As America’s first professional female architect, Louise Blanchard Bethune broke barriers in a male-dominated profession that was emerging as a vital force in a rapidly growing nation during the Gilded Age. Yet, Bethune herself is an enigma. Due to scant information about her life and her firm, Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs, scholars have struggled to provide a complete picture of this trailblazer. Using a newly discovered archival source of photographs, architectural drawings, and personal documents, Kelly Hayes McAlonie paints a picture of Bethune never before seen.
A comprehensive biography of the first professional woman architect in the United States, who was also the first woman to be admitted to the American Institute of Architects, this book serves as an important addition to New York and architectural history.
Kelly Hayes McAlonie, FAIA, LEED AP is the Director of Campus Planning at the University at Buffalo. Her work involves overseeing the implementation of the university’s Comprehensive Master Plan and the strategic planning for UB’s three campus environments. Kelly has dedicated her career to educational architecture and educating the public. She is a member of the Association of University Architects. In 2011, Kelly and colleague Despina Stratigakos collaborated with Mattel on the design and launch of Barbie I Can Be…Architect.
This webinar was presented as part of the Preservation League’s Preservation Book Club program. Many thanks to our sponsor, the Peggy N. & Roger G. Gerry Charitable Trust. https://www.preservenys.org/preservation-book-club
hello everyone thank you so much for joining us this afternoon my name is Katie pce and I’m the director of communications for the preservation League of New York State and we’re very happy to have you here for today’s author talk with Kelly Hayes mcalone and I do want to thank our sponsors the Peggy an and Roger ggary charitable trust who underwrite all of our preservation book club programming if you’ve made your way to our webinar but are not familiar with the league allow me to introduce you uh the preservation League of New York State empowers all New Yorkers to use historic preservation to enrich their communities protect their Heritage and build a sustainable future the league does this work in every corner of New York state in many different ways including providing grants that jump start preservation projects we advocate for preservation at the local state and National level we provide technical assistance collaborate with local colleagues across the state we award excellence in historic preservation and we’re currently looking for nominations for that program right now head to our website um we draw attention to atrisk historic sites through our 7even to sa program and we offer lots of virtual programs like the one that you are joining us for today and so what we are here today to talk about is this newly released book Louis Blancher bon bon um Every Woman her own architect um this is a comprehensive biography of the first professional woman architect in the United States who was also the first woman to be admitted to the American Institute of Architects this book serves as an important Edition to New York and Architectural history which is exactly why we wanted to invite its author to come talk to us today so Kelly Hayes mcalone uh she is the director of Campus planning at the University of Buffalo her work involves overseeing the implementation of the University’s comprehensive master plan and the strategic planning for ub’s three campus environments she’s a member of the association of University Architects and in 2011 she and her colleague collaborated with Mattel on the design and launch of Barbie I can be architect cool Kelly has also been very active in the American Institute of Architects serving as the 2008 President of AIA Buffalo Western New York 2012 president of AIA New York State and the 2016 to9 Regional representative of the AIA National strategic Council she recently served a three-year term on the national architectural accrediting board as Treasurer she also serves on the steering committee for the trail trailblazing women of Western New York an initiative of the Erie County Commission on the status of women to place monuments to women in our public realm following Kelly’s presentation today she’s going to be joined in conversation by her colleague Roxy and button roxan is an architect and sustainability consultant working in her own practice design synergies architecture in buffo New York her work is infused with a commitment to integrated project design and multi-disciplinary collaboration working on a variety of projects in both new and historic buildings the thread that ties together her three decades of diverse experience is a constant focus on the interconnections between architectural and interior design materials and occupant health and building envelope and energy conservation roxan is a longtime volunteer with AIA the US Green Building Council and the construction specifications Institute where she is advocated for continuing education and knowledge sharing across disciplines roxan founded the committee on the environment for AIA Buffalo Western New York and she currently serves on the board of directors as their president elct and so with that I would like to hand it over to roxan to give us an introduction to today’s presentation and then she’ll kick it over to Kelly thank you so much Katie welcome everybody Welcome to the preservation Bo club and our presentation by Kelly Hayes mcalone on the work and life of Louise Blanchard bethon I thought that I would uh try and set the context for the uh the era in which Louise worked and practiced in Buffalo and it was a very prosperous time in this city what set buffalo on the path to become one of the most uh one of the wealthiest and uh busiest cities in the country of that era was the opening of the Ary canal in 1825 and the um the opening up of the the Midwest through Buffalo so there was a lot of traffic through and into this city a lot of money through and into the City and that really set the stage for the city that Buffalo became and uh it was in this