History of Women in Landscape Architecture

Women in Landscape Architecture: "Housekeepers of the World"

“Particularly Well Fitted”

Since ancient times, many cultures have associated women with nurturing and with nature. In the United States, even into the 19th and 20th centuries, this cultural idea persisted. Women were often viewed as housekeepers, morality maintainers, and patriotic teachers. Many also thought of public and private green spaces as national and cultural landscapes, even if those terms were not used at the time.

Some women believed these ideas. However, many leveraged these cultural associations with women to expand their commissions and broaden the social agenda of landscape designs, even if they did not believe those cultural ideas about women themselves. The long history of women gathering for social and civic reasons in clubs expanded to groups of women advocating for their vision public landscapes. Women in the profession of landscape architecture had varied access to formal training. Whether they or others considered themselves as “professionals,” women intentionally shaped the American landscape with a critical eye for design, paying attention to both form and function.

Collective Efforts to Transform the American Landscape

In the midst of countless individual efforts by women to shape society through landscapes, notable groups combined forces and created organizations to further their efforts.
Garden Club of America (GCA) est. 1913:
GCA raised awareness of the natural environment and conservation efforts, while also advocating for “civic planting.” The women who participated in GCA used cultural concepts about women in the domestic sphere and in gardens to expand their influence beyond those very spaces. Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959)—sole female founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1899—and other women practitioners worked with GCA as professional consultants.

Women’s National Farm and Garden Association (WNFGA) est. 1914:
WNFGA advocated for landscapes that met the needs of working-class women, fostered educational opportunities for farming and gardening, and promoted employment opportunities for women in gardening and landscape architecture. Landscape architect and writer Elizabeth Leonard Strang (1886-1948) contributed to the director’s group, while Julia Lester Dillon’s designs and writing promoted women’s roles in public and private landscapes.

Negro Garden Club of Virginia est. 1932:
The dozens of chapters the Negro Garden Club of Virginia established throughout the early to mid-20th century reflect a wide and long-standing movement throughout the nation amongst African American communities to shape the American landscape for the betterment of its residents. Women were the primary members of these club chapters, and sought to advance the club’s central goals: home improvement and beautification, community improvement, improving race relations through community spaces, and recreation and expression. A male member stated in their handbook, “It is to the everlasting credit of the women who have composed the membership that they have done so much with so little, using not only native shrubs, flowers, and trees for the improvement of planting, but also using other native resources, both human and materials, to secure the results they need.”

Designing a Better World for All Classes: Marjorie Louise Sewell Cautley (1891-1954)

Cautley grew up in a middle-class family and benefitted from an education through the mandated co-ed opportunities at land-grant universities like Cornell, graduating in 1917. She opened her own practice when her colleagues and friends advocated for her release from a sanitarium. Her husband had admitted her to the institution five years prior after she experienced a mental breakdown. In her practice, Cautley focused on urban designs, paying close attention to the needs of residents who lived in housing projects and city lots, such as garden and laundry yard space. She frequently worked pro bono for lower income communities and believed in the active participation of those she served in the design and construction process, which provided employment opportunities for those in need.

 

Judith Eleanor Motley Low:
Founded the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women in Groton, MA in 1901, only one year after Harvard’s program (men only) was established. The school is pictured in the background.

Women Trailblazers: New Paths to a "New" Profession

People have been gardening and shaping landscapes for millennia. What factors distinguished landscape architecture as a “profession” in the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S.? Public recognition, distinction from other fields, definition of purpose and identity, a canon of shared knowledge, and established standards of education and training.

New paths to the “new” profession of landscape architecture at the turn of the 20th century evolved into an increasingly exclusive method of certification by university education by the mid 20th century.

Education
Education options for women by 1900 included fine arts training, correspondence courses (accessible to the middle class), and university education. In addition to the several university options available to women through land-grant institutions, which were co-ed by law, there were some schools established specifically by and for women. One of these was the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (1916-1942) from which over 400 women graduated.

