Gertrude Eisendrath Deimel Kuh

Gertrude Deimel Kuh-portrait_Thomas Deimel

Gertrude Deimel Kuh courtesy of Thomas Deimel.

Name: Gertrude Eisendrath Deimel Kuh

Date of Birth / Location: Setember 11, 1893 / Racine, WI

Date of Death / Location: September 4, 1977 / Chicago, IL

Education: Sweet Briar College; Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture in Groton, MA. She received her degree from the latter in 1917.

Firms and Partnerships Kuh studied under Ellen Shipman. The two women landscape architects formed a longtime friendship. After college, Kuh was hired by the office of Francis Robinson in Des Moines. She returned to Chicago by 1920, and by 1921, she had established her own firm and was also a visiting professor at the University of Illinois landscape architecture department she started her own firm. By 1950, Kuh was associated with Landscape Architect Mary Rogers. Kuh frequently worked with other woman landscape architects including: Mary Long Whitmore Rogers, May Elizabeth McAdams, and Edith Antognoli.

Professional Organizations & Activities: Active in the North Shore Club. Member of the Chicago Society of Landscape Architects. Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Primary Field: Landscape Architect

Work History:

Gardens for the estate of Irving Florsheim in Libertyville, Illinois (1930s).
Landscape for Children's Memorial Hospital, Chicago, Illinois (1963).
Landscape for the Leigh and Mary Block House, Highland Park, Illinois, 1967 (with Edith Antognoli)
McDonald's Global Flagship in Chicago
Chicago Riverwalk

Additional Information:

Gertrude Kuh Biography and Job List

Article Featuring Gertrude D. Kuh – Chicago Tribune 5 March 1995.

Gertrude D. Kuh Chicago Tribune 6 June 1948

Table of Landscapes with Locations Designed by Gertrude Kuh

Masters Thesis on Gertrude Eisendrath Kuh by Mary Elizabeth Fitzsimons

Much of the research contained in Ms. Kuh’s entry can be credited to Julia Bachrach of Julia Bachrach Consulting.

Sources:

Gertrude Deimel Kuh | The Cultural Landscape Foundation (tclf.org)

Gertrude Deimel Kuh: Midcentury Landscape Architect — Julia Bachrach Consulting (jbachrach.com)

Leigh and Mary Block House, Lake Forest, Illinois, Landscape Plan | The Art Institute of Chicago (artic.edu)

Outdoor architecture for the Midwest : the modern residential landscapes of Gertrude Eisendrath Kuh, 1935-1977 (Book, 1994) [WorldCat.org]

Additional Images:

Augusta Rosenwald Memorial designed by Gertrude Kuh with Jens Jensen. Photo courtesy of Bob Laemle.

Landscape for the Richard Lowenthal House in Highland Park designed by Kuh (circa 1950s). courtesy of Julia Bachrach

Landscape design drawings by Kuh for the Loeb Estate on Waverly Road in Highland Park, IL (1957). Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.

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Nancy Ann Abshire (Courtesy of CWA)

Nancy Ann Abshire

Name: Nancy Ann Abshire

Date of Birth / Location: Dayton, Ohio

Education: Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design, Northwestern University; Bachelor of Architecture, University of Illinois; 1965-1969

Firms & Partnerships: C.F. Murphy Associates 1961-1968; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), interior design department, also design architect and project manager on various architectural projects, 1968-2019, promoted to Associate 1988.

Professional Organizations & Activities: Chicago Women in Architecture, Founder AIA, RIBA, NCARB; Executive director of SOM foundation 2010-2019; National Trust of Great Britain; Architecture and Design Society of the Art Institute of Chicago; Chicago Architecture Foundation, Auxiliary Board Member since 1971

Awards & Honors: SAH award 2010; Chicago Women in Architecture Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, 2021

Aileen Anderson Colville

Name: Aileen Anderson Colville

Date of Birth / Location: November 1, 1905 / Illinois

Date of Death / Location: September 22, 1983 / Oak Park, Illinois

Firms & Partnerships: Architect for Sears, Roebuck & Co., 1937 (According to "Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses from Sears, Roebuck & Company" by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl.) Aileen was part of the Modern Homes Division at Sears, Roebuck, & Co.

Professional Organizations & Activities: Chicago Women's Architectural Club (CWA), Secretary.

