Storming the Old Boys' Citadel Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America

by Blank, Carla; Martin, Tania

• ISBN13: 9781771860130
• ISBN10: 1771860138
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-12-01
• Publisher: Baraka Books

Summary

This book focuses on the lives and works of two of the very first women of European American ancestry to practice architecture in North America during the 19th century. Mother Joseph du Sacré-Coeur, a Sister of Providence—born Esther Pariseau, in St. Elzéar, Quebec—is credited with works built in the present states of Washington, Idaho, Montana, northern Oregon, and in the province of British Columbia. For her contributions, Mother Joseph was honored by the State of Washington as one of two people to represent it in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, DC. Louise Blanchard Bethune designed and built works in the Buffalo, New York area. Storming the Old Boys’ Citadel follows the evolving histories of two Revival-styled multiuse public buildings considered to be these women’s major works. Listed on the United States’ National Register of Historic Places, they have both continued to function, with extensive additions and other changes made to each architect’s original structure, for the communities where their architects lived. The book addresses issues of lost or hidden North American history.

Author Biography

Carla Blank is the author of Live On Stage! and Rediscovering America: The Making of Multicultural America, 1900–2000, and is a coeditor of PowWow: Charting the Fault Lines of the American Experience—Short Fiction from Then to Now. She has written topical essays related to arts and culture for El Pais, Green Magazine, Hungry Mind Review, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and online at CounterPunch and Konch magazines. She lives in Oakland, California. Tania Martin has published essays in many scholarly journals related to her investigations into the history of architecture, the built environment, and North American religious institutional structures. She is a professor at the Université Laval School of Architecture where she has held the Canada Research Chair in Built Religious Heritage since 2005; served a four-year term as an appointed member of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada; and is also affiliated with several professional associations, including the Vernacular Architecture Forum. She lives in Quebec City.