Lilian Belle Bridgman, Architect and Scientist
Lilian Belle Bridgman (1865 – 1948) turned to architecture after a career in science. While a student at Kansas State Agricultural College, she was so impressed with one of her science textbooks that she became determined to study with the book’s author at the University of California. Upon receiving her BS degree in Science in 1888, Bridgman started teaching in Argentine, Kansas, but she left it for California in 1891. Bridgman earned her Master degree in Science from UC Berkeley in 1893. Her thesis was titled, “The Origin of Sex in Fresh-Water Algae.”
The rear of Bridgman’s house today, as seen from the studio.(Jasmit Rangr, 2022)
Bridgman continued working as a science teacher in high schools and junior colleges, but she had fallen in love with the Berkeley Hills and with architecture. In 1899 she was able to purchase property in the Berkeley Hills with a small inheritance. With the help and advice of her friend the architect Bernard Maybeck and the drafting skills of another architect, Bridgman designed a home for the narrow, deep site and had it constructed in 1900. She would live there for the rest of her life.
Bridgman used crutches since a childhood injury from a fall off a barn roof had healed poorly, but it didn’t seem to slow her down. In addition to her architectural interests and teaching career, she wrote a number of short stories and poems for popular magazines. She also rented rooms to boarders and lectured about architecture. In 1910, she left teaching to pursue an architectural education.
Bridgeman studied drawing and architecture at UC Berkeley’s graduate school before getting a job as a draftsperson in an architect’s office. In 1915 when she was about fifty years old, Bridgman passed the California State architectural licensing exam and opened her own office in downtown Berkeley. Later she moved her practice to the studio she had designed behind her home.
Bridgman also served on national committees for the American Association of University Women and the National Housing Association. She was a founding member of the Hillside Club, a woman’s club founded with the mission “to protect the hills of Berkeley from unsightly grading and the building of unsuitable and disfiguring houses; to do all in our power to beautify these hills and above all to create and encourage a decided public opinion on these subjects.” In an effort to increase the club’s influence, membership was opened to men in 1905.
Lilian Bridgman’s studio, as seen from the rear of her house. (Jasmit Rangr, 2022)
Bridgman’s Arts and Crafts style homes built with redwood and other local materials are consistent with the club’s mission of maintaining the beauty of the Berkeley Hills. Today fifteen houses are credited to Bridgman, most of them located in Berkeley. Her work helped rebuild North Berkeley after a devastating fire in 1923.
The interior of Bridgman’s studio today. (Jasmit Rangr, 2022)
Bridgman lived with her older sister, a nurse, until late in life. Later her brother, a civil engineer, joined her there. In 1948, Lilian Belle Bridgman died at age 82 in the house she helped design. Her obituary was silent regarding her professional accomplishments.
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Sources:
Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008): 53-55.
Inge Schaeffer Horton, Early Women Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area: The Lives and Work of Fifty Professionals, 1890 – 1951 (Jefferson, NC and London: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2010): 175 – 181.
“Guide to the Lilian Bridgman Papers, 1881 – 1970,” Collection number: BANC MSS 85/102 c, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
“Finding Aid to Lilian Bridgman Photograph Collection, ca. 1881-1940,” Collection number BANC PIC 1985.033—PIC, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
Western Architect, September 1915, IV.
US Census for 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 (accessed via Ancestry.com)
San Francisco City Directories, 1901 – 1910 (accessed via Ancestry.com)