Louise Blanchard Bethune: Every Woman her Own ArchitectBy Kelly Hayes McAlonie (State University of New York Press, 2023)Architect, mother, cyclist, partner: Buffalo architect Louise Bethune was all of these and more. And although she was the first professional woman architect in the United States, her story has remained largely untold.In a notable new bookone of two biographies of Bethune to appear in the past decadearchitect and Canadian ex-pat Kelly Hayes McAlonie offers a comprehensive and compelling account of Bethunes life and career. What may at first glance seem like a minor story in a minor place is, in fact, an inspiring history of everyday professional determination and ethics, situated in a region that was a centre of innovation and wealth at the time.The thoughtfully researched narrative offers an extensive look into Bethunes career, including the founding of her office in 1881, where she was later joined by her husband, Robert Bethune, and then by architect William Fuchs. Together, the partnership of equals designed numerous residential, commercial, and public buildings, especially schools. In 1888, Bethune was the first woman elected to the American Institute of Architects, and in 1889, she became the AIAs first female fellow.Louises crowning achievement was as lead designer and construction supervisor of the 1904 Hotel Lafayette in Downtown Buffalo, the largest luxury hotel of its decade. (The building was renovated and its public areas were restored to their gilded glory in 2012.) The hotel is one of the offices 179 built and unbuilt works, many still standing, but even more demolished, which are documented in an appendix of the book. I wish that there had been a map associated with the list to allow readers to visually locate (and potentially visit) the remaining buildings.Though privileged in many respects on account of her race and social mobility, Louise also faced misogyny and discrimination, and was radically pragmatic by necessity. While a pioneer, she was not a feminist advocate and did not officially participate in the suffragist movement. She was, however, according to Hayes McAlonie, engaged in womens equality on her own terms. We learn unequivocally that Bethune was a staunch believer in a womens right to equal pay for equal work. It was this principled attitude that prevented her from competing for the design of the Womens Pavilion at the Chicago Worlds Fair. Bethune was well positioned to win the competition, but refused to enter, since the award was only one tenth what male designers earned for the other pavilions.Bethune was also a cycling enthusiast: she was the first woman in Buffalo to own a bicycle, and a cofounder of the Womens Wheel and Athletic Club. It is as a wheeler that readers may connect to Bethune most viscerally, imagining the physical constraints of the 19th-century garments wornand eventually shed, along with the social roles they impliedwhen mounting a bicycle and claiming the freedoms it afforded.Author Kelly Hayes McAlonie shares a relationship across time with Bethune: though originally Canadian, Kelly is now based in Western New York, and was the next woman in Buffalo, after Bethune, to successfully become a fellow with the AIA. In the authors words, the parallels gave me a unique insight into her life and career, and it certainly enhanced my passion in researching and telling her story. Through this book, Hayes McAlonie continues her advocacy for women in the architectural professionan earlier accomplishment was working with Despina Stratigakos to convince Mattel to bring Architect Barbie to market.As a humanistic biography, Louise Blanchard Bethune: Every Woman Her Own Architect presents Louise as a pioneering professional, but also in her multiple roles as a mother, a spouse, a property owner, and a person with hobbies (wheeling, history and genealogy). In this sense, the book is an intimate and timely portrait that speaks to the continuing need for architectsof all gendersto espouse a moral compass, to pursue work-life balance, and to provide a professional standard of careall pressing topics for the practice of architecture today.As appeared in theSeptember 2024issue of Canadian Architect magazineThe post Book Review: Louise Blanchard BethuneEvery Woman her Own Architect appeared first on Canadian Architect.