Louise Blanchard Bethune

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Blanchard_Bethune

Louise Blanchard Bethune (July 21, 1856 – December 18, 1913) was the first American woman known to have worked as a professional architect. She was born in Waterloo, New York. Blanchard worked primarily in Buffalo, New York and partnered with her husband at Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs.

Hotel Lafayette

Her work includes the Hotel Lafayette. The Buffalo Meter Company Building was renamed Bethune Hall in her honor by the University at Buffalo. It is now being redeveloped into the Bethune Lofts.

Personal life

Bethune was born Jennie Louise Blanchard in Waterloo, New York in 1856. The Blanchard family moved to Buffalo, New York when she was a child. She graduated from the Buffalo Central High School in 1874.

In 1881, she wed Robert Bethune. They had a son, Charles, in 1883.

Bethune reportedly purchased the first woman's bicycle to go on sale in Buffalo. She was an active member of the Women's Wheel and Athletic Club.

Career

Bethune planned on going to architecture school at Cornell. Instead, in 1876, she took a job working as a draftsman in the office of Richard A. Waite and F.W. Caulkins, well known architects in Buffalo, New York. At the time, it was more common to learn architecture while working for a firm rather than in a classroom.

In 1881, after five years in Waite's office, she opened an independent office partnering with Robert Bethune in Buffalo, earning herself the title of the nation's first professional woman architect.

Bethune was elected a member of the Western Association of Architects (WAA) in 1885. She later served a term as a vice president of the W.A.A. She was named the first female associate of the American Institute of Architects (A.I.A.) in 1888 and in 1889, she became a fellow of the institute.

In 1891, she refused to compete in a design competition for the Women's Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago because men were paid $10,000 to design buildings for the fair while the women got only $1,000.

Bethune designed mostly industrial and public buildings. She disliked working on residential projects because they paid poorly. She is especially known for designing public schools. Sadly, much of her work has since been demolished.

Her best-known design and masterpiece is the neoclassical Hotel Lafayette, which was commissioned for $1 million and completed in 1904. It has since undergone a $35 million restoration. The Bethune firm also designed the Denton, Cottier & Daniels music store, one of the first buildings in the United States to utilize a steel frame and poured concrete slabs. Two other Bethune buildings are still standing today are the Iroquois Door Plant Company warehouse and the large Chandler Street Complex for the Buffalo Weaving Company.

Bethune retired in 1908 and died in 1913 at the age of 57. In 1910, between the time she retired and the time she died, there were 50 women working professionally as architects.

Legacy

The former Buffalo Meter Company Building was named Bethune Hall in her honor, when it housed the Department of Art along with the School of Architecture and Planning of the University at Buffalo.