ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 PROJECT ABSTRACT Throughout history men have largely occupied the fields of building and architecture. How is it that a woman, of some means, but with no formal professional education could, in the mid to late 1800’s, manage to develop the skills as both an architect and builder such that she was able to make a significant impact on the newly emerging suburb of Newton Highlands, just west of Boston, Massachusetts? Mrs. Ann M. Cobb, born 1830 in Maine, is credited by the Newton History Museum’s Historical Survey of Houses, with the design of 16 houses and two house additions. The known houses all exist within a small radius in Newton Highlands and each of these houses possess a very strong character in proportion and detailing that reveal a real talent for design. Working with Susan Abele of the Newton History Museum, I researched and documented the Newton work of Ann Cobb. I explored her history, documented the buildings as they existed today, tried to recreate original floor plans and recovered drawings and reference to more of her work. In doing so I came to a better understanding of how she came to be a builder and how her work was accomplished. Almost every residential architectural practice involves at some point, the restoration, renovation or alteration of an existing home. In the Northeast, this involves dealing with homes that are often a hundred years old or more. It then becomes important that we understand the nature of its construction and also the logic of the original design. Documenting and archiving the work of architects and builders, helps us to preserve our local heritage and also move forward making informed and sensitive decisions given the existing fabric of our neighborhoods. Ann M. Cobb had a significant impact on the fabric of Newton Highlands, MA and she was able to do so in a period that had only begun to consider the valuable contributions that women might make outside of the home. My hope is to preserve her legacy and inspire others with the story of her tenacity and spirit. 1 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 REPORT PROJECT OVERVIEW: The goal of this project was to research and document the work of Ann M. (Raeburn) Cobb, a woman who transcended Victorian gender roles to enter the exclusive male world of architecture and building. She is credited with designing and building a significant number of residences in Newton Highlands, MA and four houses in South Boston over a span of thirty five years and over the course of two economic depressions. How was she able to be so productive in an era when a woman’s work was generally concerned with the interior of home life? How was she able to overcome the gender limitations imposed by Victorian society, in a time when the only occupations pursued by women were housework, teaching, sewing, and work in factories? These questions are of great interest and importance to better understanding the history of women in the architecture profession. RESEARCH METHODS: In documenting Ann Cobb’s houses I first pursued research at the Newton History Museum. The museum’s historical house surveys were a great source of information. The surveys were first conducted in the 1980’s by Deborah Shea and later developed in the 1990’s by historian Roger Reed. I built upon this information by examining documents at the Registry of Deeds of Middlesex and Suffolk Counties. To recreate the original floor plans I consulted the files at the City of Newton Engineering Department where original surveyed drawings of the houses are located. These surveyed drawings date for the most part when construction was first completed and water brought into each house. I visited and measured many of the houses and drafted floor plans. From examining files at the City of Newton Building Department I was able to obtain documentation of any changes made to the houses through building permits and old plans. Through old photographs obtained from the Newton History Museum, descendents of Ann Cobb’s, and local residents I was able to document original features of the houses. In researching local town histories and probate records of Warren and Bath, Maine I was able to uncover details of Cobb’s family history. In consulting South Boston histories and church records I was able to reconstruct her life before her move to Newton Highlands. In examining family papers from her descendents I acquired a view of Cobb’s husband, parents and her own personality. Through a thorough examination of local newspapers I documented her interests by collecting announcements and reports of her publications, papers, and club activities. Through photographing the houses recurrent themes in her work emerged. KEY FINDINGS:  Cobb’s career began much earlier than previously thought. First indication of building is dated 1860 in South Boston, a block of four townhouses developed under her husband, Sewall C. Cobb, a shipbuilder at Charlestown Navy Yard. Her first purchase of land in Newton Highlands is also earlier than previously 2 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 known. She purchased land in 1872 and began building in 1875. City records indicate she is the sole purchaser of the land in Newton Highlands and the builder. Her husband had previously relocated to Pensacola, Florida in 1866. They lived separately but she joined him in Florida for the winter months.  Cobb’s design career ended later than previously thought. Her granddaughter, Margaretta Logan Blake, is said to have had Cobb design her house in Concord, New Hampshire circa 1905/1906. This led to the discovery of blueprints of some original house drawings.  Cobb’s mother’s history reveals the ills associated with the married woman’s lack of property rights and its debilitating effect on women.  