city that uh that Architects like uh Louis suvin um HH Richardson Daniel Burnham um Frank Lloyd Wright were all building here and all around the time that Louise lived and practiced here by 1901 B Buffalo had uh Buffalo was the eighth largest city in the United States and had over 60 millionaires so it gives you some idea of the types of buildings that were being built here the quality of the architecture and the immense importance of the city as an architectural um for its architectural landmarks so in the era when uh when Le was Louise was living and practicing in the city um it was really a remarkable time and there was uh so much going on it’s it’s hard to imagine seeing all these buildings going up around you and uh you know looking at it from our perspective now today and seeing these uh masterpieces of Architecture is certainly was remarkable to be an architect here at that time and to be a woman in architecture at that time Kelly hay maone has captured that era in her in the story of this trailblazing architect the first professional woman architect in the United States Louise Blanchard bethon and it’s a it’s a wonderful story and uh has so many interesting nuances to it and it’s uh it’s such a great um time period in this city but Louise’s story has never been truly told so I am really happy to welcome our presenter today Kelly Hayes maon thank you roxan and thank you Katie and the preservation League of New York state for inviting me uh what an honor it is to speak with you all I’m going to begin this presentation um with a um an excerpt from my book as we just talked about my book that came out in March 2023 it was June 1876 in Buffalo New York Richard weight the most prominent architect in the city was very busy the construction of the Pierce Palace Hotel was about to begin and there were other significant projects on the boards in his office weit’s exciting new projects promised to elevate his firm’s reputation beyond the confines of Western New York summer is warm and pleasant in Buffalo a welcome respit from the long and snowfill days of wintertime for the Queen City of the Great Lakes during one of these warm and busy days 19-year-old Louise Blanchard entered Wade’s office in the German Insurance building at Lafayette Square looking for employment this was most unusual because no woman architect practiced in the United States at this time or anywhere else for that matter Architects were expected to do more than just draw plans for a building they had to oversee construction negotiate rates maintain budgets to manage the entire process that goes into successfully completing an a Project women just didn’t seem to have the required capabilities to be successful Architects for starters they were thought to lack the physical stamina to work on construction sites why even their clothing which included tight corsets and long skirts with bustles precluded this kind of work the idea of a woman performing the many duties of an architect was hardly thinkable Blanchard told weit that she had wanted to be an architect since childhood she said her friends mocked her in grade school but she persevered in her ambition to pursue her dream she graduated from Buffalo High School in 1874 and continued in its 2-year college preparatory program with the intention of attending Cornell University’s newly opened architecture Department she took Advanced courses tuted other students and travel in preparation for her continued study stes she hoped waight would hire her for the summer until her program began and despite the common prejudice against women working in the profession weight hired her in June of 1876 enabling Louise to fulfill her dream and become an architect so as uh roxan gave that really wonderful um presentation on the context in which Louise lived and provide the backdrop to this work um sadly after Louise died in 1913 even though she had been a famous woman architect in the United States um certainly in Buffalo she was an unknown figure uh shortly after her death by the 1920s she was long forgotten even in Buffalo um and it wasn’t until the 1980s that she was rediscovered but this CH this paragraph here that she mostly wrote this for woman of the century from 1893 this was what we knew about Louise from pretty much her passing until um the 1980s um and onwards and it states that Jenny Louise blanch beun was born in 1856 in water New York and raised in Buffalo she moved to Buffalo at age 11 instead of attending Cornell she worked for Richard we and opened her architectural office in 1881 for the first woman to do so she married fellow architect Robert also in 1881 and he became her business partner partner they had one child Charles Louise was admitted in the waa the Western Association of Architects in 1885 and the American Institute of Architects in 1888 she designed houses factories schools and the lafet hotel she refused to compete for the Women’s Columbia Women’s uh Exposition women’s building design and she died in 1913 so up until um you fairly recently this is pretty much all we knew there there have been actually a couple of books written on vun uh with very little more information um than this but I was very fortunate um after I moved to Buffalo uh to um become friendly with a number of uh women and men who had a um close connections with Bethune and I was through that I was UN I was enabled to identify ephemera and photographs um that provided a brand new context to Louise so this photo on the upper left that you see this was the only known photo that we had of Louise and this was from the a woman of the century book uh that was published in 1893 and U that image was the only known photo that we had until 19 2010 um and another photo was identified but um when I came to um well in the 1980s 1981 the woman in the middle Adriana barbash was a buffalo based architect who was contacted by the American Institute of Architects uh asking her to research Louisa’s life and career this was in the aftermath of the second wave of feminism when the AIA was starting to think about recognizing some of its women Founders and so Adriana uh started this work and did some of the early publishing of her work she did a lot