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Hired in 1906 as assistant to the chief designer, by 1909 Abele (pronounced "able") himself was the chief designer at the Philadelphia firm. Following Trumbauer's death in 1938, he and William Frank ran the firm. The public buildings in which Abele's was the guiding hand include the main building of the Free Library of Philadelphia and many on the campus of Duke University-formerly Trinity College. (Before the university project, Trumbauer's firm designed New York and New Jersey residences for tobacco magnate James B. Duke.)

About 1924 Abele started the Duke University plans and continued this work for more than 20 years. He added 11 Georgian-style structures to the existing east campus and 38 Gothic-style buildings, including the chapel, to the new west campus, according to Dreck Spurlock Wilson's entry about Abele in Vol. 1 of the African American National Biography (2008). Though the main building of the Free Library of Philadelphia was a less time-intensive commission, the results were no less elegant.

Free Library of Philadelphia and Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Free Library of Philadelphia (1921-1927) measures 300' x 200' x 100'. Its $6.3 million cost included the site, construction and furnishings. Exterior features of this Greek Revival building of Indiana limestone on a granite base include huge Corinthian columns, hand-carved friezes and large wrought-iron gates at the entrance. Inside, a grand marble staircase and intricate plaster ceilings and friezes are some of the delights.

Two 18th-century Parisian facades designed by Jacques-Ange Gabriel, King Louis XV's architect, inspired Abele in fashioning the library. Abele again turned to the neoclassical theme when the Trumbauer firm and the firm of Zantzinger, Borie and Medary created the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Though this Greek Revival building was dedicated on March 26, 1928, only the exterior was complete. Work on the interior continued for more than two decades.

Parents, Education and Marriage

Born in Philadelphia in 1881, the eighth child of Charles and Mary Adelaide Jones Abele, Abele graduated from the Institue of Colored Youth about 1898. In 1898 he completed an architectural drawing class at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. He attended the Brown Preparatory School. In 1902, after four years of study at the University of Pennsylvania, he received his B. S. in architecture, the first black to do so at that university. (As an undergrad, he had worked part-time for architect Louis Hickman.)

Before joining Trumbauer's firm, he traveled to Europe, visiting France and other countries. Trumbauer is said to have paid for his architecture classes in Paris. In 1925 Abele, who spoke fluent French, married white Parisian musician Marguerite Bulle, wrote Susan E. Tifft and Lucinda Moore in their February 2005 article about him in Smithsonian magazine. By 1933 their marriage had collapsed. Julian Jr. and Nadia Boulanger, two of their three children, lived to adulthood.

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