Engineer
Name: Marcia Martin
Date of Death / Location: Marcia Martin worked in the plumbing and mechanical section of the Engineering Department for Skidmore, Ownings, and Merrill in the 1950s
Professional Organizations & Activities: Member of the CWA
Georgiana H. Peeney (1928)
Name: Georgiana H. Peeney
Date of Birth / Location: October 9, 1906 / Illinois
Date of Death / Location: 1985
Education: Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, Northwestern University; Master's of Science in Industrial Engineering, Northwestern University.
Date of Death / Location: Civil engineer for the Department of Public Works in Evanston, Illinois; Member of Safety and Security Branch, Office of Ordnance, Chicago, Illinois (during WWII); staff engineer at Lansing B. Warner, Inc.
Professional Organizations & Activities: First female member of the Western Society of Engineers; Founder and Chairman of the Professional Women's Council for the Western Society of Engineers; Business and Professional Women's Club of Evanston [Illinois].
Mary Ann Crawford in front of the Lindberg Construction Company building that she designed. Courtesy of the Chicago Daily Tribune.
Name: Mary Ann Elizabeth Crawford
Date of Birth / Location: 1901 / Girard, Illinois
Date of Death / Location: December 19, 1988 / Springfield, Illinois
Education: Bachelor of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 1929; Master's of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 1930.
Date of Death / Location: Holabird and Root, 1930s; Rand McNally, 1930s; Historical American Building Survey Work, 1930s; Montgomery Ward, n.d.; Private Practice, beginning in 1959; Designed offices, factories, displays, and machinery for Lindberg Engineering Company in the 1940s.
Professional Organizations & Activities: Chair of the Women’s Architectural Club; Officer for the Society of Western Engineers; Licensed Architect with the State of Illinois, 1941; Licensed Engineer with the State of Illinois, 1943. In 1978, some of Crawford's student drawings were featured in the "Chicago Women Architects: Contemporary Directions" exhibition at Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. In 1980, her drawings were the focus of a solo exhibition titled "American Beaux-Arts" at the Frumkin-Struve Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.
Beverly Loraine Green circa 1937. Courtesy of the University of Illinois Archives.
Name: Beverly Loraine Greene
Date of Birth / Location: October 4, 1915 / Chicago, Illinois
Date of Death / Location: August 22, 1957 / New York, New York
Education: Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, 1936; Master's degree in City Planning and Housing, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, 1937; Master’s in Architecture, Columbia University, June 5, 1945.
Date of Death / Location: Chicago Housing Authority, 1938-45; Firm of Isadore Rosefield, ca. 1945-1955; Worked with Marcel Breuer on the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and with Edward Durrell Stone on the Sarah Lawrence College Arts Complex at the University of Arkansas.
Professional Organizations & Activities: First documented African American Woman architect licensed in United States. Licensed in Illinois December 28, 1942. She was the first African-American woman to earn her degree in architectural engineering from the University of Illinois. Served on the Council for the Advancement of the Negro in Architecture.
Grace Wilson, featured in the Champaign-Urbana News Gazette on February 2, 1957- Courtesy of University of Illinois
Name: Grace Wilson
Date of Birth / Location: October 15, 1907
Date of Death / Location: February 28, 2005
Education: Bachelor of Science in Architecture, University of Illinois, 1931; Master's of Science in Architecture, 1942
Professional Organizations & Activities: Worked in Chicago 1931-1941. Member of W.A.C. Air Transport Command, 1944-1945. Moved to Champaign to teach high school, taught university in 1946 with the Department of General Engineering as an instructor. Member of many professional societies and helped organize and advise the student chapter of the Women’s Engineering Society in 1961. First female assistant professor in Engineering at the University of Illinois.
Georgia Louise Harris Brown, ca. 1950. Courtesy of Ebony Magazine.
Name: Georgia Louise Harris Brown
Date of Birth / Location: June 12, 1918 / Topeka, Kansas
Date of Death / Location: September 21, 1999 / Washington, D.C.
Education: Washburn University,1936-1937; Bachelor's of Architecture, University of Kansas School of Engineering and Architecture,1944; Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Institute of Design, Architecture Department, 1950-1953.
Date of Death / Location: Firm of Kenneth Roderick O'Neal, 1945 to 1949; Frank J. Kornacker & Associates, 1949-1953; Private practice in Brazil, 1953-1993. Through her engineering projects in the United States she also worked with the architectural firms of Holsman, Holsman, Elekamp and Taylor, Keck & Keck, Pace Associates, and Sidney Morris & Associates.
Professional Organizations & Activities: First African American woman to graduate from the University of Kansas with a degree in architecture. Second African American woman to become a licensed architect in the United States.