Richard W. E. Perrin (1909-1990) was an architect and a Fellow of the American
Institute of Architects. He received many honors and held many positions of
prestige. Among these was an Honorary Curatorship of History for the Milwaukee
Public Museum, the Governor’s Award in the Arts, and was the director/commissioner
of Milwaukee’s Housing Authority and Department of City Development. He had a keen
passion for Wisconsin’s architectural history and wrote many books and articles on
the subject. Perrin also participated in the Historic American Buildings Survey. He
cataloged over 700 Wisconsin structures and completed archival record documents on
many of them for the Library of Congress. Many of the photos in this collection were
for this survey. He also included photos that appeared in the various articles or
books that he wrote.