Category: Architecture

The Background

The following excerpt is from an article published in The Atlanta Journal in 1913, featuring an interview with Henrietta C. Dozier (1872-1947), the first female architect in Atlanta and the Southeastern United States.

What a difference 12 years makes. Compared to the first profile of Dozier in 1901, this article about Atlanta businesswomen is downright respectful — the male reporter even puts “weaker” in quotations when mentioning the ‘”weaker” sex.’ Progress!

Women’s suffrage was still 7 years away, but as the article notes, Atlanta women were increasingly making inroads into male-dominated professions, including photography, real estate, medicine, dentistry, and, of course, architecture.

“… it is only a question of time when there will be no typically masculine projects,” the writer opines.

As always, Dozier was characteristically forthright about the difficulties of her profession (“It is a hard life…”) and didn’t hesitate to recognize her role as a pioneer for other women — “It was left for me to open a pathway where other women shall reap success.”

This article is one of just a few that list some of Dozier’s notable projects during her time in Atlanta, making it a particularly valuable research source.

---

Article Excerpt:

“The old bubble that the north is a better field of business for a woman than the south has been decidedly polted.”

So speaks the woman architect of Atlanta. Another one backs her up, a woman photographer joins her voice in the assertion, a female real estate agent drives it into one ear and tries to sell you a lot through the other, a half a dozen doctors and dentists of the “weaker” sex agree with them.

They do not have to put it into words. It can be seen with half an eye. It is visible in the crowded ante-rooms of the women doctors, in the beautiful pictures in the photographer’s windows, in the scores of blue prints overflowing the architect’s table.

When a woman succeeds in a woman’s work it is not surprising. When a man succeeds in a woman’s work the world is not astonished. But the woman winning success in a business which is properly a man’s, is another matter.

It will not be long, however, before it will be impossible for women to gain distinction in a masculine project, for it is only a question of time when there will be no typically masculine projects. The women are making them their own.

SOUTHERN BUSINESS WOMEN.

In the north and east, even in the west, women have been breaking into business for the last quarter of a century. In the south, in Atlanta, a real business woman is still enough of a rarity to win the public gaze and incidentally the public patronage.

Business women who have tried their hand in Atlanta have tried their hand in the north as well, will tell you that there is no place like the south. Their slogan is an adaptation of Horace Greely‘s “Young girls, come south”.

There is Miss Henrietta Dozier, the woman architect who has had all the business she could handle for the last eleven years. She has had offices in the Peters building for eleven years, she has been in the south but eleven years, she has been successful eleven years.

Not that Miss Dozier is advising any girl to go to work.

“It is a hard life,” she says, “and if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t want her to do architectural or any other kind of work.”

Atlanta should feel proud of Miss Dozier. She is a graduate of the Girls’ High school and has made her name one of the foremost in American architectural circles.

Dozier graduated from Boston Tech, a full-fledged architect. She had accomplished the dream of her girlhood, fulfilled the ambition which was born in her when she used to build houses of A B C blocks and which clung to her all through her High school days.

First, she tried architecture in Boston, and the result is the very reason she likes Atlanta better. South she came, was in Jacksonville for eighteen months, and then reached Atlanta, where she was in the office of Walter T. Downing for another eighteen months.

PIONEER FOR WOMEN.

Eleven years ago she went into business for herself. At the time there was not another woman practicing architecture south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Miss Dozier was the pioneer who blazed the way.

“It was left for me to open a pathway where other women shall reap success,” said Miss Dozier.

Her own success has been far-reaching. Among the best work she has done is on the Nelson Hall school for girls, soon to be erected on Peachtree road; a shooting box for Mrs. Ernest Lorillard in Buford, S.C.; the Southern Ruralist building in Atlanta, an office building at Buchanan [sic], W. Va.; churches in Jacksonville, Fitzgerald, Gainesville, Barnesville; and numerous residences, among them Mr. Blackmar‘s in Columbus, Ga., Bishop Nelson‘s and Arnold Broyles‘ in Atlanta, Dr. W.A. Turner‘s in Newnan.¹

References

1. Greene, Ward S. “Atlanta Women Win Success In Business”. The Atlanta Journal, June 15, 1913, Women’s Section, p. 3. ↩︎

The Background

The following article appeared in The Atlanta Georgian and News in 1910, and includes a profile of Henrietta C. Dozier, the first female architect in Atlanta and the Southeastern United States.