of work in identifying a number of her buildings um and whatever little information that people drew upon up until my book was obtained uh through Adriana’s B um I moved to Buffalo in in 1980 I’m sorry 1998 and I met Adriana in 2002 and she was retiring at that time and um I was very active in the AIA and so when she decided to retire she asked me if I would be interested in receiving her 20 years at that point worth of research ONN Louise which I was very happy to do so um and the first thing I did was nominate Louise successfully to the Western New York Women’s Hall of Fame and it was through that effort that I met a woman to the upper right Nancy Hur and Brady who was is the great granddaughter of uh Louise Robert’s third partner um will fols the partnership was bethume Bethune and fols and so Nancy lives in Grand Island and uh was is the great granddaughter of Will fols and she was the one who uh found in her family heirlooms a photo of L of Beth beun folks that had a frontal shot of Louise we were able to finally have a photo of her from from the front uh standing next to her business Partners at that same time I met the woman in the lower left Zena Bethune who uh was the soul a and great granddaughter of Robert and Louise she was an actor and an artist uh living in LA but she had grown up in New York she and I became very close friends and uh from about n from about 20 2004 to about 2012 we made remain in touch quite often and um sadly in 2012 uh Zena passed away she was killed in a car accident and um uh shortly after that I became friends with her husband who is in the middle picture at the bottom Sean fing and when Shan was going through Zena’s materials he found this cache of photo albums that Zena I think had long forgotten about that had photos of Louise and it was those photos that he then donated to the University of Buffalo where special collections that is now a part of the uh Louise the zena beun collection on Louise beun you can access these photos online um and in it there were o over 20 photos of Louise um and those form the bases of my book so as you can tell it has been a 20year u Endeavor of mine to not only learn learn more about Louise but understand her context and you know how it is that she became the first professional woman architect in the United States this is the photo that Nancy Hur and Brady found in her collection and you can see of course Louise standing in the middle next to her on the right to her left is Robert Bob Bethune her husband and the man on his uh left our right far right is will fols the gentleman beside Louise was an intern we don’t know his name so these are more photos that uh we have from Louise uh her um uh from the collection from Zena and I colorized these myself so uh I took a little liberty but again it was in the spirit of trying to bring Louise to um to life and provide color to her life so um what so Louise as I mentioned earlier was born in waterl New York of her to to two Educators her father and mother were both um Educators um and they moved around quite a bit they were originally from Manlius uh moved to waterl had Louise and then shortly thereafter moved to Forestville New York which is in chaga County um and Louise was a sickly child as as a little one and she was homeschooled by her mother and uh right around the a her the age she was of seven a number of things happened that were very traumatic to Louise first of all her father was conscripted into the Civil War uh we don’t know if he served but he was conscripted um and then second uh they the Edwin and um Emma her parents had I’m sorry um Dar Darman and her parent her mother Emma had two children claraa and Edwin Blanchard and within a year of uh their birth uh Edwin passed away he died before his first birthday and then Clara passed away not long before her fifth birthday so within the span of from the age of about 7 to 11 years of age uh Jenny Louise who had been born as a sickly child uh went from being very isolated from the rest of her extended family moved around a lot her father may or may not have been home she had went from being an only child to being the eldest of two presumably sickly children and then by the age of 11 was back to being an only child again so she had a very close relationship with her parents they were her strongest support and that relationship injured throughout her entire life in fact she and and Robert lived with her parents um pretty much until um her father passed away um sorry um and so when Louise uh States from woman of the century that she had acquired the habits of study and self-reliance which led her through school life to disregard the usual class Criterion one can imagine how her background fed into that being a homeschooled uh being a daughter of two Educators and then you’re living through this this very traumatic childhood she learned to be you know a strong person uh and independent thinker on her own and but why Louise we we know why the person she had the right personality obviously and what was it about um this particular person what was the context that enabled her so first of all roxan mentioned location Buffalo was a very rapidly growing city it was a city whose um uh Business Leaders uh had a strong interest in architecture and saw that architectural growth was part of demonstrating not only the prosperity of the city but also of themselves so they were very interested in the work in Chicago and in New York and very much wanted to see buffalo in that realm she had a willing Mentor uh Richard Wade as I mentioned who was unafraid to hire her initially and then was a Hands-On Mentor throughout her career she had a very strong support system her parents as I mentioned were devoted and they actually financially supported her and then she had independent clients uh so originally government but then uh as her career progressed uh they became more independent uh Business Leaders so these are this is her Mentor Richard weight and this is weight’s Mentor John Kellum um in the book I go into depth about uh weight’s background and kellums um but Kellum was the most important one of the most important architects in New York in the Gilded age and he hired