Mary Colter, Construction Supervisor

Mary E. J. Colter (1869 – 1958) supervised the construction of most of the buildings she designed, beginning with two rest houses that were constructed on the south rim of the Grand Canyon in 1915. The authors of the US Forest Service’s 1916 Grand Canyon Working Plan wrote that the building now called Lookout Studio “was designed by and constructed under the supervision of Miss Mary E. J. Colter…. It is of stone and seems a part of the rim itself.” The same Forest Service document reports that Hermit’s Rest “was designed by Miss Colter and constructed under her supervision. Its effect is admirable.”

Mary Colter’s Lookout under construction, c. 1914. (NPS/13336 Grand Canyon Museum Collection)

While employed by the hospitality company Fred Harvey from 1910 until her retirement in 1948, Colter was involved during the construction phase of many of the structures built for that company’s operations, whether or not she had designed the buildings herself (see Colter and Meem’s Collaboration for one example). Colter was far from the only female architect to supervise construction in the early twentieth century. In fact, supervising construction was considered more acceptable work for women than designing non-domestic buildings.

“It is not, as some seem to think, that they [female architects] are unfitted for the practical side of the work, interviewing clients, controlling clerks of works and contractors, and supervising material for, after all, most of this can be done by skilled assistants…,” a 1908 article published in The Western Architect and Engineer stated. While allowing that there was no reason that female architects could not conduct the planning and designing that was the primary work of the architect, the professional journal stated that with few exceptions they had failed to do so. “[W]e submit that generally, if not universally, the female intellect has, so far, proved its incapability of producing high-class architectural work.”

Given this widely-held bias, it is far more remarkable that Colter and her female peers succeeded as designers than that they supervised construction. In more recent decades, the architecture profession has moved to limit its responsibilities during construction. For example, no architect today would agree to “supervise” construction, as Colter did; instead they “observe” construction. This risk-aversion on the part of architects led to the creation of the profession of construction management to fill the void.

Coincident with the changes to these occupations, the biases about women in design and construction have flipped. In 2019, 25 percent of architects were female, whereas just 8 percent of construction managers were, according to US Census Bureau data. However, while women were paid less than their male counterparts in both professions, the disparity is smaller in construction management.

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Sources:

Don P. Johnston and Aldo Leopold, Grand Canyon Working Plan: Uses, Information, Recreational Development (US Forest Service, December 1916; approved April 9, 1917). GRCA 28343, Grand Canyon Museum Collection.

“Mary E. J. Colter Biography,” 2 pages typescript. Heard Museum Billie Jane Baguley Archive and Library.

“Women as Architects,” Western Architect and Engineer, June 1908: 67-68.

US Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, “Employment and Earnings by Occupation.” Data from the US Census Bureau, 2019 American Community Survey.