Edith C. Antognoli (circa 1965). Courtesy of the Park Forest Star.

Edith Antognoli

Name: Edith Antognoli

Date of Birth / Location: January 2 1912 / Georgetown, British Guiana

Barbara Armstrong

Name: Barbara Armstrong

Iris Ashwell (1952)

Iris Ashwell

Name: Iris Ashwell

Date of Birth / Location: August 16, 1897 / British Columbia, Canada

Date of Death / Location: November 5, 1987 / British Columbia, Canada

Education: University of British Columbia; Iowa State College; Ashwell also studied for two years in England with the urban planner Thomas Mawson.

Firms & Partnerships: Chief Land Planner for the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), late 1940s-early 1950s.

Professional Organizations & Activities: Professional Women's Council Western Society of Engineers; American Society of Planning Officials; Professional Women's Club of Evanston, Illinois.

Photo of Anna Carmen Baird Walsh in “A Composite Woman,” American Lumberman, November 27, 1920- Courtesy of Julia Bachrach Consulting

Anna Carmen Baird Walsh

Name: Anna Carmen Baird Walsh

Date of Birth / Location: 1872 / Quincy, Illinois

Date of Death / Location: August 17, 1936 / Chicago, Illinois

Professional Organizations & Activities: Member, National Women's Association of Commerce; Board member, Aviation Club of Chicago; Director, Woodlawn Trust and Savings Bank; Member, Men’s Association of Commerce

Adelaide Eunice Benham Hulla

Name: Adelaide Eunice Benham Hulla

Date of Birth / Location: 1871 / New York

Date of Death / Location: 1961

Education: Wellesley College, 1884-1890; AB from Cornell University, 1887-1890; Bachelor's of Science in Architecture, Chicago School of Architecture (a joint program with the Armour Institute, now Illinois Institute of Techonoly IIT, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago), 1902. Thesids: "A Group of University Buildings."

Firms & Partnerships: According to 1938-39 Cornell Alumni directory, Adelaide was in joint practice of architecture at 104 S Dearborn in Chicago, Illinois and in the 90 Schiller Building, Chicago, Illinois with her husband John Hulla.

Professional Organizations & Activities: Adelaide was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. (Courtesy of Martin Tangora)

Helen Bishoff

Name: Helen Bishoff

Firms & Partnerships: Interior Architect for Marshall Field & Co. in 1939

Katherine Brewster with her children Sara and Edward- Courtesy of Chicago History Museum

Katherine Brewster

Name: Katherine (Kate) Lancaster Brewster

Date of Death / Location: September 24, 1947 / Lake Forest, Illinois

Professional Organizations & Activities: Member of the Lake Forest Garden Club; Member of the Garden Club of America; President of the Chicago Public School Art Society

Awards & Honors: Legion of Honor for her work with the Chicago chapter of France Forever.

Fran Caldwell

Name: Fran Caldwell

Isabel Ling Chan

Name: Isabel Ling Chan

Education: Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan (undergraduate); University of Minnesota (graduate)

Professional Organizations & Activities: American Institute of Architects (AIA)

Pao-Chi Chang- Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune

Pao-Chi Chang

Name: Pao-Chi Chang

Firms & Partnerships: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM); Alfred Swenson Pao-Chi Chang Architects

Professional Organizations & Activities: Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Professor; One of the founders of Chicago Women in Architecture (CWA)

Mary Colter

Name: Mary Colter

Firms & Partnerships: Mary Colter was named the official Architect and Designer for the Fred Harvey company in 1910, she held the position until she retired in 1940.

Sue Ann Conover

Name: Sue Ann Conover

Date of Birth / Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Date of Death / Location: 2017 (Rockford, IL)

Education: Bachelor's of Architecture, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1979

Professional Organizations & Activities: American Institute of Architects (AIA); Chicago Women in Architecture (CWA)

Crawford_ in front of Lindberg Engineering Co.|Mary Ann Crawford_LINDBERG ENGINEERING_WESTERN AND CAMPBELL_CHICAGO_02|Crawford_6531_WAUKESHA_CHICAGO|Amy McCormick tomb 1_by Crawford

Mary Ann Crawford in front of the Lindberg Construction Company building that she designed. Courtesy of the Chicago Daily Tribune.

Mary Ann Elizabeth Crawford

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.

Firms & Partnerships: 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.