Every architecture student has heard of Frank Lloyd Wright, many have visited his buildings, and some (including myself) claim he is their favorite architect. However, there is a large part of Wright's architectural history that has gone unnoticed. 

This summer, and the following school year, I plan to research the women who were a part of Wright’s fellowship program at both Taliesin and Taliesin West. I will be using both primary and secondary sources to discover and write about the life and work of these women. Eventually, I would like to write a book to bring this story to the attention of architecture students and enthusiasts. 

The idea for this research came to me as a part of an application for a research grant- The Milka Bliznakov Research Prize awarded by the International Archive of Women in Architecture which is housed at Virginia Tech. Though I decided not to apply for the grant this year, I am still passionate about this topic and plan to conduct research on my own. 

Below is the proposal I wrote in preparation for the grant application. I believe it explains perfectly why I am so interested and passionate about telling the stories of these women:

"In my life, many men have asked me if I am scared to be a woman entering into a male-dominated field. I have never known how to answer this question without validating its premise. Simply put, my answer is a resounding no, but in a larger sense, I am disheartened by the fact that this is even a question worthy of asking. However, I have seen this question, and the truth behind it, intimidate and deter many women from entering the field of architecture. This is often for lack of significant literature on the lives and accomplishments of women architects, particularly at a time when it was most difficult for women to enter the profession, that could provide an example to them. For this reason, I would like to show women that even in the most demanding of architectural environments, namely Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin, women can not only succeed but can rival the men. Although the 2009 Documentary, “A Girl is a Fellow Here” chronicled the lives of some of the women that worked for Wright, there is very little print material to accompany the story of over 100 women that worked at Taliesin. By using the Special Collections of the IAWA here at Virginia Tech I hope to fill this void of writings on those women that were fellows in Wright’s studio in Wisconsin. They seem to be a forgotten part of the history of a legendary architect and his practice. In addition, their impact on the profession and built environment seems to have gone largely unnoticed. These women went on to graduate from the fellowship program at Taliesin and created thousands of works around the country, but have little to nothing written about them. While the IAWA has collected extensive primary source material on three of these women (Eleanore Pettersen, A. Jane Duncombe, and Lois Davidson Gottlieb), this information is not readily available to the students here at Virginia Tech or the public at large. In my preliminary research, I was only able to find opinion based articles that focused mainly on Wright, the documentary previously referenced, and the IAWA database links. For this reason, I hope to use the collections of these three women to research and compile a book and accompanying exhibition and lecture that will both further these women’s legacies and provide an example to aspiring women architects in our school and anywhere else that there is no reason to be afraid.”

So far I have been in correspondence with a woman at Taliesin West, Indira Berndtson, the administrator of historical studies, collections, and exhibitions for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. She has been incredibly helpful in providing me with resources that would allow new insights into the lives and work of these women, including connecting me with women who were part of the program. I plan to speak to at least one of these women when I visit Taliesin this summer. Indira's mother, Cornelia Brierly attended the fellowship program with Wright and wrote a book called “Tales of Taliesin”. That is one of the few books that have been written by or about the women that lived and worked alongside Wright. With her help and the collections that are housed by the IAWA at Virginia Tech, I hope to be able to compile the most complete record of these women and what they accomplished. 

These women were working with Wright at a time when women were few and far between in the field of architecture and shown very little respect. Because of this, it is shocking to me that so little had been written about these women and their many architectural works. I hope to change this.