Mardi Gras Parade, New Orleans, Louisiana (LOC) http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/8385172346/
When I was a wee lass pondering my future I did what any bookish young person (pre-Google) would doI went to my local library. In this case, I went to my childhood library to interview the library director about careers in librarianship. This is the only tidbit I remember librarians love conferences.
Its true. Think about it for a moment. Librarians love information and learning new tricks of the trade and what better venue to do that in than an overly air-conditioned, poorly decorated hotel conference room in Indianapolis, Washington, D.C., or Anaheim.
Archivists also like their conferences and our big one is coming up in a few weeks. Yay, New Orleans in August! In honor of our soon to be host city I thought I would highlight some IAWA collections from the Crescent City.
One of the many institutions of higher learning in New Orleans is Tulane University. For 120 years (1886-2006) Newcomb College operated as a coordinate college of Tulane. Founded by Josephine Louise Newcombs desire to establish a college in memory of her daughter, Harriot Sophie, Newcomb College would in time flourish academically becoming by 1916 one of only seven southern schools to hold a standard college designation within the Southern Association of College Women. Two departments in particular garnered regional and even international admiration: the Department of Physical Education and the Newcomb Art School (1910-1945).
Jacobean Arm Chair, Fannie Magee Drawings, part of Ms2009-054 IAWA Small Collections.
Newcomb Studio, Fannie Magee Drawings, part of Ms2009-054 IAWA Small Collections.
Portrait of a Newcomb girl on a stool (1915), by Wanda Simmons, Newcomb College Drawings, part of Ms2009-054 IAWA Small Collections.
The Newcomb Art School offered an industrial art program featuring pottery, interior design, furniture making, and many other arts and crafts in an effort to educate women in the practical side of life, as well as, to provide employment opportunities for women when few existed. The IAWA has 16 original pencil drawings from students who attended the Newcomb Art School featuring drawings of furniture and interiors by Wanda Simmons and Fannie Magee.
Our next collection with a Big Easy connection is the Betty L. Moss Architectural Collection. Moss was an architect in New Orleans who opened her practice in the 1940s and continued until her death in 2007. A graduate of both Newcomb College and Tulane she was a proud New Orleans resident and an outspoken defender of building preservation and conservation. In October of 2005, a mere 2 months afterHurricane Katrina, she submitted designs for 3 + 4 bedroom prototype houses for the new New Orleans to city officials. These raised houses were designed to protect life and property and to fit the historic New Orleans lot sizes and aesthetic.
From Ms2008-071 Betty L. Moss Architectural Collection. Drawing of Moss’s proposed raised 3 bedroom prototype for Post Katrina New Orleans.
From Ms2008-071 Betty L. Moss Architectural Collection. Moss’s proposed integration of Harrah’s Casino into the exciting Rivergate structure.
Moss along with our third New Orleanian, Abbey Gorin, worked ardently to defend against the demolition of the Rivergate, a mid-20th century Expressionist structure that existed on Canal Street, where the main thoroughfare of the city meets the Mississippi River. The futuristic convention center designed by New Orleans architectural firm Nathaniel C. Curtis Jr. and Arthur Q. Davis lasted only 27 years before it was demolished in 1995 to make way for a Harrahs casino. Moss and Gorin wrote a six-minute film about the history and importance of the structure and it is present in Gorins collection.
Our conference hotel is just a mere 0.1 mile from Harrahs casino, and I would much rather see the undulating concrete roof line of the Rivergate, meant to mimic the Mississippi River, than the bright lights of Harrahs.
If anyone has any suggestions of what I should see and where I should eat in the City that Care Forgot please drop me a line in the comments section below.
At a time when women could find little work or credibility in the field of architecture Frank Lloyd Wright unhesitatingly employed and mentored women accepting them into his Taliesin Fellowship as peers. Over the years more than 100 women architects, designers, and artisans worked with Wright. The IAWA has architectural collections from three of these women: Eleanore Pettersen (1941-1943); A. Jane Duncombe (1948-1949); and Lois Davisdon Gottlieb (1948-1949).
From A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright by Lois Davidson Gottlieb (2001). Caption reads: “Lee Kawahara and Peter Mathews watch Mr. Wright at work on the site, making changes to the plans for one of the farm buildings.”
From A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright by Lois Davidson Gottlieb (2001). Caption reads: “Mr. and Mrs. Wright, their family, and the apprentices with their spouses and children – having Easter breakfast.”
Taliesin
Longtime proponents of Learn by Doing, Frank Lloyd Wright and his third-wife Olgivanna Wright envisioned a self-sufficient school and community where architecture and the arts would flourish. Therefore, when they established the Taliesin Fellows at Wrights summer home, Taliesin, near Spring Green, Wisconsin in 1932 they put into place a system that would emphasize painting, sculpture, music, drama, and dance in their places as divisions of architecture as well as requiring that the apprentices be responsible for the entire work of feeding and caring for the student body.
Apprentices at Taliesin worked in the gardens and fields, did laundry, cooking, and cleaning while simultaneously working on the construction, daily operations, and maintenance of the school. Taliesin quickly developed into an architectural laboratory producing some of the nations best design work and attracting talented artists and creative thinkers from around the word.
Under Wrights direction apprentices created renderings, made models, did the engineering and produced construction drawings. They supervised construction on projects like the Johnson Wax Headquarters (Racine, WI), Fallingwater (Bear Run, PA), and the first Usonian houses. In the winter of 1935, the entire Fellowship moved to Arizona, where they eventually established Taliesin West in Scottsdale (1937) after spending the first two winters in temporary quarters. The 1935 migration inaugurated the tradition of seasonally moving the school between Wisconsin and Arizona.
Wright passed away in 1959 and upon his passing the ownership of the Taliesin estate in Spring Green, as well as Taliesin West, passed into the hands of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The Foundation continues the educational mission of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship has evolved into the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.
