Portrait of little-known architect Minerva Parker Nichols. Photographer unknown. | Photo courtesy of Historical Society of Pennsylvania
A significant figure in architectural history belongs to Philadelphia, but unlike other noteworthy names, hers has largely been overlooked. A new exhibition seeks to correct that omission and restore the legacy of Minerva Parker Nichols (1862-1949), the first woman to establish an independent architectural practice in the United States.
“Our first impulse was the creation of an archive in the absence of one,” explained William Whitaker, curator of the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania, joining with architectural historian and Hidden City contributor Molly Lester, archivist Heather Isbell Schumacher, and photographer Elizabeth Felicella to create Minerva Parker Nichols: The Search for a Forgotten Architect.
During the eight years she worked in Philadelphia–with an office at 14 South Broad Street– Nichols was prolific and well-known in the field. Her body of work focused primarily on individual residential commissions, though she also designed at least two speculative projects for railroad suburbs, the occasional factory or other commercial building, and women’s clubhouses for the New Century Clubs of Philadelphia and Wilmington. Although ultimately not built, an important commission was the Queen Isabella Pavilion at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
An architectural drawing by Minerva Parker Nichols of New Century Club in Wilmington, Delaware. | Image courtesy of Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania
Nichols’s work was documented in the trade press, including dozens of issues of the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders Guide. She also produced her own coverage, writing in several women’s publications, including a column in The Homemaker magazine.
“I think she did earn a lot of respect from colleagues. The record shows positive quotes from builders and the trade press,” said Molly Lester, Associate Director of the Urban Heritage Project at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design. “She received a great deal of respect because she had many satisfied clients.”
So the question remains: Why is Nichols relatively unknown today? “I have overlapping theories,” said Lester, who has been researching Nichols’s life and work for over a decade. “Her work was mostly residential, with fewer high profile buildings to point to. No university claims her. And she never joined the American Institute of Architects. All those factors, and the seeming brevity of her career, combine to eliminate her profile.”
The Wallace Munn House in Philadelphia is one of Minerva Parker Nichols’ many residential commissions. | Photo: Elizabeth Felicella
Designing the exhibit became a treasure hunt of sorts. According to Lester, they began with the items in the Architectural Archives, plus a handful of drawings that Nichols had donated to Radcliffe College’s Schlesinger Library. A wealth of material, including drawings, period photographs, and personal items were loaned by Nichols’s great-granddaughter. “It’s a really rich and rare opportunity that they’ve kept so much,” noted Lester.
At the outset, they were aware of a handful of projects that Minerva completed in her first few years of practice, but an article in the but an article in the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders Guide one year after she’d established her practice credited her with 24. “It was utterly gratifying to try to leave no stone unturned,” recalled Whitaker. “We had to make the list of what she built. Sometimes it took a lot of time and research, and sometimes we just stumbled upon them, training your eye to see characteristic aspects of her work.”
For exteriors, Nichols favored the Shingle and Colonial Revival styles that were popular in the late Victorian era. It’s with interiors where a distinctive character appears. “She’s thinking about the plan of the house and the domestic space, the daily routines,” said Whitaker. “How to make them pleasant and flow together, along with the movement of sunlight through the house.” “She wanted to make sure women could advocate for what they wanted in a home,” agreed Lester.
Exterior and interior views of Adelaide, a home in Westport, Connecticut designed by Minerva Parker Nichols. | Photos: Elizabeth Felicella
Another item in the exhibition that demonstrates how Nichols intertwined her roles as both an architect and a woman is one of Lester’s favorites. “I’m drawn to the baby book,” she said. “When I flipped through it and saw photos of buildings alongside those of her children, I found it so rich because it illustrates how she was nurturing multiple things at that time.”
Augmenting the period materials in the exhibition are a series of photographs shot on film by Felicella of exteriors and interiors of many of the extant houses designed by Nichols. This present-day documentation creates a kind of conversation with the period views, as many of the homes had been altered over time.
The story of the New Century Club of Philadelphia opens the exhibition as a sort of cautionary tale. It was built in 1891 at 124 South 12th Street, was included in the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), and added to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places in 1965. On display are correspondences concerning the waning, aging membership of the club, the deterioration of the building, and the decision to demolish it in 1973. “We framed the exhibit as how buildings are lost and found,” noted Whitaker. In addition to the building being lost, it’s an example of how Nichols’s legacy was lost. When the HABS entry was digitized, the metadata with her name was not transferred.
New Century Club of Philadelphia at 124 S. 12th Street in 1973 before it was demolished that same year. | Photo courtesy of Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress
Lester sees this exhibition as a first step in righting that wrong. “Even with all of the research we’ve done, there is still question marks and hopes that something else will turn up.”
In addition to the exhibition, the project team are planning public programs and a book to be published by Yale University Press.
Minerva Parker Nichols: The Search for a Forgotten Architect is on view now until June 17 in the Harvey & Irwin Kroiz Gallery of the Architectural Archives at the University of Pennsylvania. See exhibition details here: https://www.design.upenn.edu/events/minerva-parker-nichols-search-forgotten-architect
Hi could you tell me if any homes or structures are still standing that she had built? Thank you in advance for your time and effortless manner
Love to learn about a new Architect – and a woman! Her story is worth telling. Was she ever interviewed?
An absorbing and fascinating article that brightens the otherwise fading recollections of this highly talented and significant late nineteenth centuryPhiladelphia architect. In 1990-1991, I undertook research for a project that involved extensive consultation of the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builder’s Guide, for the years 1892-1893. It was in those issues of the Builder’s Guide that I encountered multiple successive references for the erection of a townhouse on the west side of North Broad Street, above Dauphin Street, North Philadelphia, from the designs of Minerva Parker Nichols. If my memory is correct, the townhouse’s client was also a woman, and the dwelling was contiguous with the other three story row houses above it, as an end-row. It was probably situated at 2304, 2306 or 2308 N. Broad St. The architect profession was still unusual for women at this time period. This, and the prominent North Broad Street location piqued my interest, and so I sought out the house. It was indeed to be found in that location, extant, and in a relatively good state of preservation. It was a three story pressed brick house, with “red stone,”(red sandstone), and galvanized copper trim. The first floor featured an open front porch that supported a corner rounded bay that formed a turret, surmounted by a somewhat over-size conical roof. These elements faced south, into a private breeze-way, or alley. The rowhouse was distinguished from its neighbors. In fact, it actually resembled in style, the Wallace Munn house that is featured above. Unfortunately, I never got around to photograph this house, a comparatively modest example of Minerva Parker Nichol’s distinctive, original style. I passed by and admired this obscure but rare extant design many times, until finally, the old Philadelphia row house deteriorated, and it was demolished in 2012.