Architect Mary E. J. Colter and the Arts and Crafts Movement

Architect Mary E. J. Colter and the Arts and Crafts Movement Linda C. Reeder (bio) Today the fact that less than 30 percent of architects are female1 prompts the question, "Why aren't there more woman architects?" But at the turn of the 20th century, a more natural question might have been, "Why are there any women architects?" In the United States in 1900, fewer than one in five women worked in any occupation,2 with only one hundred of the country's working women employed as architects. This number represented less than 1 percent of architects practicing in the U.S. at that time.3 What drew these one hundred women to architecture when there were so many barriers and so few role models? A woman living beyond convention "usually early on recognized in herself a special gift without name or recognition," writes Carolyn Heilbrun in Writing a Woman's Life.4 This seems to have been the case for Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, who as a teenager was confident that her talents were sufficient to financially support her ailing sister and widowed mother.5 In addition to her convictions and resolve, the evolution of Colter's career can be understood in the context of the Arts and Crafts movement. This movement was influential in the U.S. from 1876 to 1916,6 a period of time that overlaps with Colter's education and extends through the midpoint of her career. The movement began as a response to the growing dominance of mechanically produced everyday items. It sought to democratize art and introduce beautiful handcrafted objects into people's daily lives. The Arts and Crafts movement in the U.S. opened doors to women artisans, stimulated new approaches to education and self-education, inspired a proliferation of artists' guilds, societies, and art exhibitions, and influenced architectural and interior design. This article examines Colter's education and career in the context of these elements of the Arts and Crafts movement. [End Page 613] A Modest Beginning Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1869, the second daughter of Irish immigrants William and Rebecca Crozier Colter. The family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, when Mary was three. It left for Texas when she was seven and for Colorado when she was nine, before returning to St. Paul around 1880 when Mary was eleven.7 St. Paul's population more than tripled in the decade between 1880 and 1890,8 and the city's infrastructure expanded with it. William found work as a city sewer inspector, a job he held until his death in October 1886 at age 53.9 William's sudden death forced his family to find a new source of income. While the widowed Rebecca had worked as a milliner before Mary's birth and her elder daughter, Harriet, could sew, this work was not well compensated. Mary had finished high school three years earlier at age fourteen and was eager to attend art school. Although only seventeen, Mary persuaded her mother to spend the family's savings on her education. She promised that upon graduation she would support her mother and sister (who had chronic poor health) as an art teacher.10 Colter's Education in the Arts When Colter was a child, St. Paul public schools required all elementary students to study art every year.11 The aptitude for art that Colter displayed in elementary and high school prepared her to enter the California School of Design, founded in San Francisco in 1871.12 Before the term began in mid-May 1887, Colter traveled 2,000 miles west and settled across the bay in Oakland with her sister and mother. At school Colter met a drawing instructor who would become a friend and mentor. Arthur F. Mathews's career had begun as an architect in 1875; he was a draftsman in his father's San Francisco architecture firm. Between 1878 and 1880 Mathews entered three national architectural competitions, winning one and earning honorable mention or high praise in the other two.13 Mathews's successes did not dissuade him from forsaking architecture in favor of illustration and graphic...