While Dozier is the primary subject of the article, another “woman architect” of Atlanta is mentioned, Leila Ross Wilburn, as well as a feisty, anonymous attorney who apparently designed homes as a hobby.

Wilburn was a self-taught designer and unlicensed architect who started her own practice 8 years after Dozier, although she is sometimes erroneously credited as the South’s first female architect.

Her designs were unremarkable, but Wilburn found success by following the lead of architects like George F. Barber, publishing a series of pattern books for those looking to build their own homes inexpensively.

While Dozier is largely forgotten in Atlanta, Wilburn’s work is still widely touted by locals, particularly in nearby Decatur, Georgia, where many homes by her design remain. You will find no such celebration of Wilburn here.

As Dozier notes in this article, the Diocese of Georgia, headed by Bishop C.K. Nelson, commissioned her to design a project called Nelson Hall (pictured above), a 3-story school for girls on Peachtree Street in Atlanta.^{2 3 4 5 6}

Dozier was a devout Episcopalian, and the diocese was her most faithful client in Atlanta:⁷ among other projects for the organization, she designed the first chapel for Atlanta’s All Saints Episcopal Church,^{8 9} a 2-story building known as the Southern Ruralist building (1912, demolished),^{10 11 12 13 14} and St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Fitzgerald, Georgia, which still survives.

Had Nelson Hall been completed, it would have been one of the major works of Dozier’s career, but the project failed to materialize.

---

The Woman Invasion? Here Are Two Women Architects in Atlanta, and They Plan Sure-Enough Houses, Too

Miss Henrietta C. Dozier Talks of Her Work–She Designs Factories and Churches and Any Sort of Building.

By Dudley Glass.

“Why, anything from a chicken coop to a church. But my favorite line? The big things with lots of money in them, of course.”

Miss Henrietta C. Dozier leaned back in her office chair and smiled in a friendly way. She seemed to think it odd that any one should be surprised at a woman’s success in architecture. But, then, women are giving their brothers a race in every line nowadays, except steeple climbing, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see one start that. Why, there’s even a woman—but that’s good enough for a story of its own, so I’ll save it.

“Why not?” asks Miss Dozier. “There’s very little difference between men and women. There’s a lot more difference between individuals. I studied architecture in college, served a long apprenticeship for practical experience and had my ups and downs in the school of practical work. Why shouldn’t I be a good architect? I don’t ask any favors because I am a woman. Can I give satisfaction? That’s the main point.“

No Fashion Plates There.

Certainly she seemed to have sunk the woman in the architect during business hours at least. Her desk, a big roll-top with a hundred pigeon-holes, was well covered with papers and plans. I took a peep at a stack of magazines on the corner and instead of fashion plates and The Ladies’ Home Journal, I found only The Architectural Record and The Engineering Review. There were no Christy sketches on the wall of her office in the Peters building, but a dozen front elevations of handsome buildings, a glimpse or two of the Parthenon and the Coliseum and, in the place of honor over the desk, a big plate of the Boston Atheneum.

No, she isn’t an imported product. Boston furnished some of the science, but Miss Dozier is of the South Southern. You couldn’t chat with her for five minutes without learning that. But she would rather talk of her work than her personality, anyway.

She’s Building Nelson Hall.

“The biggest thing I ever tackled?” repeated the woman architect after a question. “Why, that, I suppose,” pointing at a drawing on the wall. “That” was an elevation of Nelson Hall, the splendid Episcopal school for girls which is soon to be erected on Peachtree-st. by Bishop C.K. Nelson and his diocesan workers.

“That’s been keeping me pretty busy lately,” she continued. “Nice of them to give me such a fine piece of work, isn’t it. Yes, it’s Tudor architecture. It’s going to be very handsome.”

“But I’ve built all sorts of things. There were some little houses at first—you know a beginner takes what she can get—but that was a long time ago. I’ll take a contract for any character of structure, factory, church—I’ve built several churches—homes, but I like the big things best, of course.”

“Do you really get out in the weather and climb over the half-finished buildings and boss contractors and all that sort of thing?” I was wondering if this neatly groomed woman had her troubles with workmen like ordinary folk or if she did all her directing from a steam-heated office.

