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Julia Morgan Portrait: Public Domain
Photo circa 1926 of US architect Julia Morgan. Created as a carte de visite.
By Boyé Studio, San Francisco - https://digital.lib.calpoly.edu/rekl-2071, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=85460141
Sauce: Ginger Wadsworth, Julia Morgan: Architect of Dreams (Minneapolis, MN: Lerner Publications Company, 1990), p. 43. Anecdote retold in my own words to avoid plagiarism.
“Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career. She is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Morgan
TheGrassIsSlightlyGreener
Absolute forehead slapper moments, cool lady!
PanNonOpticon
Alvar Aalto designed buildings. And chairs. And lamps. And door handles etc to the buildings.
Why a female architect doing the same is somehow inconceivable?
wetqueef
Pity whats become of the Fairmont. Smelly shell of its former self.
nachosyndicate
Said most women for all of time.
errrikblack
The Fairmont SF has such beautiful views. Also it has the Tonga Room which is like a 'fancy' version of Rainforest Cafe. If you're a tourist to the city it's one of the easiest places to get on the trolley and there's no lines
torokunai
There was a Julia Morgan house I wanted to buy, but it was like $5M : {
https://socketsite.com/archives/2009/07/1023_vallejo_morgan_beauty_thats_more_than_skin_and_vie.html
scoutMoonDiver
Very cool
Jessebob42
Some people just can't shake off a paradigm.
lurkertron5000
A wonderful listen for those so inclined
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/finding-julia-morgan/
Greymalum
700 structures is of no small note. What an interesting lady.
hipifreq
As an engineer, I would be proud of 70 completed projects
DSREX
As someone who aspired to be an architect but ended up on a different life path, I would be proud to have my name on the building plans of a single building. I would die happy if people loved that building.
grandestgrandeur
"Wow, you, a woman??" I bet Julia rolled her eyes so much they nearly popped outta her head.
saganworshipper
Hearst Castle. Put that on your bucket list.
Avrgjoe80
Cool...
PinkEater
Hearst Castle is an interesting place to see.
"Rosebud"
Gerdalearnedme
Sure is.
CreepyFootDoctor
It was really fun to see, and I only got to see part of it. If you're interested, there is a book called Building for Hearst and Morgan; it's a collection of letters they sent to their general contractor, George Carl Loorz.
Blergbot
I would love to visit Hearst Castle some day. $Rosebud indeed.
DCNR
Are we just going to ignore "squeeze dry the loveliest tubes"?
evildadunit
Only 3 things architects don't grok: time, budget, structure
chrisjohnson76
She literally said her work was structural
evildadunit
I know, and shebdid amazing things too. Do a deep(ish) dive on Fallingwater and the reno - still stunningly beautiful =)
binekarlsson360
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/grok
Because I - a Swede - have notr encountered the word before. 🙂 Something new learned today!
evildadunit
The etymology hearkens to "Brave New World" Aldous Huxely - 3rd gen Sami
Skumbo
She had some real fucking patience dealing with that shit. I don't even think i'd respond.
Tovarish1013
Reminds me of Pavlichenko, Soviet Female Sniper who had 100s of confirmed kills. She was sent on a tour to the West and was very annoyed by women asking about her make up routine etc.
axelfive
Reminded me of how Christina Hendricks walked off a talk show because the (female) interviewer kept trying to swing the conversation towards her bra size.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
She probably understood she was a bit of an oddity. A quarter into the friggin 21st Century some fields are sttill mostly taken up by one gender.
PolarHailStorm
Women have patience dealing with shit like that today; it's insidious.
AramilNeogi
You know she was impressive when the foreman, generally considered the most "give-no-shit, take-no-names" person on the construction crew (stereotyping), is just like "it's an architect, they just happen to be a woman.".
Noitisnot
#ally
ennead
Considering the era she probably expected it. In present day we’re not really able to fully comprehend the status quo or general mindset of early 20th Century society, so while I don’t doubt it was tedious to hear, it probably wouldn’t have stuck out as degrading in the way it does now.
Kbantar
I'm nearly 50. My first gen Mexican American great grandfather wanted all his children, daughters included, to get college educations. My grandmother worked in a lab. I can only imagine the daily crap she had to deal with back then.
ADDGirl
Wouldn't have stuck out as degrading as in "MFers being degrading again/still, I'm not surprised" or "Oh wow, I'm a woman doing 'mens work', people talking down to me is ok because it's expected!”
I'm not sure that women were ok with being talked down to at any point in history.
I've expected to be talked down to in many junctures of my life & I've been told by many men that I can't expect anything else in certain situations. That doesn't make it easier to take because "it's the status quo".
ennead
Well no, but the response to it would have been affected by the era, is what I’m saying.
Rogahar
With how intensely ingrained into 1900's society that kind of misogyny was, she was probably at risk of her achievements being credited (intentionally or ignorantly) to a male colleague or to the foreman or some other shit if she didn't explicitly speak out and state what part of the job had been her work and what hadn't. Hell, the second reported just assumed she was responsible for the decorative aspects and not the structural (or both, when her focus was the structural.)
EpilatorAlligatorBothReduceGrowth
Many women still get the same treatment today, from the medical establishment it’s quite common to have everything ascribed to hormones, pregnancy or menopause - cue 15 years for some with condition they could have treated.
TetraNordeh
Women in STEM still face these challenges today.
Rogahar
I didn't say they didn't. The struggles of women today are in no way lessened by the struggles women like Ms. Morgan faced, but the efforts of her and women like her laid the groundwork for modern women to fight their fights from.
IHaveGreatKittenRecipes
Or even if she did get credited, being credited as J. Morgan so the ignorant could happily assume James or John. That was a common way to give credit to women without it being obvious they were actually talking about a woman, before the internet and the mass media networks you got a blurb in the paper and that was that.
Tinkarsk
Lol reminds me of Frances Oldham Kelsey. She applied to the Uni of Chicago for PhD level work and one of the professors there accepted her, because he mistook her name for a man's name. She asked one of her professors if she should inform them of their mistake - and he said accept the offer first, then inform them of their mistake! She ended up working for the FDA, where she ended up breaking the thalidomide scandal, saving thousands of babies from birth defects
bynming
I think in general there is a bit of confusion about the separation between architects, engineers (who I generally tend to credit for structural work) and designers. I don't think the woman reporter in this story necessarily had any ill intentions. Plus, it's not like design work and aesthetics are somehow less valued. If the people from that NY firm did good work too, then they did good work too.
TetraNordeh
The line between engineers and architects wasn't as clear back then. And while that specific reporter may not have had ill intentions, women in STEM still face this kind of dismissive treatment on a regular basis (having the importance of their work discounted, or credited to a man (often her junior), being ignored in meetings but her idea restated by a man a few seconds later who then gets the credit, etc.), so it's important to correct ASAP.
Tarmaccian
As a male engineer, I do take a particular delight in being the guy to restate a woman's dismissed idea…
"As $woman just said, we should…"
"I concur with $woman that…"
"We have this plan and the $woman plan to consider…"
Kbantar
I heard that feminine presenting women get extra crap for not looking stereotypical smart enough.
ADDGirl
100%. I find my brain thinking thoughts like that and I WAS a woman in a STEM field for years.
TetraNordeh
Less-feminine women get crap for "trying to look like men", and women who aren't conventionally attractive get crap for "not trying hard enough". The entire point is to bully women out of the profession.