Theodate Pope Riddle — Avon Old Farms School for Boys: The "Gendering" of Architecture

,

THEODATE POPE RIDDLE and Avon Old Farms School for Boys: The "Gendering" of Architecture

-

.IlL

Nadia M. Niggli Senior Essay Submitted May 1995 to the Department of Architecture Yale College Professor Patrick Pinnell, Adviser with Professor Esther da Costa Meyer Professor Dolores Hayden 'Teaching Assistant David Thurman

Abstract

This paper is an analysis of the architecture of Avon Old Farms School, an all-boys preparatory school in Connecticut that was built in the 1920s by Theodate Pope Riddle.

While there clearly were several significant

factors that helped determine the program and form of the project, the issue of gender played a particularly pivotal role in affecting Pope's architectural decisions. The concentration of this paper is an examination of how Pope manipulated architectural precedents and conventions in an attempt to create a physical environment that would foster the development of virility in Avon's students. Through her deliberate choices of site, architectural style, materials, building techniques, and configuration, Pope explicitly sought to return to a way of life grounded in four ostensibly "masculine" ideals of the past: commitment to community, physicality and close contact with Nature, respect for craftsmanship, and, finally, permanence and historical continuity. It is crucial to note that these four ideals, which will serve as the organizing points around which the paper is structured, are not revisionist interpretations of Pope's work, but rather are themes that Pope herself identified, explicitly wrote about, and consciously attempted to reinforce through the medium of architecture.

-1-

I::P"1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction A Portrait of the Architect Pope's Views on Gender Architectural Education and Training Educational Ideals I.

Commitment to Community A Village Environment A Family Environment

II.

Physicality and Contact with Nature A Return to the Farm A Return to the Pre-Industrial Life A Return to Naked Materiality

III.

Respect for Craftsmanship An Appreciation of Tactility An Appreciation of Individualism

IV.

Permanence and Historical Continuity A Struggle for Indestructibility A Struggle for Historical Continuity

Conclusion

-2-

I::P"1

INTRODUCTION Beauty of material and authentic design, yes, but imagine the boys trooping in with muddy boots from the farm and you will see the reason for stone floors and excellently strong and simple furniture.!

- Theodate Pope Riddle, 1925

Amid the rolling farmlands of the Connecticut landscape stands Avon Old Farms School, the most ambitious and personal work of architect Theodate Pope Riddle (1868-1946). Constructed between 1922 and 1929 as a memorial to her father, Alfred A. Pope, the all-boys boarding school was founded, designed and then administered by Pope to implement her educational and architectural theories.2 Although at its inception the school included plans for a working farm and a junior college that have since been abandoned, the campus looks much the same today as it did when Pope died in 1946, thereby allowing us the possibility of still reading the original intentions of the architect in the architecture. (llius. 1 and 2) One of the most intriguing and complex of Pope's intentions was to "gender" the school's architecture.

This paper intends fIrst to document and identify Pope's personal views on gender and then to explore how she attempted to utilize the architecture at Avon Old Farms to instill those values in the students. The fIrst objective is less elusive than the second, for we are fortunate to have archives, housed in several of Pope's buildings, to provide us with many of her personal letters, diaries, postcards, sketches, and photographs, all of which help to create a fairly clear portrait of her personal background and attitudes. The latter objective, the physical embodiment of her gender ideals, is much more problematic. Whether or not Pope ~s at all successful in durably "gendering" the architecture is admittedly debatable. However, it is not the intention of this 'paper to assess the feasibility of Pope's intentions or even to judge their merit. It seems more worthwhile to examine the methods that she employed in her attempt to first inscribe those ideals in her architecture and then to use

architecture as a tool of social change.

Architects today can therefore learn from Pope in their attempt to restore

meaning and purpose to architecture.

At the heart of the endeavor of this paper lies the critical assumption that architecture is indeed capable of successfully conveying symbolic meaning merely through physical form to an uninitiated observer.

It is my

I Elizabeth Babcock, "Where Boys May Be Boys," The Woman Citizen. 13 June 1925, p. II. 2 Theodate Pope Riddle will hereafter be referred to as "Theodate Pope," the professional name by which Pope was known during her lifetime.

-3-

AVON, CON'NECTICUT

AVON, OLD FARMS

.. ~ .. ~.

-~.'..

4-:. f:.- .. ...: ......

,. ;;. . ....

J- ~ .;. .- ....

A JUNIOR .COLLEGE

AND

.:.... ,.::'

_...~

:'~'.'-.~-::. • :::· ~3..

... .... ":.' 1' . ' ";'.:'.

~".

~

PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR BOYS .-; ·:·,7zounJeJ "'- . .:_>._ . _• . ; .. .-- ....... . .

THEODATE POPE RIDDLE

,

lllustration 1: Avon Old Farms School- Aerial View of Campus, Avon, Connecticut, Theodate Pope Riddle, 1927 .

Illustration 2: Avon Old Farms School- View of Front Entrance

belief that although an architect may attempt to edify certain social connotations of meaning through architecture, the fluid nature of those connotations over time and culture often defies solid, permanent manifestation. The original symbolic meaning of the architecture consequently often becomes obscured, if not lost, with the passage of time and change of context, for the medium has then failed to convey and manifest the artist's intentions durably.3

In other words, the gap between the aesthetic .(experiential) and mental (symbolic)

functions of architecture is caused by the gap between the intention of the architect and the understanding of the inhabitant.

For the time being we must assume that it is indeed possible to translate social constructions into architecture, for what is relevant and significant here is that Pope believed that it was possible.

Her design at

Avon reveals a consistent attempt to imbue her architecture with connotations of virility, as an early copy of the school's informational brochure 路recognized: "There is strength and masculine grace in the architecture down to the finest detail."4

She was an essentialist, maintaining that gender characteristics are biologically-not

culturally-determined, and relied heavily on traditional defmitions of gender roles that inextricably linked "virility" to physical, mental, and moral strength.

While writing the school's Deed of Trust, Pope often

consciously and deliberately employed the term "virility," which a 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary defined as "manhood; manly vigor; power; force." 5

In 1898 Theodore Roosevelt, the quintessential embodiment of the

masculine ideals of military ruggedness, hard-nosed politics, and big-game hunting, further helps clarify that era's definition of "virility" by relating it to strength and courage: A peaceful and commercial civilization is always in danger of suffering the loss of the virile fighting qualities without which no nation, however, cultured, however refined, however thrifty and prosperous, can ever amount to anything .. . No man is worth much anywhere if he does not possess both moral and physical courage.6 (emphasis added)

3 It is more difficult for an architect to "inscribe" meaning into architecture than it is for a literary author to convey meaning through written words, although an author also struggles to narrow and then span the gap between thought and expression.

4 Promotional Brochure of Avon Old Farms School, undated and unpaginated, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

Deed ofIrust of Avon Old Farms School (Avon Old Farms Press, 1945), Section 2, reprinted in Ramsey, p. 201.; 5 Webster's Secondary-School Dictionary, (Springfield, Mass.: G. & c. Merriam Co., 1913) "Virility" is differentiated here from "masculinity" in that it is more biologically based, suggesting physiq.l vigor more than learned behavior.

6 Theodore Roosevelt, American Ideals and Other Essays, 2nd ed. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons Pub., Knickerbocker Press, 1898), p. 43. An interesting Sidelight is that one of Pope's few commissions was a restoration of the house in New York City in which Theodore Roosevelt was born. [David Kahn, -The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in New York City," AntiQues 116:1 (July 1979),p. 176.)

-4-

路 Pope took an architectural cue from this linking of physical strength to masculinity, for strength became one of the school's most palpable architectural motifs.