A Woman as a “Boss”.

“Of course,” she replied. “No, I don’t ‘boss’ anybody much. That isn’t necessary. Every contractor I have known–with one exception–has been nice to me. All I need do is show them what I want.”

Miss Dozier smiled as she recalled the exception. A contractor had used some inferior laths against her express direction. There had been a letter or two, a telephone message, an ultimatum from the architect—and those laths came off again and new ones went in their place. The recollection seemed to amuse her.

“Sometimes they think a woman doesn’t know,” resumed the architect. “I drew plans for a big factory not long ago and had the weights all supported by—” (here she gave a brief but graphic description of her plans.) “The owners insisted that the idea wouldn’t do. No mill had ever been built that way, therefore it wasn’t the right way. And now, right in that late magazine, I find a big factory of the same kind using exactly the same idea I proposed. I’m glad to be vindicated—tho I knew I was right all the time.

“Women clients? No, they are no more trouble than the men. No, I can’t say that women are any more disposed to give another woman work than are the men. You remember I told you men and women were mightily alike. I’ve done lots of work for both.“

And then Miss Dozier begged me to excuse her a moment while she stopped for an animated discussion with a contractor whom she had summoned by phone. The cataract of technical terms that overflowed from the inner office while they bent over plans and blueprints gave me a feeling that I’d been trying to talk a strange language, and I slipped away.

She’s Not the Only One.

But Miss Dozier isn’t the only woman architect in Atlanta, even tho she is perhaps the best known, a natural consequence of her seven years’ service here and her degree from the American Institute of Architects. Just below her in the same building on the third floor, is the office of Miss Leila Ross Wilburn, a young woman who was too busy with pencil and compass when I entered to give much more than a pleasant smile and a promise of a talk some other time. Miss Wilburn, who lives in Decatur, has graduated from drafting for other architects into a nice business of her own, and has pluck and energy enough to accomplish wonders. She did the Goldsmith apartments on Peachtree and Eleventh-sts., the fine gymnasium at the Georgia Military academy and the academy’s Y.M.C.A. chapel and recreation halls, and has successfully completed a number of Atlanta buildings.

And there’s still another–a woman who draws plans and builds houses for herself. I met her in Inman Park, where she was making a hard-headed carpenter hang a door according to her ideas instead of his own.

“Are you an architect?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m a lawyer, and if you write me up in the paper I’ll sue you.”

She wasn’t deceiving me. She really is a full-fledged lawyer, and builds houses merely because she likes the work and the results. But remembering her threat, I’m not going to write her up, not even give you her name.¹⁶

References

1. “Nelson Hall, The New Episcopal School”. The Atlanta Constitution, March 19, 1910, p. 7. ↩︎
2. “Bishop Nelson Will Head School For Young Women”. The Atlanta Journal, July 13, 1909, p. 3. ↩︎
3. ‘”Nelson Hall” Charter Granted By Court’. The Atlanta Constitution, July 14, 1909, p. 7. ↩︎
4. “Will Open New College For Girls September, 1910”. The Atlanta Georgian and News, July 14, 1909, p. 7. ↩︎
5. “Nelson Hall, The New Episcopal School”. The Atlanta Constitution, March 19, 1910, p. 7. ↩︎
6. “Miss Stewart Here To Represent Nelson Hall”. The Atlanta Constitution, November 5, 1911, p. 5. ↩︎
7. Spotlight: Henrietta Dozier – Jacksonville History Center ↩︎
8. “History of All Saints’ Parish and Church Just Complete”. The Atlanta Constitution, April 8, 1906, p. 2. ↩︎
9. “All Saints’ Episcopal Church Will Be Formally Opened This Morning With Beautiful And Impressive Service”. The Atlanta Journal, April 8, 1906, p. S1. ↩︎
10. “Church Asks Permit To Erect $23,00 Building.” The Atlanta Georgian, July 3, 1912, p. 7. ↩︎
11. “Episcopalians May Erect Big Building”. The Atlanta Journal, July 3, 1912, p. 2. ↩︎
12. “The Real Estate Field”. The Atlanta Journal, July 8, 1912, p. 19. ↩︎
13. “The Real Estate Field”. The Atlanta Journal, August 1, 1012, p. 19. ↩︎
14. “Wanted–Female Help.” The Atlanta Constitution, December 15, 1912, p. 5. ↩︎
15. Glass, Dudley. “The Woman Invasion? Here Are Two Women Architects In Atlanta, And They Plan Sure-Enough Houses, Too.” The Atlanta Georgian and News, February 19, 1910, p. 1. ↩︎
16. ibid. ↩︎

The Background

The following article, published in The Atlanta Journal in 1908, features an interview with Henrietta C. Dozier (1872-1947), the first female architect in Atlanta and the Southeastern United States.

