Louise Blanchard Bethune was the first American woman known to have worked as a professional architect. She was born in Waterloo, New York. Blanchard worked primarily in Buffalo, New York and partnered with her husband at Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs. , renamed Bethune Hall to honor Bethune, although she was not the building's architect Her work includes the Hotel Lafayette. The Buffalo Meter Company Building was renamed Bethune Hall in her honor by the University at Buffalo.
Personal life
Bethune was born Jennie Louise Blanchard in Waterloo, New York in 1856. The Blanchard family moved to Buffalo, New York when she was a child. She graduated from the Buffalo Central High School in 1874. In 1881, she wed Canadian Robert A. Bethune, also an architect. Together they had one son, Charles William Bethune in 1883. Bethune reportedly purchased the first woman's bicycle to go on sale in Buffalo. She was an active member of the Women's Wheel and Athletic Club. According to the Buffalo Spree, Bethune had feminist leanings.
Career
Bethune planned on going to architecture school at Cornell. Instead, in 1876, she took a job working as a draftsman in the office of Richard A. Waite and F.W. Caulkins, well known architects in Buffalo, New York. At the time, it was more common to learn architecture while working for a firm rather than in a classroom. In 1881, after five years in Waite's office, she opened an independent office partnering with Robert Bethune in Buffalo, earning herself the title of the nation's first professional woman architect. Bethune was elected a member of the Western Association of Architects in 1885. She later served a term as a vice president of the W.A.A. She was named the first female associate of the American Institute of Architects in 1888 and in 1889, she became its first female fellow. In 1891, she refused to compete in a design competition for the Women's Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago because men were paid $10,000 to design buildings for the fair while the women got only $1,000. Bethune designed mostly industrial and public buildings. She disliked working on residential projects because they paid poorly. She is especially known for designing public schools. Sadly, much of her work has since been demolished. Her best-known design and masterpiece is the neoclassical Hotel Lafayette, which was commissioned for $1 million and completed in 1904. It has since undergone a $35 million restoration, completed in 2012 by developer Rocco Termini. The Bethune firm also designed the Denton, Cottier & Daniels music store, one of the first buildings in the United States to utilize a steel frame and poured concrete slabs. Three other Bethune buildings are still standing today: the Iroquois Door Plant Company warehouse; the large Chandler Street Complex for the Buffalo Weaving Company; and the Witkop and Holmes Headquarters, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. Bethune retired in 1908 and died in 1915 at the age of 59. In 1910, between the time she retired and the time she died, there were 50 women working professionally as architects.
Written work
"Influence of Women on Architecture." American Architect and Building News : 3–4. "Women and Architecture." Inland Architect and News Record 17 : 20-21; reprinted in Inland Architect 27 : 46–47.
Legacy
The former Buffalo Meter Company Building was renamed Bethune Hall in her honor, when it housed the Department of Art along with the School of Architecture and Planning of the University at Buffalo. This building was purchased in June 2011 by the Ciminelli Real Estate Corporation, who redeveloped the building into 87 apartments with Carmina Wood Morris, PC. Residents began to move into the building in July 2013, and it was renamed Bethune Lofts. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, received LEED Silver certification, and received the Preservation League of NYS Excellence in Historic Preservation Award in 2014. In 2013, Bethune's grave was given a new marker, which states,
