In conjunction with the History Center exhibit Modern in the Midcentury, architectural historian Mary Anne Hunting will discuss the role of women architects and designers in disseminating Modernism in the United States. Drawing on research for her forthcoming publication, “Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism,” of which she is a co-author with Kevin D. Murphy, Dr. Hunting contends that despite the stream of male modernist émigrés in Chicago, women were largely unable to break free from the age-old barriers in the male-dominated architecture profession.

By using a variety of professional strategies, like their Eastern peers, women in Chicago were able to find a way to contribute to the modern movement—in architecture as well as in related fields including education, publishing, retail, and art and design. In so doing, women spread Modernism to a broader, more geographically diverse audience than if they had been singularly focused on designing homes, the traditional domain of women.

Architectural historian Mary Anne Hunting received a Ph.D. from the CUNY Graduate Center, MA from Parsons School of Design/Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and BA from Vanderbilt University. She is the author of “Edward Durell Stone: Modernisms Populist Architect” (2013) and the co-author with Kevin D. Murphy of the forthcoming publication, “Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism” (Princeton University Press, 2025). She and Professor Murphy lecture widely on the production of women architects in the mid-twentieth century.