In 1908, Dozier was chosen by the Atlanta chapter of the American Institute of Architects as its delegate to the International Congress of Architects in Vienna, prompting her to spend 4 weeks in Paris before attending the conference, followed by visits to Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples,^{4 5 6} and other destinations.

A European excursion was an obligatory rite of passage for any American architect of the era — at least, those who were serious about the profession. The United States was then in the throes of the Beaux-Arts movement, and architects were expected to draw inspiration from the works of their European forebears.

“Strange to say, the architecture of Europe did not particularly interest me,” Dozier later recalled in a 1939 interview, which mirrored her remarks here.

The writer of this article (also a woman) wanted an architect’s impressions of Europe, and she got them — Dozier found Vienna “disappointing” and Brussels “not very interesting”. On the flip side, she thought Antwerp was “perfectly fascinating” and enjoyed the fashions of the “chic Parisiennes”, although she barely mentioned Paris’ architecture. Priorities.

Dozier inserted some interesting observations about American indifference toward architecture, and she pointedly criticized the preferential treatment given to her male colleagues at the conference: “I don’t mind adding that the men had altogether the best of it when it came to getting particular good from the congress, as on especial meetings the women were packed off on some excursion…”

Given her unorthodox character, it seems entirely fitting that Dozier broke away from those excursions (“I did my own sight-seeing in my own way…”), and that she got “forbidden snapshots” with her Kodak camera “in spite of the signs and guards”. My kind of woman.

---

Miss Henrietta C. Dozier, Architect, Talks of Congress in Vienna

“I have been interviewed several times and I don’t think the interviewer ever got what he wanted from me.”

This from Henrietta Dozier, architect, in answer to a question regarding her recent trip abroad.

[Reporter:] “Perhaps I am not as hard to please as those others; I only want to know something about the purpose of your journey.”

[Dozier:] “I was a delegate to the National Congress of Architects which met in Vienna, a congress representing Italy, France, Germany, Russia, England and America. There were about five hundred delegates, several hundred of them women. I don’t mind adding that the men had altogether the best of it when it came to getting particular good from the congress, as on especial meetings the women were packed off on some excursion about the town or its environments. None of that for me, however. I did my own sight-seeing in my own way and got a world of good out of my half loaf of travel. As for the purpose of the congress it is primarily to arouse greater interest on the part of the different governments for a purer architecture to appoint a commission by the government to make laws whereby it will be impossible for an unsightly building to be built by one ranking in the thousands; to have some rules so that in time each country will show not only a few perfect buildings but that there will be a harmony in the whole. It seems a gigantic undertaking but in Europe architects have an important share in the making of the cities and in the brighter and more hopeful interest taken in civic improvement it may not be long before they will come into their own in America.”.

“What do I think of Vienna? I found it disappointing. It is all so new—the best of their buildings are modeled from the classic—there is nothing original in them. The best thing except for St. Stephens‘, are the new parliament buildings, but they are distinctly similar to the new university at Athens, and Greece has accomplished nothing better than the ancients and know enough to cling to their ideals. St. Stephens’ is delightful and quite, to my mind, the best thing in Vienna. The rest of the city I found German,” (which, parenthetically, would arouse the ire of both Austrians and Germans could they hear it.)

Miss Dozier, builder though she is, in brick and stone, is not above a weakness for the creations in less lasting fabrics, and confesses to a keen admiration for the chic Parisiennes and fashions of the Rue de la Paix, Paris.

But in Paris she found the best in architecture.

