Interested in knowing more about architect Juliet Peddle? She is known for her Modern designs in her hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana, as well as her interest in preserving historic architecture. She created a series of holiday cards, one of which is above, to send to friends and clients, and also designed cards for others.
A small collection of her work was donated recently, and has been digitized and made available in the University Libraries' Digital Media Repository. Below is a brief biographical sketch from the finding aid to the collection:
Juliet Alice Peddle was born
June 7, 1899 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Her father, John Peddle, worked as a professor
of machine design at Rose Polytechnic Institute in Terre Haute.[1] She
attended King Classical School during her formative years and began studying
architecture at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1918. At
the University of Michigan, Peddle was friends with fellow student, Bertha Yerex
Whitman, who was the first female graduate from the architecture school when
she graduated in 1920. Whitman and
Peddle both belonged to the T-Square
Society, a club for female and engineering students established in 1915.[2]
Upon graduation in 1922,
Peddle followed Whitman to Chicago to work at the architecture firm Perkins, Fellows,
and Hamilton, which specialized in designing school buildings. [3] She
continued her education through courses at the Art Institute of Chicago, where
she also taught briefly, and at the Berkshire Summer Art Institute.
Peddle received her license
to practice architecture in Illinois in 1926, and was one of only seven female architects
to receive licenses that year. In 1927, she embarked on a six-month sketching
trip through England, France, and Italy. She studied and sketched historical
buildings, views of canals, and other old world architecture.
After her trip to Europe,
Juliet returned to Chicago and worked for Edwin H. Clark from 1927 to 1931.
During her time in Chicago, Juliet Peddle and Whitman, along with seven other
women architects, founded the Women’s Architectural Club of Chicago. The group
exhibited their work at the first Women’s World’s Fair in Chicago in 1927, and
later held exhibitions in the library and social hall of Perkins, Fellows, and
Hamilton. Peddle served as an editor at The
Architrave, the club’s publication.
After losing her job due to
the Depression, she began working for the Historic American Building Surveys
(HABS) program sponsored by the government. In 1935, she moved back to Terre
Haute, Indiana
In 1928, she was prompted to
move closer to home when her father, with whom she was close, suffered a stroke.
In 1931, due to the Great Depression Juliet Peddle lost her job and began
working with the government sponsored Historic American Building Surveys (HABS).
During her employment with HABS, Juliet Peddle gained considerable knowledge in
the field of historic preservation and restoration, in part because she
attended a seminar in Colonial Williamsburg.[4]
She
headed back to Terre Haute and opened her own office in 1939. Juliet Peddle was
the first registered female architect in Indiana. She continued working and
remained in business until her death in 1979. Clients appreciated her modern
designs, but Peddle also appreciated the past and worked with the Virgo
Historical Society documenting the historic architecture buildings of her
community. She opened her office in the Grand Opera House and worked there for
the following years until her death on September 6th 1979.
[1] American Machinist:
A Practical Journal of Machine Construction, Vol. 40, No14 .1914 (Hill
Publishing Co. New York), pg. 598
[2] University of Michigan, Michiganensian, Vol. 24, 1920 (published by the Senior Classes of
the University of Michigan)., pg. 665, 704-705.
[3] Allaback, Sarah, The
First American Women Architects, (Univ. of Illinois Press, Illinois, 2008),
pg. 168. accessed:
http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/collection-guides/juliet-peddle-drawings-1941-1950.pdf
[4] Allaback, Sarah, The
First American Women Architects, (Univ. of Illinois Press, Illinois, 2008),
pg. 168. accessed:
http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/collection-guides/juliet-peddle-drawings-1941-1950.pdf
