SSC-MS-00283
Architect; film maker; lesbian activist; feminist; founder of the Women's School of Planning and Architecture; and professor (b.1932-d.1994). The papers provide significant information about Birkby's life and work, the women's movement and lesbian feminism in New York City in the 1970s and 80s, New York City lesbian culture from the 1950s to 1990s, and the establishment of a number of organizations of women architects. Birkby began to use film as a tool in architecture in the early 1960s because it allowed three- dimensional documentation of the built environment.
Birkby's work as an architect is well-documented through Project Files, professional portfolio materials, and photographs. Sketchbooks contain early sketches of architectural projects intermingled with all manner of notes and sketches such as journal entries, creative writing, artistic sketches, personal notes, lists, etc.
Related collections:
CA-MS-00374
Landscape Designer, Instructor at Women's School of Planning and Architecture (b. 1903 - d. 1993). Dorothy May Anderson taught landscape design at Smith College beginning in 1935 and contributed to the redesign of the Smith campus. In 1943, Anderson left Smith to help in the war effort, working for the OSS Cartography Division until the end of the war. With few opportunities available in the field of landscaping architecture after the war, Anderson continued to work for the OSS, State Department, and Foreign Services in Cairo and Paris. In 1954, she joined the CIA doing similar cartographic work in the United States.
Her papers contains questionnaires, course material, photographs, newspaper clippings, drawings, and correspondence related to Anderson's professional and personal life.
Publications
SSC-MS-00303
Landscape architect, Instructor (b. 1911 - d. 2000). Papers consist of biographical material, correspondence, financial records, notes, plant lists, sketches, renderings, plans, photographs, drafts and typescripts of writings, and handouts prepared for teaching. The materials are primarily related to Ireys' professional life.
The main subject of her papers is the approximately 800 gardens she designed over her sixty-five year career, a period of transition in the field of landscape architecture from the large private estates and grand public works projects of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to the smaller scale ventures of the post-World War II world. Extensive Client Files reveal how designs evolved over time and also show her impressive knowledge of plants and careful selection for the site and situation.
Attended the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
SSC-MS-00501
Landscape architect (b. 1887 - d. 1946). This collection consists of files compiled by Patricia L. Filzen in preparation for writing her M.A. thesis on landscape architecture (1988, University of Wisconsin-Madison). While the files pertain primarily to Annette Hoyt Flanders, there are materials about other practitioners in the field, as well. Glass slides of Flanders' work are also included.
Smith College Class of 1914, with B.A. in Botany. To find additional materials related to Annette Hoyt Flanders' time at Smith College, check out our Smith College Archives research resources guide.
SSC-MS-00841
American garden and landscape designer, (b. 1938), She focused on a career as a fine arts painter over the next 18 years before taking classes in horticulture at Chelsea-Westminster College in England and at the New York Botanical Garden. The records document Miller’s career from the 1970s to the 2010s. The collection includes materials regarding her projects in New York City and elsewhere, writings by and about Miller, her public speaking notes and full speeches, and video recordings about her work and interests.
Smith College Class of 1960. To find additional materials related to Lynden B. Miller's time at Smith College, check out our Smith College Archives research resources guide.
Publications
SSC-MS-00229
Architectural historian and interior decorator (b. 1890 - d. 1986). The papers provide insight into the life a southern woman and a professional single mother. Her writings include material related to interior decorating; poetry; travel diaries; an unpublished biography of her father; and photographs of mostly family members.
Related materials may be found in her daughter's collection, the Margaret E. Mahoney papers.
SSC-MS-00306
The Women's School of Planning and Architecture records consist of audiotapes, correspondence, memorabilia, memoranda, minutes, films, photographs, publications, slides, videotapes, and other materials. They date from 1974 to 1992 with the bulk of the materials documenting the period between 1974 and 1981. The Records contain rich documentation of the founding, planning, and operation of the School. They provide a detailed account of the successes and struggles of an experimental, non-hierarchical educational institution founded at the height of the 1970s women's movement.
Nearly two-thirds of the total volume of the surviving records is materials created for or during the sessions themselves. Sensitive to the ground breaking nature of their endeavor, the Coordinators arranged for extensive written and audio visual documentation of the first WSPA session in 1975, when large portions of the session were captured on video and audiotape (available in Series III and Series IV). Included in the Records is a finished film about the 1975 session. Documentation of sessions after 1975 is less comprehensive.
Related materials can be found in the papers of WSPA co-founder, Noel Phyllis Birkby.
CA-MS-00078
Educational institution developed in association with Harvard University, and later affiliated with Smith College, as a Graduate School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. The School was founded in 1915 as the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and was the first to produce women graduate training in these two professions, coordinated under a single faculty. Due to Harvard University's policy of a male institution, the school ran as a "little experiment" in the office of Henry Frost, professor of architectural design at Harvard University, with only nine to twelve students, all women. In 1934 the School was affiliated with Smith College as a Graduate School.
The records contain Alumnae Bulletins, sketches, bookplates, certificates, brochures, correspondence, examinations, photographs, reports, slides, and information on student careers.
Related materials:
Cambridge School of Domestic Landscape and Architecture, 1927-42, Office of President William Allan Neilson Files (CA-MS-00013)