She was born in Chicago, Illinois and was the only child of James and Vera Greene. Information about Greenes employment by Rosenfield was obtained during a 2000 interview by author with Clivetta Stuart Johnson about her husband, Conrad A. Johnson, who supervised detailed planning and design in Rosenfields office. She first made history by becoming the first African-American female to earn a bachelor of science degree in architectural engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1936. Her memorial service took place at the Unity Funeral Home in Manhattan, one of the buildings she had designed. Retrieved from http://www.blackpast.org/aah/greene-beverly-loraine-1915-1957, Illinois Architecture College of Fine and Applied Arts. Her designs of schools, libraries, and housing projects continue to serve . Her graduation date and the degree she received were confirmed by the Registrars Office in an e-mail to author, April 18, 2003. Co-sponsored by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA NYC) and the Architectural League, the exhibit of CANA members work was seen at St. Philips Church and the Countee Cullen Library in Harlem and before traveling to Hampton University in Virginia where it was to be displayed for an educators conference.2828In a letter published in Ebony Magazine (March 1957, 12), Isaiah Ehrlich, a CANA member, gives the names of other black women architects who participated at this exhibition. The need for housing for black families was so great that 17,544 people applied to live in the Wells project.1010Arnold Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago 19401960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 30). Both articles misidentified the school. Good to go. Caf-Restaurant at the Levant Fair, Tel Aviv, Israel, 1934, Chicago Housing Authority, Ida B. . The Sweet Corn Society b. Date of Birth / Location: 1872 / Quincy, Illinois, Date of Death / Location: August 17, 1936 / Chicago, Illinois, Professional Organizations & Activities: Member, National Women's Association of Commerce; Board member, Aviation Club of Chicago; Director, Woodlawn Trust and Savings Bank; Member, Mens Association of Commerce, Date of Birth / Location: 1871 / New York, Education: Wellesley College, 1884-1890; AB from Cornell University, 1887-1890; Bachelor's of Science in Architecture, Chicago School of Architecture (a joint program with the Armour Institute, now Illinois Institute of Techonoly IIT, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago), 1902. See more content and events from our seriesmarking Black History Month 2022. Given her past experiences, and the companys prior announcement that African Americans would not be allowed to live in Stuyvesant Town, Greene believed she would not be hired. Artwork, Beverly Loraine Green & Stuy Town, New York, FAC 461 - Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album - new limited edition. The Bartlett School of Sustainable Constructions Dr Abdul-Majeed Mahamadu works to improve safety, emissions and productivity in construction through digital technologies and industrialised techniques. In fact, she was one of the first architects hired, perhaps to deflect criticism of the housing policy.1616The companys response, in part, was to develop the Riverton Houses project in Harlem in a demonstration of the separate but equal policy followed by many organizations at the time. The Illinois Distributed Museum is a project of the University Archives and University Library. [1] Despite her credentials, she found it difficult to surmount race barriers to find work in the city. The 1940 census lists her occupation as supervisor at a technical center, a role that may have been connected with the CHA project.1414This center may have been related to her work for the Wells housing project. Three of Greenes employersarchitects Isadore Rosenfield, Edward Durrell Stone, and Marcel Breuerwere all members and supporters of CANA, whose tenets encouraged the employing of black architects.2121Why Whites Would Work in C.A.N.A. CANA Newsletter 14, no.1 (June 1963). I remember there was one gal in my class and she was what we called colored girls thenBeverly Greene. Eleanor Raymond's "Rachael Raymond House", Belmont, Mass. Beverly Lorraine Greene is believed to have been the first African American woman licensed to practice architecture in the United States. Beverly Lorraine Greene General Information Occupation: Architect Date of Birth: October 04, 1915 Date of Death: August 22, 1957 Birth City: Chicago Birth State/Province: Illinois Birth Country: United States Resident City: New York City Resident State/Province: New York Resident Country: United States Between 1951 until shortly before her death in 1957, Greene worked in Marcel Breuers office, where she was a draftsperson on several projects, including the Grosse Pointe Library in Grosse Point, Michigan (1953) and a servants quarters addition for the Winthrop Rockefeller house in Tarrytown, New York (1952).2424Greenes name appears on two projects in the online archives for the Marcel Breuer Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries. Do you find this information helpful? Her employers during that period included the architectural firm headed by Isadore Rosefield which specialized in health care and hospital design. BEVERLY LORAINE GREENE American architect born in 1915. Originally known by its WPA assigned name: South Park Garden Housing Project, at the urging of several black civic organizations including the NTA, CCNO and Taylor, the only black commissioner, the project was renamed for Ida B. Furthermore, Greene also worked with the architectural firm headed by Marcel Breuer on the UNESCO United Nations headquarters in Paris, France (pictured below) as well as various buildings for New York University. Can you guess which of these clubs she spent her free time in, a. Although Beverly Loraine Greene did not get to see her last project come to fruition, the legacy she built was reflected in her funeral service. