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[[image-logo with the letters AM]]

Exhibits Design and Production Laboratory
The Anacostia Neighborhood Museum • Smithsonian Institution
1901 Fort Place, SE • Washington, DC 20020 Tel. 202-XXX-XXXX

August 10, 1982

[[rubber stamp-Received Aug 13 1982 Welton Becket Associates]]

Mrs. Norma Merrick Sklarek
BECKET
2900 31st Street
Santa Monica, California 90405

Dear Mrs. Sklarek:

Thank you so very much for your prompt reply to our telephone query and request for data and graphic information concerning your career in the field of architecture.

As explained on the telephone, our museum is revising an exhibit for reissue. The title of this presentation is "Black Women: Achievements Against the Odds." During the review of the exhibit script that had been prepared in 1975, we became aware of the omission of a black women architect. Wishing to remedy this, we searched for 19th-20th century black women who had been active in this field. And as we might have told you, we located a 1902 photograph that showed young black women in an architectural engineering class at Tuskegee Institute. However, until we learned of your work, it was nearly impossible to find information about a black women registered architect who was also practising with a firm. 

While it is not a stated objective of the exhibit, we feel that the images shown will also serve to acquaint young women with possible career goals. Therefore, we are trying to locate good prints that show black women engaged in their respective occupations, trades and professions. For this reason, we are asking that if it is possible to do so that you send us a photograph of yourself that places you in the work environment, and that perhaps also shows the tools of your profession. Perhaps there is a picture of you in hard hat at a work site and in juxtaposition with a building under construction; or one of you at a drafting table working