The heaviness of the stone architecture allows only minimal

delicacy, refinement, and subtlety-physical translations of her notions of "femininity" that she identified路 and employed when designing the Westover School for Girls (1909 - 1912) in Middlebury, Conn~cticut. This school serves as the most illuminating foil to Avon Old Farms in terms of the translation of gender values into architecture, as it was the most substantial contribution that Pope made to the education of girls and yet paled in comparison to Pope's commitment and personal investment at Avon. It is indeed very significant that whereas she wrote much in her memoirs and diaries on the education and rearing of boys, Pope neglected a discourse of the ideal schooling for girls, thereby demonstrating her adherence to the tradition of investing more interest and concern in male members of society.

In her own life, Pope deliberately rejected the very same gender stereotypes that she employed and reinforced in designing Avon's architecture.

As the first woman to be licensed as an architect in New York and

Connecticut in 1910, Pope was keenly aware of gender boundaries. She struggled with contemporary defmitions of "femininity," often transcending them by utilizing her wealth and determination in order to pursue her own professional aspirations and architectural visions.

It should be noted that Avon was

a highly ambitious project

for a female architect to undertake, for women in the profession at that time were expected to build only smallscale residences, not entire communities?

Avon Old Farms School thus was e~sentially a utopian project, for through it Pope was able to fulfill a life-long ambition and to materialize her vision of an ideal society that was based on four traditioniilly "masculine" ideals.s This paper will first examine how Pope employed architecture to foster the ideal of commitment

0

community, in order to instill a sense of public and private responsibility in the boys:

Secondly,

it will make clear that Pope wanted to emphasize the importance of pnysicality and close contact with Nature, as a way to develop the boys' physical strength.

The third point of the paper is that Pope sought to restore prestige to

7

During this time women architects were accorded a "natural" ability for residential design. Quoting a 1909 magazine article: "a woman possesses by instinct and training certain knowledge in regard to residential building that a man, by reason of his mode of life, cannot have in the same degree. " ["Woman as Architect: A Profession that Calls for Recruits," The DaiIv Chronicle (13 August 1909), quoted in Susana Torre, "Women in Architecture and the New Feminism," in Yt2mm in American Architecture: A Historic and ContemporaQ' Perspective, ed. Susana Torre (New York: Watson-Guptill Pub., 1977), p. 148.)

8 Again, it is important to note that these four ideals emerged out of an empirical study of Pope's own words. They did not generate the analysis but rather were identified after my analysis of Pope's work.

-5-

ideal of han cransmansnip, in order to inculcate appreciation for hard work, the lower classes, and individuality in the boys. The paper concludes by demonstrating that Pope hoped to utilize architecture to inspire a sense of historical continuity, in order to strengthen the boys' relationship to history and heritage.

A PORTRAIT OF THE ARCHITECT An understanding of Pope's personality and family upbringing is invaluable in analyzing the architecture of Avon Old Farms. This single but comprehensive project integrated many of her notions of gender, education, class, and family, and thus confronted and challenged their compatibility.9

POPE'S VIEWS ON GENDER

Born in 1868 into a wealthy family, Pope grew up as an only child in a privileged, cultured environment in Cleveland, Ohio.

Although she often confided in her father about personal matters, she and her mother, Ada

Brooks Pope, maintained a distant relationship.lO Pope wrote later, "I have no memory at all of ever sitting in my mother's lap.

"11

Her parents, who were avid art collectors with a particularly early eye for Impressionism,

traveled extensively and 'often left her to the care of nurses or servants.12 Pope nonetheless enjoyed a particularly strong relationship with het father, Alfred A. Pope, leading her to build Avon Old Farms as a memorial to him after his death in 1913.

Having witnessed her father struggle to make his fortune with the Cleveland Malleable

Iron Company during her childhood, Pope came to associate determination and hard work with her father and began to identify more with her patrilineal, rather than matrilineal, heritage.

At the age of twelve, for example,

she changed her christened name from "Effie" (originally Euphemia) to "Tbeodate," in honor of her patrilineal

9 It should be noted at this point that this section is not intended as a comprehensive psychological review of Pope but merely hopes to delineate a clearer picture of the architect who designed with such personal conviction and purpose.