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. I wish that young women would think about this field, Greene remarked in a 1945 interview. Greene was then hired by the Chicago Housing Authority, breaking race and gender barriers in the process, and received her license to practice architecture from the State of Illinois on 28 December 1942 aged just 27. In October 1938, the Chicago Housing Authority Chairman Joseph W. McCarthy informed Foster that the employment of black architects and drafters could only be considered after CHA received approval and a federal loan contract for the project. 1865-1945. The companys response, in part, was to develop the Riverton Houses project in Harlem in a demonstration of the separate but equal policy followed by many organizations at the time. Built on the former blighted Gas House District, which had been demolished under the citys slum-clearance scheme, the development was devised by Metropolitan Life which, at the time, insured one third of New York Citys population. Dr. C. B. Powell, an entrepreneur and the publisher and principal owner of the New York Amsterdam News, purchased a two-story building in Central Harlem and hired Greene to transform the space into a funeral home. After receiving a bachelor of architecture degree, she continued her studies at the University of Illinois in the graduate program of City Planning and Housing. Wells housing project. Greene is also mentioned in an oral history project interview by Rudard Jones, a classmate, who later taught at the university. "[1][2] She was registered as an architect in Illinois in 1942. This resulted in a move to New York in 1945, where Greene applied for a role on the Metropolitan Life Insurance Companys new development of Stuyvesant TownPeter Cooper Village (often referred to as Stuy Town), a large-scale post-war housing project situated on a 72 acre site on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NY. The following year, she led the South Side Girls Club, which built awareness and sought solutions to address a noticeable neglect of the need of Negro girls of all ages during the Depression.44Permanent Clubhouse for Girls is New Goal, Chicago Defender, December 17, 1938. Served on the Council for the Advancement of the Negro in Architecture. In 1945, Greene packed her bags and headed for New York City to work on a housing project for Stuyvesant Town in lower Manhattan after reading a newspaper article that the project would be funded by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Firms & Partnerships: Architect for Sears, Roebuck & Co., 1937 (According to "Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses from Sears, Roebuck & Company" by Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl.) [Beverly Lorraine Greene], letter to J. Photograph by Jack Delano, 1942. a project of the modernist society. Woman Architects Services at Unity, the obituary for Greene in the, Greenes name appears on two projects in the online archives for the, IAWA Biographical Database, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Marcel Breuer Digital Archive, Syracuse University Library, Ida B. In addition to Norma Fairweather (later Norma Sklarek), he names Garnett Keno Covington (the first black female architecture student to graduate from Pratt Institute), Beverly Greene, and Carmen Seguinot. Fun Fact: Beverly Greene was involved in RSOs (registered student organizations) at UIUC just like current students are today! Yearbook photograph of Beverly Greene with other members of the student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) on the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana campus, 1936. A caption states that the building was planned to give best service in New York., Beverly Greene, Unity Funeral Home, Harlem, New York City, 1953. Stuyvesant Town (bottom and left) and Peter Cooper Village (top and right). Under construction from 1939 to 1941, the 1662-unit, low-rise Public Works Administration (PWA) Wells project was built to house black families segregated on the South Side, while three other completed CHA housing projects in Chicago were intended exclusively for white families. L. Greene, Chicago Daily Tribune, August 26, 1957; Beverly Greene, Jet Magazine, September 5, 1957; Dreck Spurlock Wilson, Beverly Loraine Greene was born 4 October 1915 in Chicago Illinois, an only child to parents James, a lawyer, and Vera, a homemaker. Retrieved from, http://www.blackpast.org/aah/greene-beverly-loraine-1915-1957, Illinois Architecture College of Fine and Applied Arts. Subjects: African American History, People Terms: , Europe - France, , STEM - Architects Retrieved September 12, 2018, from https://arch.illinois.edu/welcome/history-school. Biography. As we honor #BlackHistoryMonth, let us pay tribute to Beverly Loraine Greene, the first African American woman to become a licensed architect in the state of Jarell Chavers no LinkedIn: #blackhistorymonth #blackhistorymonth #beverlylorainegreene Subscribe and receive each quarterly issue at a reduced price. Beverly Loraine Greene, believed to be the first African American woman architect in the United States, was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 4, 1915. Firms & Partnerships: Holabird and Root, 1930s; Rand McNally, 1930s; Historical American Building Survey Work, 1930s; Montgomery Ward, n.d.; Private Practice, beginning in 1959; Designed offices, factories, displays, and machinery for Lindberg Engineering Company in the 1940s. In 1936, she graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne with a bachelor's in architectural engineering, making history as the first Black woman to do so. The Sweet Corn Society b. Beverly Loraine Greene. According to architectural editor Dreck Spurlock Wilson, she was "believed to have been the first African-American female licensed as an architect in the United States." [1] [2] She was registered as an architect in Illinois in 1942. Though she remained in Rosefield's employ until 1955, Greene worked with Edward Durell Stone on at least two projects in the early 1950s. Greene was one of the first African Americans in the agency. All Rights Reserved. Photo of Anna Carmen Baird Walsh in A Composite Woman, American Lumberman, November 27, 1920- Courtesy of Julia Bachrach Consulting, Katherine Brewster with her children Sara and Edward- Courtesy of Chicago History Museum, Pao-Chi Chang- Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune.