Viewing page 54 of 110

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[1978]

the Woman's Building
1727 N. Spring Street, Los Angeles, California
90012
221-6161

THE WOMAN'S BUILDING

Just a few months ago, the Woman's Building celebrated five years of existence as a public center and educational institution dedicated to the preservation and cultivation of women's culture.  Founded in 1973 by artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila de Bretteville and art historian Arlene Raven, the Woman's Building was named after the original Woman's Building at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.  The first structure with that name was built by Sophia Hayden (the first women graduate in architecture from MIT).  It housed international exhibits of woman's art and culture, and after the Exposition closed the building, many of its exhibits were destroyed.

As Sheila de Bretteville writes in a soon to be published book on women's spaces, "this first wave of feminism and activity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries provided the precedent for the goals, activities, physical presence, as well as the name for the present day Woman's Building in Los Angeles.  In the space between domestic and business life, many 19th century women's groups developed the cooperative, caring, and socially responsible attitudes that were limited and isolated within the private home, and provided themselves with