10 For example, Pope discussed her decision in 1888 not to marry long-time fiance Harris Whittemore only with her father, not her mother. [Anne Hartman, "New Insights Revealed in Theodate's Diaries," Hjl!-Stead NewS, September 1990, p. 2j 11 Information in Memoirs by Theodate Pope Riddle, unpublished (28 April 1937), p. 21, Avon Old Farms School

Archives.

U Brooks Emeny, Theodate Pope Rjddle and the Foundini of Avon Old Farms (Privately printed, 1973), p. 3.

Given that Pope never bore natural children, it is also quite possible that she inherited a fear of childbirth from her mother, who blamed the death of Theodate's grandmother on a miscarriage. Theodate wrote that this gave her mother "a fright about childbirth from which she never recovered," and then goes on to say that she was born "greatly to the resentment of my mother," for she overheard her mother warning her father that she would not bear him a child every year. [Pope 1937 Memoirs, p. 21 , Avon Old Farms School Archives.]

-6-

grandmother.B This illustrates not only Pope's struggle to define herself, but also her respect for her father and his family.

Moreover, her patrilineal ancestry was steeped in Quaker values, teaching Pope to appreciate a

simple, ascetic way oflife.

In Ohio Pope's patrilineal grandfather had established the Oak Grove Academy fo r

Quaker Children, which Theodate's father attended and which established a precedent for Pope for founding schools in order to instill values such as simplicity, hard ~ork, purity, and truth. 14 This heritage offered Pope a view into an alternative way of living and helped cause an ambivalence about her privileged background, for while her wealth may have facilitated her entry into architecture and later helped her to finance the immense project of Avon Old Farms, it also bound her, as will be shown, to a class she saw as physically and morally weak.

Pope's eccentricities are often remarked upon in greater detail than her architecture, as she was more anomalous and revolutionary in her personal life than she was in her architecture. IS

Indeed, what Pope is

perhaps best known for today is her amazing survival and account of the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. 16

A

year later, when she was forty-eight years old, Pope decided to marry John Wallace Riddle, "a tall, scholarly, retired diplomat," with whom she enjoyed an allegedly stormy but intellectually challenging relationshipP (Illus. 3)

By choosing to remain unmarried for such a significant part of her adult life, Pope did not conform

even to other well-educated women of her class, who married on average five years later than most women but still wed at the average age of twenty-six. IS

She was not in any likelihood marrying with the intention of

bearing children, nor was she marrying so that she could adopt children, for she had. in fact already done so, alone.

Pope had demonstrated an altruistic tendency for caring for boys early in 1913 when she took in a baby,

13 14

Emeny,p. l.

Gordon Clark Ramsey, Aspiration and Perseverance路 The History of Avon Old Farms School (Privately printed, copyright Board of Directors of the Avon Old Farms School, 1984), p. 1.

15 A quote from architect Philip Johnson reveals how feelings about Pope's personality have colored perceptions of her architecture: after visiting the construction site in 1925, he wrote home, "It is the purest mess you ever saw. It is built out of red stone and in no particular architecture that I could discover. Inside it is as dark as a pocket ... Daddy and I had a good talk with her [Mrs. Riddle] and both pronounced her thoroughly cracked when we got out." Given this quote, it is perhaps not surprising that Johnson does not publicize that he is actually related to Pope: his mother was Pope's cousin. [Franz Schulze, PhiIip Iohnson: Life and Work (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), p. 38.] Other critics, too, have been less than kind.

Several of the few articles written on her adopt a rather patronizing tone. One biographer criticizes Pope for being guilty of "hubris," for aspiring to take on such an ambitious project as Avon Old Farms. [Ramsey, p. 8.] Another review defines her not as an architect who maintained an independent practice for over thirty years or as a self-determined woman in her own right, but instead as a "domineering daughter, ... admirer of the medieval, and a semi-professional architect." ["For Little Gentlemen," ~ 22 March 1948, p. 72.]

