This lecture (by Emily Gee, IHBC FSA, who has worked in historic building conservation at English Heritage, Historic England, and the Church of England) will recount the history of campaigns to house a new generation of working women, the specialised design of their buildings, and the women whose lives were changed by this architectural movement. After 1900, the rapid rise of women working as clerks, secretaries, or typists, in London and other cities, created an urgent need for affordable and respectable accommodation. Building on models of elegant Victorian ladies' residential chambers and vast working men's lodging houses, a new type of single working women's hostel emerged. The handsome, if occasionally austere, facades blended into London's vibrant Edwardian streetscape. However, architectural plans, literary descriptions, and historic photographs reveal distinctive and evocative interiors.
New York City, NY; NYC