“They are clever, those Frenchmen, nobody is their equal in planning and proportion. One of the finest things I have ever seen in my life is Napoleon’s tomb, and it took a Frenchman to do it—that marvelous management of lighting, the effect of moonlight gained by the use of pale yellow and blue glass there is nothing like it in the world. It is only in their detail that they overdo. I don’t understand why they do it. Planned and proportioned perfectly they will stick a lot of silly detail on that will come near to ruining their entire piece of work.”

“Perhaps that is as characteristic as the stolidness you find in German architecture.”

“Perhaps it is the super adornment, the ornateness, the extra trimming both in manner and building, but oh, they are so clever.

“I saw an architectural exhibit in the Salon and there was nothing like it for beauty of outline or plan.”

“No the Salon was not particularly interesting. Of course there were some good things, but I was surprised at the acceptance of some of the pictures; they were far below the usual standard.”

[Reporter:] “That wouldn’t be if all artists had the ideals of Monet.”

“No, indeed, it must have taken nerve to destroy £20,000 worth of pictures without taking into consideration the time and effort he must have put into them. Coming back to architecture, it hurts so to see the prevailing indifference of America to what architecture really means, so little realization of what a telling criticism a building of stone is on generations of the past. How ignorance endures in stone and how, when well done, what a monument to knowledge and culture.

[Reporter:] “Don’t you think, architecturally speaking, that the south has deteriorated since the [Civil] war instead of growing?”

“Oh, no; not at all, the people as a whole, are building better and more harmonious homes than ever before.

“Of course in the ante-bellum south the homes were modeled, many of them, from places already old when America was young. Built by men who wanted to bring with them the atmosphere of England to the new world—cultured students—men who knew the difference between cornices and capitals and who knew better than to confuse Gothic with Doric. A great deal of trouble comes from magazines. Not that I wish to underrate the undeniable good that magazines do, for they do a great deal in bringing to the people a broader, better view on homes and home surroundings. If the readers were only educated enough to differentiate between the bad and the good. But a little knowledge is as dangerous in architecture as it is in most things and people who have not made it a study and who wish to build would do well to leave it some one who has made it a specialty. Atlanta has made a great stride forward in the appointment of a civic improvement commission and we can hope for a more beautiful, a more harmonious Atlanta.

“And it is along these lines that the commission of the International Congress is working.

“The meeting in Vienna was the eighth which has been held and there were delightful social features in connection with the more interesting business ones. A reception at which Frances Joseph [sic] entertained the delegates, another charming one at Sehonbrun [sic], the summer palace, carriage drives on the Ringstrasse [sic] and out into the Danube valley and a number of formal affairs at private homes.

“About the rest of my trip? There was the landing and a stay of several days at Antwerp that I found perfectly fascinating. Antwerp is a place you could stay and long time in and not get tired of it. Then from there to Brussels which is not very interesting to me, and I only stayed for a short time on the way to Paris, where I spent three weeks, and to where I am going back at my first opportunity. Basle was attractive and I had a delightful stay in Salzburg and Munich, then Linz, where I took the boat for Vienna on the Danube. From Vienna I went to Venice, Rome and Naples from which point I sailed. It was a nice half-loaf, but it made me hungry for the other half, and the next time I go I hope to stay longer and see more.”

Miss Dozier took a number of interesting kodak pictures and in spite of the signs and guards, got views of San Angelo, interior details of St. Peter’s and a series of forbidden snapshots in the French capital.

MABEL DRAKE.⁷

References

1. “Personal and Incidental.” The Columbus Enquirer-Sun (Columbus, Georgia), October 17, 1909, p. 4. ↩︎
2. “Wanted–Driver and Butler.” (classified advertisement) The Columbus Ledger (Columbus, Georgia), September 25, 1910, p. 2. ↩︎
3. “Mrs. Blackmon’s Bridge Party”. The Columbus Enquirer-Sun (Columbus, Georgia), March 5, 1911, p. 2. ↩︎
4. “Miss Dozier Goes Abroad.” The Atlanta Constitution, April 5, 1908, p. 4. ↩︎
5. “Miss Dozier Sails On European Trip”. The Atlanta Journal, April 5, 1908, p. 24. ↩︎
6. “Some Personal Mention”. The Atlanta Journal, April 5, 1908, p. 39. ↩︎
7. Drake, Mabel. “Miss Henrietta C. Dozier, Architect, Talks of Congress in Vienna” The Atlanta Journal, June 19, 1908, p. 13. ↩︎