16 Information in a letter to Ada Brooks Pope by Pope, (Montague, Mass.: Carl Purington Rollins Publishing, Dyke Mill Press, 1916).

17 Emeny,p. 9.

18 Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater: Desi~n and Experience in the Women's Coli em from Their Nineteenth-Century Be~nnin~s to the 1930s (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 27.

-7-

lllustration 3: Wedding Photograph of Theodate Pope and John Wallace Riddle, May 6, 1916

Gordon Brockway, as a legal ward, despite the fact that she was still unmarried. 19 After her wedding, Pope took in two more boys, who were orphans of missionaries.

This establishes a curious incongruity in Pope's values:

while she herself had a strong patrilineal relationship, it does seem that she felt a paternal figure was crucial to raise the male wards that she took in. the boys and develop their virility.

A plausible inference is that Pope felt confident in her own abilities to rear

It is not simply a coincidence, then, that it was during these few years in the

mid-1910s that Pope was further developed her idea from that night at Miss Porter's School of "an indestructible school for boys." The bas relief above the main entrance of the school attests to the connection between Pope's informal adoption of the wards and her founding of Avon Old Farms, for it depicts two boys, allegedly modeled on the wards, with farm tools, livestock, a winged beaver (the school mascot), and the building of the school in the background. (Illus. 4)

A project such as Avon would effectively give her many more surrogate "sons" in whom

she could instill the virtues of the past.

In essence, the school offered Pope the opportunity, in Mary Cassatt's

words, to "influence whole generations."

ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING Pope's later theories about the juncture of architecture, education and gender were largely framed by her personal experiences during her architectural education and training.

Our knowledge of her educational

background is based on her recollections as she transcribed them over fifty years after the events themselves.

Although the lapse of time implies that the recollections are limited and edited, it nevertheless also reveals to us what issues Pope found relevant and influential as she reviewed her life.

When she arrived in the late 1880s at

Miss Porter's School, an elite all-female fmishing school in Farmington, Connecticut, she recalled in her later memoirs that she found life at the school "frantic" and "must consciously have resented being pulled out into the life of the extroverts. "20 She had difficulty in relating to most of the other wealthy girls, for she remembered: When other girls at Miss Porter's School were planning dresses, I was drawing up plans for buildings before I knew what I was doing. 21

19

Emeny,p. 8.

Ibid, p. 5. Not insignificantly. Miss Porter's School is located within one mile of the site on which Pope would later build Hill-Stead, her family's country home. .

21 John Foley. "Avon School Strikes Note in Education of Boys," Hartford Dailv Courant, 3 April 1921, p. 3, col. l.

Having begun to sketch and plan at the young age of ten, Pope was interested in architecture as a possible career throughout her childhood. [Emeny, p. 9.)

20

-8-

lllustration 4: Avon Old Farms School - Bas Relief Over Main Portal

路 In one of the most revealing quotes on the relationship of architecture to gender that we have directly from Pope, she recalled that after one girl boldly announced her plans to study medicine and become a doctor, Pope responded with equal ambition: Alice with her curly black hair and red dressing gown, stamped herself upon my memory when she startled us by saying she was going to be a doctor. I pulled up something entirely from my subconsciousness, because I heard myself saying that I was going to build an indestructible school for boys. 22 (emphasis added)

Since this incident pre-dates her father's death by at least twenty years, it indicates that building a boys' school was a life-long ambition for Pope. Her father's death in 1913 was only the precipitant, not the entire motive, of building the school. It is curious that she decided that night at Miss Porter's to build the project only for boys, for she was, after all, sitting in a roomful of girls at an all-girls' school. Throughout her life, despite several lasting friendships with other women, Pope consistently felt alienated from most of her female contemporaries. 23 never explained why she made this decision to exclude girls from the school.

