Even in the twentieth century it may be said that part of the profound difference between a Wright and a Perret lay in the fact that one had the tradition of the English Gothic Revival in his blood—largely through reading Ruskin—while the other had not (see Chapters 18 and 19). Still later, the California ‘Bay Region School’ of the 1930s and 1940s implies a Gothic Revival background, however little its leaders may be aware of the fact; the coeval ‘Carioca School’ of Brazil manifestly has no such background (see Chapter 25). It is therefore of more consequence to see how the ideals of the Picturesque, and concurrently the anti-Picturesque doctrines of the Gothic Revival, were accepted in the United States, than to give comparable attention to Europe, where neither the Picturesque nor the Gothic Revival were very productive of buildings of distinction. For that matter, most of the American buildings that fall under these rubrics are but feeble parodies of English originals. The Greek Revival architects of America were no unworthy rivals of the Europeans of their day; the exponents of the Picturesque and the followers of Pugin—sometimes the same men—produced little of lasting value. But when seen in relation to the later development of the American house, the contribution of the Picturesque period, lasting in America down to the Civil War and even beyond, is of real significance (see Chapter 15). There was not much eighteenth- or very early nineteenth-century Gothick of consequence in America. Latrobe’s Sedgeley of 1798, Strickland’s Masonic Hall in Philadelphia of 1809-11, and Bulfinch’s contemporary Federal Street Church in Boston were none of them of much intrinsic interest, and all are now destroyed. Other early manifestations of the Picturesque were even rarer, and it was not until the thirties that a concerted Gothic movement got under way. Haviland’s Eastern Penitentiary of 1821-9 was very modestly Castellated; Strickland’s St Stephen’s in Philadelphia, a rather gaunt two-towered red-brick structure of 1822-3, more or less Perpendicular, represents but a slight advance in plausibility over his Masonic Hall. The finest works of the next decade are a group of churches in and around Boston, all built of granite. Willard’s Bowdoin Street Church in Boston of 1830 and St Peter’s of 1833 and the First Unitarian or North Church of 1836-7, both in Salem, Mass., are the best extant examples (Plate 55A). The material discouraged detail, but provided, when used rock-faced, an almost antediluvian ruggedness. Tracery is generally of wood and much simplified; the most characteristic decorative features are very plain crenellations and occasional quatrefoil openings. Thus, on the whole, these monuments are closer to Romantic Classicism than to the Picturesque and have little in common with English work of their own day or even of the preceding period. However, the wooden Gothic of this period is in general of a rather lacy Late Georgian order.[127]