati Gas, Coke & Light Co. building, an Italianate structure that stands at 305 West Fourth Street and Plum Street.
Hamilton County Courthouse, Ohio, a reconstruction "after a riot and fire" destroyed 30 years later
original Cincinnati Art Museum building, "the oldest extant museum building in the Midwest" that has "been almost entirely swallowed up in later additions, but his interiors have recently been restored to approximately their original form and once again demonstrate their structural, functional, and systemic validity."