Pope

One can speculate, however, that it

is due to a lack of identification with her own gender and to a higher estimation of men's worth and priority in society.

When Pope left Miss Porter's School she accompanied her parents on a Grand Tour of Europe, where she was exposed for the first time to the variety of English, French, Italian, and Spanish architecture.

Upon her

return to America, she decided to stay on the East Coast, in rural New England, consciously rejecting her parents' socialite life back in Cleveland.

Pope recalls,

I was sullen with rage and boredom most of the time, and my parents finally gave up trying to fit me into their social pattern.24

She bought and restored two late 17th-century farmhouses in Farmington that were known in the area as the O'Rourkery and the Gundy and she first-hand practical construction knowledge from the workmen. It was here that she first developed what was to become a consistent interest in construction details. 25 Inspired by this

22 Pope 1937 Memoirs, unknown page.

23 A very notable exception to this is Mary Hillard, the headmistress of the Westover School for Girls, designed by Pope in 1910. Hillard and Pope remained lifelong best friends, visiting each other daily at certain times and often traveling

together, as evidenced by the Visitor's Log, Hill-Stead Museum Archives.

24 Emeny, p. 6.

25 Ibid. She had received no architectural training at Miss Porter's, which she had chosen to attend instead of a women's college or seminary. (Mark A. Hewitt, AntiQues, (1988), 852.]

-9-

building experience, Pope decided that she needed more formal architectural instruction and sought a way to enter the almost entirely-male profession of architecture.

It was at this point that her wealth began to playa pivotal role in allowing Pope to transcend gender boundaries.

In 1~95, Pope took it upon herself to employ several Princeton architecture professors to tutor her

privately, since the Princeton School of Architecture did not admit women at this time. 26

Why Pope did not

choose to enroll in a graduate program that did admit women is not entirely clear, for though it was unusual, female matriculation was not unprecedented: 39 women graduated from architectural graduate programs between 1865 and 1900. 27

In any event, she supplemented this education informally by buying as many books

about architecture as she could find and by frequently traveling to Europe.

A few years later, Pope essentially

created her own apprenticeship with Stanford White when her father hired McKim, Mead & White to design the family's house, known as Hill-Stead, also in Farmington. 28

As a consequence of this diverse training, she

developed an international and eclectic approach to architecture, having been exposed to a wide range of European architectural styles, without the influence of one predominant mentor to bias her architectural preferences.

During these early years Pope remained as ambivalent about her goals as about her wealth. Although her father supported her aspirations, Pope herself expressed reservations about going into architecture, since it was still such an unusual ambition for a woman.

Revealing that her notions about gender heavily leaned on

stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, she wrote home in 1895, I really do not think I had better take up architecture as I would not be satisfied unless I studied practically and to do that I should have to go into an office and then I would be rather mannish. And of all the unlovely things in the world an unwomanly womim is the worst. 29

Although Pope sufficiently overcame these doubts and reservations to become an architect after all, she never critically relinquished the belief in traditional gender roles. The irony here, of course, is that Pope was not at all traditional in her own behavior: she maintained an independent professional career, even after her marriage, she

26 National Park Senice, Iheodate Pope Riddle: Her 路Life and Work, ed. Judith Paine, pamphJet (1981), p. 2.

27 Hewitt, Antiques, footnote 10, 859. Julia Morgan likewise followed an unusual path of architectural education.

Having studied engineering at the University of California, she then went on to become the first woman ever to attend the Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris. Later, she studied architecture with Bernard Maybeck at informal classes given at his house.

[Richard W. Longstreth, IuIia Morian. Architect (Berkeley, Cal.: Architectural Heritage Association, 1977), p. 5.)

28 National Park Service, p. 5.

29 Mimi Sommer, "Designing Woman," Home & Garden, March 1991, p. 80.

-10-

married at a late age, she never bore natural children, and she often lived alone for extended periods of time. 3D One could interpret the above quote and its reference to "mannishness" as satirical, then, were it not for Pope's consistent allusions, discussed later, to traditional notions of virility when developing her educational ideals.

