Louise Blanchard Bethune - Table of Contents

Louise Blanchard Bethune:  Bio

Reprinted from the 2010 National Register nomination for the Hotel Lafayette

 
Louise Bethune (1856-1913) was very active both in advancing the stature of women in the architectural profession and in promoting the profession in general.  In 1885, she became the first woman member of the Western Association of Architects (WAA), a dynamic young group of practitioners that was pressing for professional standards and challenging the supremacy of the well-established American Institute of Architects (AIA).  Louise became the first woman member of the latter national profession association in 1888.  When the two groups merged in 1889 to form a new AIA, all WAA members became AIA Fellows, another first for Louise Bethune.  She was also a founder of the Buffalo Society of Architects in 1886, which became the local AIA chapter four years later.
 
Bethune’s greatest impact was opening the doors in professional circles for other women to enter the field of architecture, leading by way of her commitment to the development of professional standards in the profession and the promotion of “Equal Remuneration for Equal Services” for women. In 1891, giving a speech titled “Woman and Architecture” before an audience at the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union in Buffalo, Bethune remarked about women in architecture, “The future of women in the architectural profession is what she herself sees fit to make it.[29]” Simultaneously to this speech she declined an invitation to compete in the design of the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, citing the difference between the women’s prize of $1,000 prize versus the men’s of $10,000.[30] In response to questions about the Women’s Building competition, Bethune stated, “It is an unfortunate precedent to establish right now, and it may take years to live down its effects.” She was correct in her assumption, as it would take generations of women years to gain full acceptance and equal pay in the field of architecture. Her work to equalize the disparities between men and women would be continued on by other notable women in the profession throughout the Twentieth Century.
 
In the 1880s, the Bethune office became one of the most prominent in Western New York, executing a wide variety of commissions.  Among the most substantial were the Seventy-fourth Regiment Armory (1886) and the Livestock Exchange (1890) in Buffalo, and the high school (1890) at Lockport, N.Y. (all demolished).  The firm was especially noted for its educational work, designing eighteen schools and additions in Buffalo and the surrounding communities. Sadly, none of these are extant.  Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs also established a reputation for the design of industrial buildings. But most of these additionally have been lost.  The former Iroquois Door Company at Larkin and Exchange Streets in Buffalo is one of the few to survive.
 
The Hotel Lafayette, one of many notable buildings the firm designed in downtown Buffalo, is the most significant work of Bethune, Bethune & Fuchs still standing. Unfortunately, the last three decades of the twentieth century saw the demolition of at least seven of their other downtown buildings. Two of these went down despite being included in the locally designated Theater Historic District.  The most intact structures by the firm to remain in the downtown area are a former stable at 177-179 Elm Street (1891) and a richly embellished commercial building at 621-623 Main Street (1908). Most of the firm's surviving work are houses in the city of Buffalo, including the Kellogg house at 211 Summer Street, personally designed by Louise.


Page by Chuck LaChiusa in  2014
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