Marion Mahony Griffin and the Magic of America
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2000 Marion Mahony Griffinnd a The aM gic of America: recovery, reaction and re-entrenchment in the discourse of architectural studies Elizabeth Joy Birmingham Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Architecture Commons, Classical Archaeology and Art History Commons, Women's History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Birmingham, Elizabeth Joy, "Marion Mahony Griffinnd a The aM gic of America: recovery, reaction and re-entrenchment in the discourse of architectural studies " (2000). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 12310. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/12310 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in fypewriterface, while others may t>e from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author dkl not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unautiiortzed copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overiaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in ttiis copy. Higher quality 6' x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing fn this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Infbnnation and Learning 300 North Z^b Road, Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Marion Mahony Griffin and The Magic of America: Recovery, reaction and re-entrenchment in the discourse of architectural studies By Elizabeth Joy Birmingham A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Majon Rhetoric and Professional Communication Major E'rofesson Margaret Baker Graham Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2000 Copyright ® Elizabeth Joy Birmingham, 2000. All rights reserved. UMI Number 9990434 Copynght2000 by Birmingham, Bi^beth Joy Alt rights reserved. UMI' UMI Microform9990434 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howeli Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. 80x1346 Ann Arbor, Mt 48106-1346 ii Graduate College Iowa State University This is to certify that the Doctoral dissertation of Elizabeth Joy Birmingham has met the dissertation requirements of Iowa State University Signature was redacted for privacy. Major Professor Signature was redacted for privacy. For the Major Program Signature was redacted for privacy. For the Graduate College iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACBCNOWLEDGMENTS iv ABSTRACT vi A FEW NOTES ON NAMES, DEFINITIONS, SOURCES, CHOICES, AND ABBREYLATIONS vii PREFACE: A STORY xiii CHAPTER L INTRODUCTION: WHY ARE THERE NO GREAT WOMEN ARCHITECTS?: THAT INNOCENT QUESTION AND THE DISCOURSE OF ARCHITECTURE I CHAPTER!. ERASING A WOMAN: THE CANON, ABSENCE, AND GENDER 26 CHAPTER 3. ERASING AN ARCHITECT: THE PROBLEM OF COLLABORATION AND THE POLITICS OF ATTRIBUTION 68 CHAPTER 4. SILENCING A VOICE: THE DISCIPLINE AS THE REAL BATTLEFRONT 97 CHAPTER 5- POLICE LINES: GENDER AND THE POLITICS OF SPECULATIVE SCHOLARSHIP 126 CHAPTER 6. WHY ARE THERE NO GREAT WOMEN ARCHITECTS? 151 APPENDIX A. TREACHEROUS SPACES: THE LIMITS OF CRITiaSM, FEMINISM, AND RHETORiaSM 155 APPENDIX B- LOUIS SULLIVAN AND RALPH WALDO EMERSON: A DISCUSSION OF TRANSCENDENTALIST INFLUENCE 185 APPENDIX C. A BIBUOGRAPHY OF SOURCES ABOUT THE GRIFFINS 195 NOTES 212 SOURCES CITED 233 iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My warmest and most sincere thanks to Marty Graham, who put the notion of this degree into my head in the first place, and who has consistently assured me that I do want to undertake research. Without your gentle pushing and generous support this would not have happened; it is a goal I would not have had for myself before knowing you. Likewise, I thank my conmiittee, Charie Thralls, David Roberts, Loring Silet, and Clare Cardinal Pett for superhuman patience, as well as insight, intelligence, and occasional willing suspension of disbelief. I have been lucky to learn fix)m you all. I thank all those women who helped me claim an education—Dr. Frances Steiner, who first introduced me to the Griffins in architectural history class—my love affair with beautiful buildings is thanks to you; the many sisters in the English department at Rosary College who introduced me to the moderately guilty pleasures of an intellectual life: Sr. Jeanne Crapo, Sr. Clemente Davlin, Sr. Carolyn McGinty, Sr. Mary Paynter, and Sr. Melissa Waters. And, of course, my thanks to Mary Scott Simpson and Rosalind Hays who regularly made me work harder than I wanted to and helped me achieve more than I was capable of. I am lucky to call you all fnends. To Lee Hadley, whose absence I feel deeply and often, and to Brenda Daly and Jennifer Bloomer, both of whom, through their works of stunning intricacy and honesty, inspire me to be a scholar when I grow up. Many thanks to all those organizations who provided me with financial support during this expensive joumey: the Haggard dissertation fellowship from Iowa State University, the Society of Architectural Historians, and the Fulbright Foundation, fii V addition, I thank those scholars who generously shared their time and their work with me, Anna Rubbo, Aja Preliasco, and Mary Woolever. Last, though most importantly, I thank my family, whose support on this long, strange trip has been unwavering and occasionally unnerving and unwarrante± Jim and Connie Birmingham; Mike, Margaret, Matt, Carole, Mark, Sarah, and beautiful baby Duncan. My aunt and uncle, Joy and Don Donahue, who, with my parents, insisted on I begin an undergraduate education and supported me both emotionally and financially. My Caity, who has been helping me through college for most of her life, and who has been my inspiration since her three-year-old self told me she wanted to be a waitress like mama when she grew up. My Griffin, who will remember his mama as neither a waitress nor a student, and who has been the most lovely distraction a procrastinator like me could ever wish for. Rnally, Kevin, without whom. Without whom. vi ABSTRACT The discourse that defines and supports the discipline of architectural studies has historically focused its attention on the study and veneration of great men and great monuments, a focus that has erased the contributions of many women in the field. By examining the secondary scholarship surrounding one such woman, architect and theorist Marion Mahony Griffin (1871-1961), this paper argues that women are invisible in the history of architecture because they are described in ways that dismiss their contributions, characterize them as essentially different from male architects, and undermine their status as "real" architects. A long and complex involvement of women in architectural practice has been written out of history because habits of scholarship accept and reassert the culturally received notion that men build while women decorate. This case study reveals the cultural assumptions that inform and reinforce practices of scholarship that habitually ignores women, and their architectural and theoretical work, suggesting this is not a problem that disappeared with the introduction of feminist scholarship to the discipline. In fact, after a decade of scholarly recovery of women's architectural contributions, a strong backlash has swept into the area of GrifBn studies, confronting not just the historical figure of Mahony Griffin, but "disciplining" the scholars whose speculation has attempted to open the field to a wider range of research questions. vii A FEW NOTES ON NAMES, DEFINITIONS, SOURCES, CHOICES, AND ABBREVIATIONS Because this text is, in part, an attempt to re-tell the story of a woman whose Ufe and contribudons have been clouded in earlier histories, and because this story is for an audience whose knowledge of architectural history may be varied, the purpose of this section is to provide some insight into the names, terms, and texts I have used and why I have chosen them, as well as to offer insight in the authorial choices I have made. Names Marion Lucy Mahony* was bom in 1871; in 1911 she married and took the last name of her husband, Walter Hurley Griffin, becoming Marion Mahony Griffin. Most early texts that include her work refer to her as Marion, even when they refer to Frank Lloyd Wright as Wright, or Walter Burley Griffin