From Ms2003-018 Eleanore Pettersen Architectural Collection. Pettersen in her studio and home a renovated 200-year-old barn in Saddle River, NJ.
Pettersen was one of the first womenlicensed as an architect in the state of New Jersey in 1950, and was the first woman in New Jersey to open her own architectural office. She primarily designed residences. Among her clients were President Richard Nixon and jazz artist George Benson. She became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1991.
Pettersen on Wright: I am a tactile person and must really enter into the process of a given field. In this case, the process is construction. In 1941, such an aspiration seemed impossible for a woman. Being an apprentice afforded me the opportunity to participate in the building process concrete, wood, electrical work, etc. This experience I have carried with me my whole life. It was the foundation of my architecture career. Mr. Wright was my architectural father and from him came my desire for excellence and architectural integrity.
Pettersen on Taliesin: It was a beautiful life. We had time for everything, time to be creative. We made our own music and entertainment, had our own dress parties. The only thing was that it was so insular; you didnt see anyone from the outside. It was like living on the moon. When I left, my bloodstream ran differently.
From Ms2002-004 A. Jane Duncombe Architectural Collection. The west elevation of the Thurkauf House, Amador City, CA designed by A. Jane Duncombe (1987).
A. Jane Duncombe (1925-); apprentice at Taliesin from 1948-1949. A. Jane Duncombe graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago’s School of Industrial Design where she studied under Marya Lilien. Lilien was the first woman to receive an architectural degree in Poland and was a Charter Apprentice at Taliesin. Lilien told Duncombe early in her studies, “You must be an architect, you have it!” Duncombe teamed up with fellow Taliesin apprentice Lois Davidson Gottlieb to form the design team Duncombe-Davidson, based in Sausalito. During their partnership (1951-1956) they designed residences in Marin County starting with the Val Goeschen house, a one-room unit with 576 square feet, in Inverness, CA. Duncombe continued to practice in the San Francisco Bay area for forty years where she completed a broad range of projects.
Duncombe on Taliesin: The impact of Taliesin was Taliesin itself. I am convinced that having lived in those incredible buildings was the teaching that was necessary. For the first time I was aware of the wonder possible in buildings. It changed the way I look at everything and I know it is essential to all of us who work with land, light, space, and materials.
From A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright by Lois Davidson Gottlieb (2001). Caption reads: “Lois Davidson weaving at the loom (Davidson was my maiden name before I married in 1955.)”
Gottlieb is a residential designer based in San Francisco, CA. After her partnership with A. Jane Duncombe (see above) she worked as a freelance designer on over 100 projects in the Bay Area and in Riverside, CA, as well as in Washington, Idaho, and Virginia. She also published several books including, Environment and Design in Housing (a book based on her lectures for a course of the same name published in 1966) and A Way of Life: An Apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright (which was based on the traveling exhibit of her photos taken while at Taliesin in the late 1940s).
Gottlieb on Wright: The first time I saw a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright it was as if I suddenly heard a Beethoven Symphony, never having listened to music before. It was the Hanna house on the Stanford campus. During my last quarter as a student there my architecture class went on a tour of the house. Stunned by the experience I had to do something about it.
Gottlieb on Taliesin: Mrs. Wright informed me, the first time that we met, that at Taliesin everything was done from scratch. We sleep in sleeping bags, weave our own cloth, grow our own food, and play live music. Fortunately, I knew how to play the piano and weave. True to my word I made new pillows for the living room.
Continuing with our Women’s History Month features, this week we’re sharing a single post-Civil War document: A claim for damages filed in Lawrence County, Tennessee, in 1868. While the item itself may seem small, it had no small meaning to Elizabeth Hughes.
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We can’t identify Elizabeth Hughes with 100% certainty, but the claim does give us some clues. We know where she lived during the war. (Lawrence County, TN, is located south and slightly west of Nashville, just on the Alabama border.) We know that she was born around 1818. Her husband, not named, enlisted in the Union army and was killed in service. And, judging by the spaces requiring a signature, she did not know how to write. Her name has been written around an “X,” indicating her mark.
However, these few tidbits can tell us a lot more about her. The U.S. Census in 1860 includes an Elizabeth Hughes who was born about 1817. She lived in a household with an “A W Hughes,” age 40, who we could guess is her husband. If so, they appear to have had five children. The National Part Service’s Civil War Soldiers and Sailors database includes only one Hughes with the initials “A W” who fought for the Union–Anderson W. (4th Tennessee Cavalry). Other genealogy records suggest they were born and married in Alabama, moving their family to Tennessee between 1847 and 1852.
On a side note, there are a few small changes on the claim, presumably made by the county clerk. Even though the form includes the phrases “he (or she)” and “man, (or woman,),” both the “he” and “man” have been crossed out. There’s no question about who this document represents.
The claim is one of many that would have been filed in states around the country following the Civil War, but it also tells an important chapter in one woman’s story. Elizabeth Hughes lost a great deal in a short period of time, including a husband and a household:
By the Burning of my House I lost all of my House hold. Kitchen Furnature Some valuable Papers and many other articles too tedious to mention Supposed to be worth about [1050.00] 6 Six Sides Leather Supposed to weigh about 18 pounds Each 108# at .50 cts per lb. 50 Bushels wheat @ $1.00 per Bushel 1 set wagon Harness for 2 Horses 1 Horse 5 Years old
She survived the war and was presumable compensated for her lost property (the claim was approved, according to the signatures on the last page). Nearly 150 years later, when this copy of her claim surfaced among unprocessed materials at Special Collections, this little piece of Elizabeth’s life gives us new insight into Reconstruction and to what it meant to be a woman reclaiming her household and identity in 1868.