“At present, women are not welcomed in many offices [even] as draughtsmen, and not a few practitioners are sincere in advising women not to attempt either [architecture or landscape architecture]. Therefore, a student entering the Cambridge School…is of necessity a pioneer, must [have] a high enthusiasm and an unusual tenacity of purpose. Our students do not drift into their professions along the lines of least resistance, nor do they drift through this school.” –Henry A. Frost, introduction to the Alumni Bulletin of the Cambridge School, 1930

Professional Development
LECTURES: Lectures served as traveling courses for local audiences and made a way for women landscape architects to increase knowledge of the profession and to advertise their own practices as well.

WRITING: Books such as Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer’s Art Out of Doors (1893) shaped how generations of landscape architects trained within and outside of the classroom. Women landscape architects wrote prolifically for academic journals and for magazine publications, which were valuabe resources for those who could not afford to hire a landscape architect. Those audiences could still learn about design and transform their own outdoor spaces at home and in their communities.

IN PERSON TRAINING: Martha Brooks Brown Hutcheson (1871-1959) hosted professional development opportunties to young women professionals, such as a session that included networking over tea and training on how to use photography to further one’s own learning and for marketing to clients.

Mentorship
FAMILY: Elizabeth Jane Bullard (1847-1916) trained with her father Oliver Crosby Bullard, who died before completing designs in CT.

MEN: Beatrix Jones Farrand (1872-1959) trained with Charles Sprague Sargent (director of the Arnold Arboretum) between 1893-1895. He mentored her in art and in building a robust professional network before she launched her own practice in 1896 at age 24.

WOMEN: Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869-1950) hired women, especially new graduates. Florence Yoch (1890-1972) encouraged young neighbor Ruth Patricia Shellhorn (1909-2006), who became a renowned landscape architect and worked on the design for Disneyland.

Olmsted Allies
It remains unknown why there were no women designers in the Olmsted office. In spite of this, and in the midst of the inconsistent treatment of professional women in society at large, several employees from the Olmsted office had significant moments of allyship with or intentional mentorship of women in landscape architecture.

Frederick Law Olmsted: Elizabeth Jane Bullard (1847-1916) was trained by her father Oliver Crosby Bullard, who died before completing designs for Bridgeport, CT. Olmsted, Sr.—considered the “father” of landscape architecture—endorsed Bullard as successor to her father in the 1880s. He noted her training under her father and warned the park commission to “be prepared to trust much to her discretion and to support her against any possible prejudice due to the novelty of the situation in which she will be placed. It would, in my judgment, be more prudent to give her greater freedom of discretion in all matters of her duty, rather than less than you would be prepared to give a man under similar circumstances.

Warren H. Manning: On Manning’s impact on the women he trained, including Marjorie Louise Sewell Cautley, Kathleen Cutting expressed: “ There is no place I am sure where one where one could find more interesting work nor gain wider experience for here one sees and does all kinds of landscape work. Mr. Manning in the most wonderful of men to work for and with and we are to be congratulated on the opportunity we have in being here.” Manning worked prolifically in the Boston area. Between the 1910s and 1930s, he hired and trained over 45 women, giving leadership opportunities on various private and public projects. One of these women—Helen Elise Bullard—worked as a planting designer and project supervisor in Manning’s office and went on to help design the 1939 New York World’s Fair and work for the New York State Department of Public Works from 1938-1964.

James Frederick Dawson: Dawson apprenticed in the Olmsted office in 1896 and became the first associate partner with the Olmsted Brothers in 1904. He taught courses in landscape gardening and plant materials at the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women.

Arthur Asahel Shurclff: Shurcliff worked at the Olmsted office for eight years until opening his own firm in 1904. He was one of nine instructors at the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women. He nominated women, such as Martha Brookes Brown Hutcheson, for membership to the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Olmsted Brothers: The Olmsted brothers, who ran the firm under that name after their father passed away, taught and lectured in the early years of the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture for Women, providing impactful opportunities for women to train with practitioners from such an influential firm.

 

 

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