Cobb’s religion, Congregationalism, with its reformist theology, was a vehicle toward empowerment for women. It was through the Newton Highlands Congregational Church that Cobb founded the Newton Highlands Monday Club with the Rev. George Phipps’ wife, Kathleen Phipps. The Monday Club arranged for many famous feminists, such as Lucy Stone, to speak on the suffragette movement.  Cobb thought and wrote about her own career as a house builder and architectural designer: The newspapers of 1888 reviewed her talk “How One Woman Became a House Builder.” In her travel diary of 1897 of England and Scotland she wrote her architectural impressions of Westminster Abbey.  Cobb was an exhibitor in the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in the Woman’s Building, in the category of Constructive Architecture. She exhibited working plans, elevations and photographs. She also put together a book of house plans intended to accompany or to be sold at her exhibit.  Cobb organized architectural lectures, private and public, through the Newton Highlands Monday Club. One provocative lecture was titled “Co-operative Housekeeping”. The lecture explored how it would work and what architectural form it would take. The talk was presented by Mrs. M.J. Rand, the wife of prominent architect George Rand in January of 1890.  Much of Cobb’s residential design shows strong influence from contemporaneous Shingle style architects, an indication she was actively studying architectural books and other publications.  A few of the themes that she explored in her work are: 1. Use of varied surface material to create texture and animation on building facades. 2. The development of stair hall as public space for social gatherings. 3. Embracing Catharine Beecher’s concept of home organization: Cobb incorporated more built-in seating, closets, pass-throughs, pantries, china closets, linen closets than would be expected in the average sized Victorian home. 4. In using art tiles which celebrate womanhood and childhood Cobb reveals her affinity with Catharine Beecher’s theme of the home as the sacred domain of women.  The discovery of a possible source of her architectural drafting education: The South Boston School of Art, started in 1872. Adult women were encouraged to participate in all areas of art education at the school including architectural drawing. The school was located one half mile from Cobb’s house and gave free instruction and materials. Cobb’s paintings are also dated from this time period. 3 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010  Cobb’s husband, Sewall, supported her career. 1. He financially supported her in a separate household in Newton Highlands, MA while he made his home in Pensacola, Florida. 2. As a lumber operator, one of his many business interests in Florida, he provided her with building materials, such as Florida cedar, which he shipped to Newton Highlands. 3. He relinquished his “husband’s curtesy” of one half of her lands, to which he was legally entitled, each time she sold one of her houses. 4. He wrote his granddaughter of Ann Cobb’s preparations for the World’s Fair and traveled with her to Chicago for the event. CONCLUSIONS: Why is Cobb so important? Born in 1830, first associated with building in 1860 in South Boston and actively pursuing a design and building career in Newton Highlands by the mid 1870’s, Cobb is arguably the first American woman architect of architecture’s pre- professional period. This was a period before schools of architecture existed and well before future schools of architecture allowed women to participate in their programs. As a comparison MIT School of Architecture graduated its first woman in 1890. Her story thus has significant historical importance. Cobb’s suburban world was ruled by women. Her work designing residences was welcomed by her society and celebrated as the natural outgrowth of woman’s expertise in the domestic realm of the home. She was not a radical suffragette but a respected and well loved matron who entered a masculine career but did not have to compete in a man’s world. Because she was financially able, she bought land, designed homes, built them on speculation or commission, and in times of economic depression built to rent. She could not have accomplished so much any other way. 4 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 As part of an ongoing project to research and document the work of Ann M. Cobb I have included a list of her known houses, exhibitions, publications, papers, and associations. I have recorded some of the events of her life and those of her family up till her move from South Boston to Newton Highlands. Also included are interior and exterior photographs, first floor plans and images of some original documents. All interior photographs are by Dace Treize-Winzeler. Ann Margaretta (Raeburn) Cobb (1830 – 1911), photos courtesy of Anne McCune and Perry Smoot. “She had a great facility for architecture, and quite a number of houses at Newton Highlands were built from plans prepared entirely by this remarkable woman.”1 KNOWN HOUSES: 1. 1860 - 411, 413, 415, 417 East Seventh St., South Boston, block of four houses2. 2. 1875 - 27 Chester St., Newton Highlands, MA. 1888 - addition with tower. 3. 1877 - 61 Forest St., Newton Highlands, MA. 4. 1877 - 24 Chester St., Newton Highlands, MA. 5. 1885 - 45-47 Forest St., Newton Highlands, MA, double house. 6. 1886 - 16 Chester St., Newton Highlands, MA, demolished 1940/41. 7. 1887 - 10 Chester St., Newton Highlands, MA. 8. 1889 - 4 Chester St., Newton Highlands, MA. 9. 1890 - 5 Chester St., Newton Highlands, MA. 10. 1891 - 27 Hillside Rd., Newton Highlands, MA. 11. 1891 - 55 Hillside Rd., Newton Highlands, MA. 12. 