weight in the 1860s um to uh and trained him um in in um um in architecture and it was a really important time in New York as many of you are probably aware I I’m I’m disappointed there aren’t more books on Architects and architecture from um the uh era right after the the Civil War in the 1860s but during this era when weight was in uh New York coming from Buffalo um uh New York was deeply in transition where young women were flocking to the city either their uh parents their father their husband their uh Brothers their uh bow had been killed in the Civil War or they just wanted excitement but they flocked to this city which was a growing industrial city and many of them worked in the these new department stores or they worked in domestic service or they worked in factories uh one of um kum’s uh main clients was a man named Alexander Stewart who was the first Mr Selfridge of his day the steward’s department store and so uh Steward knowing that uh women uh were in Peril living in the city if they weren’t in living in the the right boarding house uh or even going to work they could be compromised he uh pay he hired Kellen to design the first working women’s Hotel uh sadly the project failed both Kellum and Stewart died right around the time that it opened and it failed shortly after but I think that this is partly why weit was interested and willing to hire Louise because he had seen women uh in New York during his time their you know struggle for Independence um and he wanted to help uh someone and he had also been assisted as a young person by Kellum this is a photo of Louise I think it may have been her wedding photo um but uh I’ve been able to identify through various sources um uh various clubs and whatnot um that she was part of that she was a very athletic person which is noteworthy because of the fact that she’d been a sickly child but also of course during the Gilded Age um uh when women were not known to to be uh terribly athletic but she was the first woman in Buffalo to own her own bicycle and she rode her bicycle around town to the office on construction site and we have multiple award uh multiple newspaper articles where this is described and Robert who is standing again I think this was their wedding photo Robert this is Louise in the red and Robert into her back he was another part of her sta support system their marriage actually feels much more contemporary marriage that you might see now between uh two architects um he where Louise was the and they were a perfect couple in many ways where she was energetic the leader the natural leader he was more empathetic uh she was self-confident ambitious assertive uh Robert was more artistic um he was very much involved in theater um and uh was constantly put people’s lives in particular his wife’s well-being in front of his own so she was the one who was quick was funny was witty was um a true leader and he was the one who really was the closer in the relationship and and he repeatedly sacrificed his own career for Louise’s um so Louise and Robert began their practice in 1881 as I mentioned and by 1884 um a group of Chicago Architects namely Louis Sullivan Daniel Burnham and John root created the Western Association of Architects um this was a in answer to the American Institute of Architects that had been founded in 1856 but uh was felt to be rather conservative elitist uh and based on the coast primarily Philadelphia Boston New York Washington DC uh so architects in Chicago Cincinnati St Louis were interested in uh found find founding a much more Progressive uh Association of Architects and this is at a time when lure was not um there was no such thing as architectural lure so being admitted to a professional association was very important indeed Louise and Robert as soon as the waa was founded they immediately applied um and uh Louise and Robert traveled to Chicago and met directly with SU Burnham and root to strategize how Louise could be admitted into the association um and they develop a strategy where Robert for the first time would would actually resend his application so that nobody would claim that she was writing on his code strings and code tail sorry and he she had submitted her application alone and this is a wonderful quote um uh that the entire membership was asked um if if if they were supportive of a woman becoming a member of the waa and when a member asked if what the board thought Burnham who was the president of the board stated we are all agreed we are very much in favor of it and so the member wrote If the lady’s practicing architecture and is in good standing there is no reason why she should not be one of us she has done work by herself and been very successful she’s unanimously elected a member uh and then immediately after that uh the secretary who was um uh Sullivan changed the bylaws to as a gender neutral so instead of referring to an architect member as a male refered to as a person so uh they the three of them were very strong supporters of Louise from 1881 to uh the time that Louise passed away in in 1913 uh I’ve been able to identify 180 projects and 30 of them are extent um most of them in Buffalo or in in the in the region there’s a number of projects now uh the first one that I think is really really interesting was a renovation and major addition this is the largest uh housing project she did domestic project for Horatio Brooks in dunker New York and so she took this the 1850s Italian 8 uh Manor home and um turned it into this queen and mansion that looks very similar to some of the Peabody and Sterns mansions that you’ll find um in Rhode Island uh she did the Kellogg residence which is standing in 1887 in Buffalo New York another queen an brick building her favorite typology was uh schools educational she often credited that um because of being the daughter of Educators um but she stated that because she was a woman AR the first woman architect she did not have the luxury of um specializing in any particular Branch so I as an educational architect and the beneficiary of of her trailblazing she did some institutional work this was the 74th regiment Armory um an Elmwood in Buffalo New York this was only used as an Armory for a