The company was founded as a partnership in 1889 by the "preeminent American Ecclesiastical Gothicist"[1] Ralph Adams Cram and Charles Francis Wentworth.

[2][3] Hoyle, Doran and Berry, Inc. the partnership formed by Alexander Hoyle and John Doran continuing the unbroken succession descending from original Cram collaborators in 1958, HDB/Cram and Ferguson was the partnership of David H. Hulihan long time employee of Cram and Ferguson and Ethan Anthony AIA.

That partnership was reformed in 2008 on the retirement of President David H. Hulihan and the firm reverted to its traditional name of Cram and Ferguson Architects under the leadership of Ethan Anthony AIA.

In 1931, in Cram's waning years, Arthur Tappan North wrote in his Monograph on the firm's work:[4] Some architectural styles such as the Gothic manifestations in several countries, were invented for and dedicated to a specific use which has continued to this day in the original or modified forms.

Dr. Cram is equally distinguished for his contributions to architecture, which, although predominantly ecclesiastical in character, embrace many building projects of different types.