Louise Blanchard Bethune (1856 – 1913) was among the first women to practice architecture in the United States. Based in Buffalo, her firm designed a number of institutional, commercial, industrial, and residential projects in western New York. Bethune was aware of the special position she held owing to her gender. She achieved a number of professional “firsts” while also advocating for equal fees for equal service.

*The Lafayette Hotel, Buffalo, designed by Louise Bethune, c. 1904.*

One of Bethune’s best-known works was the Hotel Lafayette completed in 1904 and pictured here. The hotel is located on Lafayette Square in the center of downtown Buffalo and is still operating today. Another building for which Bethune was primarily responsible was the 74th Regiment Armory in Buffalo that was completed in 1886. It was later converted to a music hall. A victim of deferred maintenance, the building was demolished in the late 1930s.

Louise Blanchard Bethune started her training in 1876 as an apprentice in the office of Buffalo architects Richard A. Waite and F.W. Caulkins. After five years, she left to start the firm R. A. and L. Bethune with her husband and former co-worker Robert Armour Bethune. In 1891 after the couple invited their employee William L. Fuchs to join them as a partner, the firm name was changed to Bethune, Bethune, and Fuchs.

When Bethune applied for membership in the Western Association of Architects in 1885, the men at the professional association’s convention at first avoided making a decision. The association’s president C. E. Illsley forced the issue, asking members if they were “prepared to recommend that party in all respects except the fact that she is a lady?” To which Board member Louis Sullivan answered, “Yes, sir.” Board Chairman Daniel Burnham said the association must first decide to admit women, adding that all board members were “very much in favor of it.” The decision was made and Louise Bethune was unanimously elected as a member.

In 1888, Bethune was also the first woman admitted to membership in the American Institute of Architects. In 1889, when the Western Association of Architects merged with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and all Western Association members joined the AIA as Fellows, Bethune became the AIA’s first female Fellow. In an 1891 speech to the Buffalo Women’s Educational and Industrial Union, Bethune said of female architects, “They meet no serious opposition from the profession nor the public. Neither are they warmly welcomed.”

Bethune refused to compete for the Woman’s Building commission for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition owing to the unfavorable pay scale of 10 percent of the fee for the exposition buildings designed by men. In her 1891 speech, Bethune said, “The open sesame to the favor of our compeers and the respect of the public is ‘Equal remuneration for Equal Service,’ and a strict observance of all the honorable traditions of our profession and its amenities of practice.”

Amen, sister.

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