few years and then it then there was a new Armory built down near Front Park and so uh once the Armory was um moved to a larger location this became the Elwood Music Hall so it is a testimony to the to the skills of Bethune the two beun that they created an Armory that could then had the acoustical properties enough to be a a musical and that musical this music hall was demolished and replaced by a kleinan musical so um very significant indeed the the her most important building certainly was the hotel Lafayette and that opened in 1904 and it was in a u French Renaissance style and when it opened it was considered one of the most spectacular hotels in the country here’s the building when it opened in 190 4 um and immediately upon its opening uh the owners commissioned uh cons uh the Consultants Bethune beun and fols to design an addition but we even though they were a partnership and with every partnership it is difficult to know who did what work um from her records I’m able to identify the fact that she was the lead designer on this project and in fact the addition which is to the left in this image was probably the last project that she worked on and a trip to Chicago to explore hotels um right around 1910 1911 may very well have been the trip that led to her ultimate demise there’s an interior photo this uh Hotel sat dormant for a number of years uh but in um in 2011 and 2012 it was beautifully restored with um New York State historic tax credits I might add by rockco coery uh and um it was restored to its original grander so here’s an photo down um Peacock Alley as it was known main Corridor of the building and this was where many of the women visitors clients would come and sit and take their tea in the afternoons some of the other work that they did commercial building this was the the Daniels building Denton uh ker Daniels building it was a music department store located right next to one of the Shay theaters uh and this was uh the first reinforced steel concrete uh structure uh to be built in Western New York and this was in 1909 another uh department store the bricka and enus building uh which is on Main Street and it is standing directly next to uh the Market Arcade and in fact both these buildings now are they function as one building the Market Arcade and the what was the bricket and enus building so you can see an image from a newspaper article on the left the rendering and on the right is how the building looks today so beun is known for two things that she did uh being the first professional woman architect first woman admitted to the AIA to the um the waa she was also known as the architect of the wonderful Hotel Lafayette and she was known for something she did not do which was she chose chose to not compete in the women women’s building at the Colombian Exposition um and there were two main reasons for it uh despite the fact that her old friends Daniel Burnham and John root were leading the initiative um and they were hand selecting The Architects to design the White City um the woman’s building was being led by a separate board called the board of Lady managers and that was led primarily by a series of socialites from Chicago one of them being a woman named Bera Palmer and Palmer insisted that the uh women the architect first he insisted that the architect be a woman that was a good thing but then she insisted that there be a design competition for the woman architect of the building and first of all beun fat didn’t believe in competitions neither did the AIA at the time neither did Burnham at the time um but in addition to the fact that she had to compete the the winning fee for the architect of the woman’s building would receive only 10 only $11,000 as opposed to the $10,000 of the male architects who were hand selected so she refused on uh Equity uh pay equity and she also refused on um principal in terms of design competitions uh s Nat the she spoke about it very often at the time and she even stated that the idea of a separate women’s board uh expresses a sense of inferiority Which business women are far from feeling um those of you who know this story it’s told in the White City if you know that at all but it’s a it’s a really you know tragic story The the woman who won the competition uh was um a just a recent graduate from um MIT and uh she um she was continually undermined by Palmer and the rest of the committee and she just did not have the Professional Knowledge and confidence to uh battle such an experienced person um and in the middle of construction ended up walking into Daniel Burnham’s office the construction site and had a nervous breakdown and never practiced again so Bethune was right to uh to sound the alarm and of course many newspapers at the time questioned the value of even a woman being an architect because uh this particular woman couldn’t withstand um the scrutiny of the client um and um she never practiced architecture again so it was a it was a a very sad story um and Bethune kept that story with her till the day she died another great thing that beun did though was she was as I mentioned the first professional woman I’m sorry the first woman to own a bicycle in Buffalo and um she was a founding member of the women’s wheel and athletic club which um bicycling as those of you may know uh Susan banthony F famously stated that she thought the bicycle had done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world so here’s a photo of Louise on her bicycle um and I love this quote about Louise how she goes from place to place on her bicycle which she finds a great convenience Mrs bisuna is full of ideas clever well read she devotes herself almost entirely to her work rarely going out on Pleasure bent and finds her lot a very happy and S satisfactory one she was uh um she her her bicycle that she purchased was in 1888 and um the club was O uh was intact until uh 1896 and then they they decided to um to fold uh but they created they were created by professional women Physicians principals teachers uh an architect dentists the first women first woman dentists in Buffalo were members of the bicycling club and it was to provide respectability to the sport so that other women