He en­t­e­red Nor­wich Uni­ver­sity in 1861, re­mai­ning two years. In 1909 that Uni­ver­sity gave him the de­gree of Mas­ter of Sci­en­ces. He was gra­dua­ted from Am­herst Col­lege with the de­gree of Ba­che­lor of Arts in 1867, re­cei­ving the ho­no­rary de­gree of Doc­tor of Laws in 1902. In 1868 he began the study of ar­chi­tec­ture in New York and con­ti­nued that study in Flo­rence, Italy. Upon his re­turn to New York, he be­came as­so­cia­ted in his pro­fes­sion with Charles F. McKim. Two years later they were joi­ned in part­nership by Stan­ford White, under the firm name of McKim, Mead & White. Since the death of these as­so­cia­tes, Mr. Mead had con­ti­nued to prac­tice under the old firm name with men who had pre­viously been ad­mit­ted to part­nership. The firm has de­si­gned many of the most no­ta­ble struc­tu­res in the coun­try, in­clu­ding the Agri­cul­tu­ral and New York State buil­dings at the Co­lum­bian Ex­po­si­tion in Chi­cago, Bos­ton Pu­blic Li­brary, Rhode Is­land State Ca­pi­tol, Uni­ver­sity of Vir­gi­nia, Bank of Mon­treal, War Col­lege at Wa­shing­ton, D. C., and re-construction of the White House. In New York their work in­clu­ded Co­lum­bia Li­brary and other uni­ver­sity buil­dings, Ma­di­son Square Gar­den, Mu­ni­ci­pal Buil­ding, Brook­lyn In­sti­tute of Arts and Sci­en­ces, and the Uni­ver­sity, Cen­tury, Me­tro­po­li­tan, Har­vard, and Rac­quet clubs. In 1913 the Aca­demy of Arts and Let­ters, of which Mr. Mead was a mem­ber, awar­ded him its gold medal, an honor then con­fer­red upon an ar­chi­tect for the first time. He was an aca­de­mi­cian of the Na­tio­nal Aca­demy of De­sign, a sustai­ning mem­ber of the Me­tro­po­li­tan Mu­seum of Art and the Brook­lyn In­sti­tute of Arts and Sci­en­ces, and a mem­ber of the Cen­tury As­so­cia­tion, Me­tro­po­li­tan Club, Uni­ver­sity Club, and New Eng­land So­ciety of New York. He was a Fel­low of the Ame­ri­can In­sti­tute of Ar­chi­tects and ser­ved as pre­si­dent of the New York Chap­ter in 1907-08. He was pre­si­dent of the Am­herst Col­lege Alumni As­so­cia­tion of New York from 1899 to 1909. Since 1909 he had been pre­si­dent of the Ame­ri­can Aca­demy in Rome. In 1922 he was made Knight Com­man­der of the Crown of Italy by King Vic­tor Em­ma­nuel for his work of in­tro­du­cing Roman and Ita­lian Re­nais­sance ar­chi­tec­tu­ral sty­les in Ame­rica.