"write women" is on display in the Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library through through December 2010.
"write women" is on display in the Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library through through December 2010.
Historically denied opportunities to become architects and landscape architects, women have often influenced both professions through their writing. Along with their domestic duties, writing and art were considered acceptable areas of expertise for women and were integral parts of a proper education for a young woman in nineteenth century America. A result, perhaps unexpected, of this allowance, was that women began to not only write but also be published. Two common early themes were historical criticism of the arts and the proper management and design of the home with authors such as Mariana Van Rensselaer & Catharine Beecher attaining widespread acceptance.
With the rise of the women's suffrage movement at the turn of the twentieth century, writers such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman began to focus on issues such as how the ideas of femininity are were reflected in urban and housing design. Jane Addams began addressing the role women should take in urban reform, a role which later authors such as Catherine Bauer & Jane Jacobs would eagerly embrace.
Women would prove to be at the forefront of the environmental movement with writers such as Rachel Carson and May Thielgaard Watts, whose writings led to the restrictions of industrial chemicals and the establishment of the Rails to Trails program.
The tradition of women writers is continuing today with the likes of Beatriz Colomina, Dana Cuff & Setha Low. We have assembled some of the more prominent women writers who have influenced the design professions in the areas of Historical Criticism, Feminist Space, Urban Design and Environmental Impact.
Jane Addams (1860-1935)
Twenty Years at Hull-House - HV4196.C4H7
The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House - HV4196.C4H72
Jane Addams: A Centennial Reader - 308.1Ad21j
Catharine Beecher (1800-1878)
The American Woman’s Home - TX145.B4
Beatriz Colomina
Domesticity at War - NA7208.C589
Privacy and Publicity - NA2543.M37C65
"The Split Wall: Domestic Voyeurism" in Sexuality and Space - NX650.S8S48
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935)
The Home: Its Work and Influence - HQ734.G5
Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Utopian Novels - PS1744.G57A6
Charlotte Perkins Gilman : a Nonfiction Reader - HQ1413.G54A3