could also uh enjoy the sport and they would go on Long rides on Saturday mornings they would start out at 6:00 in the morning and they would ride from downtown Buffalo to Lockport East aora Niger Falls um you know these are 20 30 mile uh bike rides that they would take so you really impressive uh that they did but sadly um by 1910 1911 uh she started to slow down and she had a number of uh balls and illnesses in that time uh that um that left her bedridden in the last couple of years of her life and so this was a really sad letter quote from a letter that she wrote to a family member saying that she’d been a hardworking professional for 35 years but shall I shall only putter from now on so this photo I think was taken on that last trip to Chicago that she took um and within 6 months she was bedridden and she never practiced again after that um and this uh here I’ll close with this wonderful photo of Louise Katie mentioned in my bio that I am um working with the trailblazing women of Western New York and this is a statue down at Old County Hall that we have just placed to Louise the opening of this new park will happen in August and we’re also placing the statue to Mary Talbert uh who was an early civil uh rights uh women’s rights and anti- lynching um campaigner during the Gilded Age and Geraldine s green a uh a leader in the heson nation and member of the Sena Sena Community um so um we’re very very proud to um to continue the work of researching Louise’s life and career and to present to all of you about this so thank you very much I will stop sharing and and um ask roxan if she has any questions thank you Kelly and while we’re um waiting for everyone to to put their questions in the chat um I I spent this morning walking around downtown Buffalo with uh an old friend from Canada who’s an interior designer and who specializes in hotels so of course the first place we went was Hotel Lafayette she was so excited to see it uh we also walk through buildings by Burnham and Sullivan all built while Louise was practicing here and that’s one thing I have found striking about uh Louis’s career was the era in which she worked um and who her contemporaries were uh including HH Richardson and Frank Lloyd Wright who are all building in Buffalo at the same time um can you tell us more uh about what you’ve maybe found in your research um about her her connections with any of these leading Architects did she have any working relationships did she know them did she avoid them um what was that that working atmosphere like at the time sure thank you uh so Louise was the founder of the AIA Buffalo Western New York Chapter so the first thing that she did when she was admitted to the Western Association of Architects was she was placed on the membership committee and she was um charged with creating a chapter in Buffalo and um that from that Richard Wade joined uh some of the famous architects of our era from that era in Buffalo eie green Edward Kent they all became members um of the chapter and I think a lot of it had to do with Louise so she was I think it was a in Buffalo it was a very small close-knit a cordial group of mostly men but um you know Architects and they were very supportive of for she said that multiple times um now regarding the the national Community um we’ve got evidence that she was particularly close with Burnham and John root in particular so root um when she when she was nominated to when she submitted to the AIA in 1888 John root not only wrote a letter in support of her but he also advocated that um that she be admitted as a fellow so the AIA did not do that they admitted her as an associate but uh root strongly supported her in that regard and then when they went to Chicago to meet with Burnham Sullivan and root the my sense was that Burnham in particular and root were the ones who were the masterminds behind her being admitted to the AIA or to the waa and then regarding the Colombian Exposition uh we have evidence that points to the fact that root had been lobbying berth of Palmer to hire a woman architect and that probably would have been Louise but sadly he passed away he he was he died of an infection during that terrible during that time when the Architects were just joining in 1891 and when the colum the women’s building competition was um in development and after root passed away Palmer wasn’t uh interested in talking with Burnham but Burnham reached out to Louise and asked her if she would submit for the competition so he also tried to get Louise the commission and when he was unsuccessful he tried to enlist her to submit in the competition she refused so my oh and then the other thing I will say is that we have records that after the 74th Armory open opened the um the Western Association of Architects came to Buffalo uh to you know on a trip and many of them Ted the 74th Armory hotel and they were very complimentary the project so I again I think it was very cordial very warm um and she you know I sadly I I have not found a letter from you know her and Ruth that’s been my my goal that has I haven’t found it but but my sense is that it was a very friendly relationship that that really is remarkable given the era and the struggles that women had uh in other areas of their life and certainly the practice of Architecture is not where you expect women to be welcomed um so that’s really an interesting story to hear I will say this sorry um that after the AIA and the waa emerged in 1889 Louise was less engaged in the in the profession so I don’t get the sense that in fact AIA hosted its convention in Buffalo in 19 1901 I think and she didn’t even bother to attend oh wow she was still a member but she didn’t bother to attend so uh it really dropped off after um after the after the merger so I my sense she was closer to the Chicago Architects also the East Coast Architects that’s an inter in comment on the AIA isn’t it uh her her stand against the women’s design competition at the PanAm that you talked about um it’s easy to look back on that now and interpret it as a stand for the rights of women um I really love that Susan B Anthony quote that showed about how uh the bicycle was a great symbol of freedom for women