1895 - 43 Hillside Rd., Newton Highlands, MA. 13. 1895 - 49 Hillside Rd., Newton Highlands, MA. 14. 1896 - 37 Hillside Rd., Newton Highlands, MA. 15. 1896 - 1 Raeburn Terrace, Newton Highlands, MA. 16. 1896 - 2 Raeburn Terrace, Newton Highlands, MA. 17. 1903 - 25 Hillside Rd., Newton Highlands, MA. 18. Circa 1906 - 123 School St., Concord, NH. Attributed to Cobb. Cobb’s granddaughter, Margaretta Logan Blake had this house built. 5 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 HOUSE ADDITIONS: 1. 1891 - 38 Bowdoin St. 2. 1888 - 11 Chester St. EXHIBITIONS: Exhibitor in the Chicago World’s Fair 18933 in the Woman's Building, Constructive Architecture: Cobb exhibited working plans elevations and photographs of houses. PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS: 1. “How One Woman Became a House Builder,” Paper given to West Newton Educational Club, and separately to Newton Highlands Monday Club in May 1888. 2. Scientific American Architects and Builders Edition, Vol. XV, February, 1893. Drawings, plans, specifications #4 Chester St., Newton Highlands, MA. 3. Book of House Plans, 18934 4. “Sarah Fuller Hull”, Paper given to the Sarah Hull Chap. DOR (Daughters of the Revolution) 1896-1899 5. “Revolutionary events preceding the Evacuation of Boston”, Paper given to the Sarah Hull Chapter, DOR (Daughters of the Revolution) 1896-1899. 6. “Maj. Benj. Burton”, Paper given to the Sarah Hull Chap. DOR (Daughters of the Revolution) 1896-1899 7. “Directory to the Bicentennial inventory of American paintings executed before 1914”, Collection of Fine Arts (U.S.), 1976, page 55, 8. Travel Diary of 1897 England, Scotland. Includes architectural descriptions of Westminster Abbey, etc.5 9. Founded with others, a magazine “The Wireless”, first issue February 1903. Ann contributed an essay “The Highlands of Scotland” to the first issue. 10. “Travels in Scotland” Given at W.O.N.A.R.D. Boston - March 27, 19066 11. Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database -“Bowl of Lilacs”, ca. 1875 oil, 9 ½ x 16 inches. ASSOCIATIONS: 1. Newton Highlands Monday Club, joined 1886, founding member. Though the club concentrated on studying “les belles lettres” they also organized many architectural lectures for the public. 2. West Newton Educational Club, starting in 1888/9. 3. Ladies’ Sewing Circle of the Congregational Society of the Newton Highlands Congregational Church. President for the years 1877, 1878, 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889, 1893, 1894, 1895. 4. Sarah Hull Chapter, Daughters of the Revolution. Joined 1897, founding member. 5. The Owls Club, Newton, MA. 1898. 6 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 South Boston Houses: 411, 413, 415, 417 East Seventh Street This block of four houses was built 1860 and built for sale. They were wooden clapboard houses in the American Second Empire style. Anne Cobb purchased this house from the estate of Sewall C. Cobb when all his personal and professional property was seized and sold at auction and private sale. Sewall is named as developer of these houses in deed. His business failed and he and his partner, Samuel Reed became insolvent debtors. This was Ann’s residence until 1875. She used it as rental property till 1898. A unique feature of these houses is the basement level kitchens with dumb waiters to the dining rooms. They are built on a slope so kitchens opened out onto brick rear courtyards. Direct access from street to kitchen courtyards is through tunnels. Houses originally featured door canopies (now in filled below), double leaf doors with window inserts. 7 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 27 Chester Street: Photo circa 1935, courtesy Newton History Museum, Carley Realty file. Above right: side porch view as seen from Forest St. circa 1890, courtesy of Anne McCune. 27 Chester St. Built 1875 with major alterations, addition with tower in1888. This house was built by Ann M. Cobb for her own residence. It was a wood clapboard front gabled house in the Italianate Style. The unusual square tower addition is in the Stick Style and had a projected diagonal first floor bay, now removed. Also now gone are the transoms over the narrow windows, window trim, double leaf doors, and door canopy. Clapboard has been replaced with shingles and porch in filled. Interior has also seen major alterations. 8 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 61 Forest Street: Above left circa 1890, Logan family courtesy of Anne McCune. Photo on right 2010. 61 Forest Street was built in 1877. Owned by Anna Cobb and rented to her son-in-law and daughter William and Anne Logan. The surface material was originally wood clapboard with corner boards in the Italianate style. Original window moldings, scroll bracket with pendant door canopy, double leaf doors with arched window inserts and piazza which wrapped around left side of house are now gone. As with almost all the houses the kitchen has undergone alterations. Unique feature is the staircase with built in bench, a theme seen in many of Cobb’s later houses. 9 ANNIE M. COBB, A REMARKABLE WOMAN, by Laura Fitzmaurice BSA Research Grant 2010 24 Chester Street: Above photo circa 1935, courtesy of Newton History Museum, Carley Realty file. 24 Chester St. was built to rent in 1877. It is a wood clapboard cottage in the Stick style. Cobb used a side entry scheme. A projecting bay with a triple grouping of narrow windows is the façade focal point. She also uses in this house another future design signature - art tiles. Above can be seen the aesthetic art movement fireplace with mosaic patterned tile and floral iron insert. Rented by Edward E. & Gertrude Bird from 1886 to 1890, after which they commissioned Cobb to design and build 5 Chester Street. 10