Kathleen James-Chakraborty – in-person lecture, SAH Latrobe Chapter, Washington, DC.

For two decades, from 1963 to 1983, Chloethiel Woodard Smith ran the largest woman owned architectural practice in the United States.  Smith despised being labeled as a woman architect, but there were many ways in which her gender proved useful to her, even as she also suffered significant discrimination and harassment.  Most notably, she depended on women journalists, members of one the few professions in which women had historically been well represented in the United States.  Smith made good copy in part her gender made her exceptional.  Smith was not a boldly original designer.  Instead, much of her success depended upon the service she rendered the profession and the marketability of the housing she designed, as well as her eventual status as a consummate Washington insider.  Reconstructing the ways in which Smith adhered to some ladylike norms of her era while flouting others not only helps explain why her predominantly male client base hired her, but also the way in which mixing stereotypically male and female gender attributes made her unusual career possible.

https://www.latrobechaptersah.org/events/2023/4/4/chloethiel-woodard-smith