was Louise an advocate for Women Within the profession uh and for women at large right well thanks for that question that so that’s been something that I have spent a lot of time thinking about previous biographers um have stated that she was agnostic if not somewhat antagonistic towards women’s rights in fact uh one biographer stated that she was not a feminist so first of all she wouldn’t have known what that word was because the term feminism really was did not become part of our vocabulary till after Louise had passed but um when I look at the the many um the many tracks of the women’s movement from that era I would say she absolutely was so she was a strong believer in personhood she was a strong believer in education and co-education so she was a stange Advocate uh she reached out to many deans of architecture at the time asking if they had uh enrolled women and if they had enrolled them in to have if they would and she advocated that the women share the studio space with the male Architects she of course was an activist in terms of um professional life she spoke regularly and often to to high school girls about um how to become an architect and just about being a professional and she um was a staun supporter of um of I want to say Dr reform but just by being an architect um and appearing to on construction sites and riding around a bicycle in a dress she was demonstrating what a woman in a dress could do but she she was not she was outspoken in many ways but she felt and many Architects still feel that way that she didn’t have the luxury to be political so she you she I can’t say that she was a suffragist that was a very political that was a political line she she wasn’t prepared to cross um but um but all other aspects all of all of the other tracks uh of the feminist movement from that era she absolutely was engaged I always think of those pictures of um of Julia at uh the hearse Castle on the construction site in her corset and long dress and it’s just a it’s remarkable that women at that era the very few that there were were were actually able to function on construction sites and make their way uh so it’s a it’s a really interesting story to hear about all of these remarkable women um what do you think Bon’s Legacy is to the architectural profession I mean she really wasn’t known for such a long time and her Mark was so important but it kind of disappeared with her right and it’s so it’s hard to call her a Trailblazer when nobody followed directly behind her right she really didn’t blaze a trail that others followed immediately behind I and sometimes I I I think of it almost as a unicorn she um she I she she was just a unique person who did an extraord AR thing and um sadly it was forgotten about but I feel like her story actually resonates now maybe more than it would have then yeah and so I feel that her Legacy is now being realized by Architects like you and me not necessarily women who were her direct um um you know her direct descendants descendants yeah um Edward I hope I don’t mess up the pronunciation of your last name Edward motowski in the the chat said in 1974 on my way to college by train terminating at Central Terminal I stayed overnight at the Lafayette hotel before proceeding to the bus terminal on Main Street my question was uh who was the client for the Lafayette hotel and was being a woman in issue uh thank you uh so that’s an interesting story so there was the initial investors were a um a Consortium of uh several Business Leaders from Buffalo one of them being a man named Joseph Oaks and uh they had hired he had hired beun first of all Beuna beun designed his house they also designed um a factory um uh a coffee factory that um that Oaks had um operated and um they were initially h Ed to be the Consultants Bethune and Bethune and fols um they did an initial rendering and then uh the consortion wasn’t able to raise the funding uh to to proceed with the project then they hired or they they they ended up merging with another Financial partner from Boston who wanted to bring in Peabody and Stern to do the work so beum Beuna folks was off the project for a period of time and part of that was you know we wanted a famous architect we wanted an Hotel architect um they got brought in we have actually have the renderings of what that hotel was that they designed the rendering for it uh again they started construction put a hole in the ground uh and then the project stalled for several years so it wasn’t until um 1901 that they were able to the the partners were able to identify a a Financial partner and that was uh the um malt liquor distributor named Walter Duffy in um in Rochester and you may know him because his great-grandson was Robert Duffy Duffy previous lieutenant governor of New York state so anyway Duffy ended up becoming uh the business uh the financial partner the backer who saved the project and and beun and Bethune were rehired to do it and my understanding there was no issue at all and in fact Walter Duffy commissioned a project in Rochester and I forgotten the name of it but it looks it has an uncanny resemblance to the hotel Lafayette but it was not designed by Beth beun and fols so but it was in the French Renaissance style speaking of of Julia Morgan uh someone asked in the Q&A by how many years did Louisa’s work predate Julia Morgan’s work on Hurst Castle I don’t the dates right well so Louise’s dates her practicing dates were 1881 to 1913 and Morgan uh her castle would have been in the 20s um and I think she uh graduated from the kib bzar right around 1908 or something in that range sometime around there I think yeah yeah so by I you know I don’t know if Louise would have known about Julia because Julia just would have been by the time Louise was no longer practicing you know Lou Julia was still a very um young architect so but she was very much in touch with other women architects from her era manura Parker Nichols uh was one um there there’s about I’ve C calculated there were about 25 women architects who were practicing uh in the 1800s in in the yeah a lot more than you think but there only one AIA member until Lois how in 1901 so Louise was the only woman architect admitted