In 1963, Madeleine B. Stern published the first posthumous profile of Louise Blanchard Bethune, widely considered to be America’s first professional woman architect.1 The profile articulated a conundrum that has shaped Bethune’s legacy ever since: a self-described conservative who adapted to the status quo and seemed to disdain “professional agitators” such as suffragists, Bethune was steadfast in her belief that women were as capable as men at potentially anything and should settle for nothing less than equal pay for equal work. Was she a feminist?
Sixty years later, Kelly Hayes McAlonie has published the second-ever book-length biography of Bethune. Equipped with decades of scholarship on women, gender, and the architectural profession, as well as digitized primary sources, two small collections of Bethune family and professional pictures and documents, a keen analytical mind, and clear, persuasive prose, McAlonie argues across nine chapters that Bethune was in fact a feminist. She...
University of California Press