to the AIA in the 1800s even though there were 25 women at least 25 women architects I’m sure there are some that I just don’t know about that’s remarkable because it’s we talk now about the number of women in our profession and how uh when you and I were in school more than half of our class was female and uh if you look at our class 10 15 20 years after we graduated not so many of us are still in the profession so that’s been a a a continuing issue um having longevity in the profession for sure yep in any of your research did you find anything about um Louise having a favorite building you talked about her really enjoying working on schools because of her parents being teachers do she have a single favorite a favorite child in all of her buildings uh in her obituary had stated that she took special pride in the hotel lafette is that your favorite as well yeah it’s hard not to uh but I I quite like I yeah I mean that that one it it it stands on its own um but there are some other buildings that I think are quite lovely I really love the the the yay grocery which now is the Amora Cafe on Ashland and Bryant that’s a really sweet sweet little building uh but I actually don’t know if she designed it’s quite possible that will fols her partner did because he lived in that neighborhood um and the original owner uh was German was very very um very well known in the German community oh and boy here we go why do females do the Prof I that one oh boy yeah lifestyle uh needing to to at some point I would say Lifestyle the long hours a lack of pay um the historically the lack of um the lack of flexibility uh in the profession especially when it comes to uh climbing the corporate ladder there are many other rocks you want to add a few oh gosh um well those are kind of the the primary ones it is very difficult it’s a difficult profession to progress to the higher levels in and uh even those who are single or don’t have families find it extremely difficult it’s a very competitive profession if you’re working in a large firm uh it’s it’s difficult to climb that ladder if you are self-employed as I am it’s very hard to to start to maintain a high level of practice uh and you know we have a lot of friends and colleagues over the years who have gone into Allied fields we have friends whove become set designers um academics uh they’re still somehow connected to the professions to design but um not actually practicing architecture right and I I think also um the the profession is um uh it’s really difficult to leave the profession and then rejoin so once you leave whether it’s hard to take like you a 5year sabatical you know to have your children when they’re young and come back like you can in education and other fields because it’s a type of profession where the knowledge is continuous and it’s accumulating so when you when you when you re-enter you really re-enter you you don’t get to you don’t get to come back where you left off you have to almost start again sure um we we have just a few minutes left so if there are any other questions please do put them in the chat um I I think we may have touched a little bit about this but you talked about um there being 25 other women who are practicing around the same time and then it just seemed like a long period of of not hearing about anybody like decades of not hearing about anybody um in your research was there anything that stood out to you I mean you’ve talked a bit about why Louise is Louise was kind of set up for success in a lot of ways and she was very fortunate in that sense was there anything you found that um showed that Louisa’s work or her career may have inspired other women to enter the profession well I’m not have not been able to find any women in the buffalo area who who pursued architecture after her so that would have in fact I’m embarrassed to say this but you you know this I’m the first fellow to be I’m first woman to be admitted to the College of fellows since Louise so um it is I know that again she was she corresponded with manova Parker Nichols excuse me and um and she was based in Philadelphia um and I know there was another um architect named Sally Smith who was a member of the Western Association of Architects with her and she was based in Alabama but I don’t have any uh any other knowledge of any other women that that she um that she’s deliberately spoke with if she did have a connection it probably was indirect by her advocacy to Deans so there were deans of or heads of schools from Syracuse Cornell who were active in what became the Western New York state of Architects the Buffalo Society of Architects ended up spreading to from Buffalo to Syracuse roughly and so um she did she definitely reached out to some of those heads of um architecture to advocate for a women to be admitted and for co-education and so I think if if the if there was any direct relationship that probably would have how is how it would have happened and I I’m not aware of any women architects who’ve ever cited her as a as an influence interesting is there any anything else that you didn’t cover in your presentation that you’d like us to know about Louise um I guess I’ll just say that learning about her and has really enriched my career um and my life and um I I feel like I learn lessons every day on you know thinking about your like long-term uh why I pursue architecture why it’s important to me and um you know why I’m so glad I became an architect so thank you thanks thank you thank you so much Kelly and thank you roxan for moderating this conversation um and to add to that sentiment Kelly also buy the book if you are interested in learning more buy the book you can get a copy on the internet I Dro that in the chat and you can also find a link on our website um it’s always good to learn more things and to explore this history and Kelly thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us uh Roxy and for joining us in this conversation thank you all for tuning in hopefully you can join us for another program sometime in the future until then uh keep reading and uh let us know if there’s any other books that we should be putting on our list thank you all for joining have a good afternoon