Consciously handling the issue of gender as it related to education, Pope was also aware of how gender affected her own life. She was by no means na'ive in recognizing blatant examples of discrimination within the field of architecture.

While being a woman helped bring her fame as an unconventional architect, she realized

that it also kept her from being even more successful and well-known.

In a 1914 letter to a close friend, Harris

Whittemore, Pope directly confronted the issue of discrimination in her own life in relation to the project at Avon: I can best serve my father's memory by utilizing my ability to design. This I shall have ample time for as I am not receiving orders for work that I should were I a man. 31

Clearly, Pope was not only aware of the existence of gender discrimination but also resentful of its pejorative effects on her professional career.

A year later, she again wrote about blatant prejudice based on her gender: in a

letter to her mother written in 1915, five years after she had become the first female architect in both New York and Connecticut, Pope wrote, Did I tell you of the Nugent Publishing Company which requested my photograph for publication in a book on prominent New York architects they are getting out? You will be most amused to know that I was called up by telephone from their office and a masculine voice at the other end asked incredulously if I were really Theodate Pope the architect, and when I said I truly was this voice apologetically explained that it would be impossible for them to use my photograph as they had just heard that I was a woman. They had not believed the rumor, hence the incredulous voice over the telephone. So you see, although art has no sex, I am discriminated against, though on the merit of my work they had selected me as one of the architects whom they wished to mention. 32 (emphasis added)

While this reveals that she believed the her sex did not directly influence the way she designed, it marks her awareness of her critics' prejudices.

Gender then seemed to her to relate to architecture most palpably as a

justification for discrimination by her critics.

30 Ramsey, p. 3. Even after her marriage to John Russell Pope, she often lived alone, refusing to neglect her architectural practice, or to make the dangerous sea voyage, to join her husband in his ambassadorship in Argentina.

31 Information in a letter to Harris Whittemore from Theodate Pope Riddle, 8 July 1914, p. 2., Westover School Archives.

32 Information in a letter to Ada Brooks Pope from Pope, 11 March 1915, Letter #860, p. 3, Hill-Stead Museum Archives.

Although Pope was generally better received within women's circles, her gender was still perceived as her most important facet, overshadowing her independent architectural merits. A 1925 article in a popular women's magazine, for example, called Pope "America's best-known woman architect," recognizing that Pope was better known for being a "womanarchitect" than simply an "architect." [Louise S. Adams, "Avon College - A remarkable Woman's Remarkable Project, ~ Clubwoman's World, October 1925, p. 5.J

-11-

While she was unquestionably a pioneer for women in the field of architecture, Pope was neither alone nor without precedent in her pursuit of an architectural career.

Despite severely limited educational

opportunities, more than 50 women had become trained architects by 1910, the year in which Pope became an officially licensed architect. 33

These women handled the role of gender in their careers in a variety of ways, for

while some exploited it by specializing in building for women's organizations, others downplayed the issue to the point of denial. In general, Pope consistently belonged to the latter group, despite her avid interest in developing a strong sense of gender in boys through her architecture.

Precisely because she acknowledged that she had been

discriminated against on the basis of her gender, she wished to obscure the trait that made her vulnerable to critics.

Hence, she downplayed the relevance of gender to her architecture as a way to strengthen her career.

An illuminating comparison to Pope can be made with architect Julia Morgan, who can be characterized as Pope's West Coast equivalent.

Like Pope, Morgan "conscientiously down-played gender and cringed at efforts

to identify her as a 'woman architect.' She presented herself as an asexual professional."34

In their physical

builds, however, the two women differed dramatically, affecting their abilities to mask their gender.

Described by

one of her draftsmen as "very ladylike," Morgan had a petite frame that was difficult to mask as "asexual".35

In

contrast, Pope was solidly built, which must have helped her downplay her femininity more than Morgan could. 36 Also, the two architects differed in their personalities. While Morgan is remembered as strong-willed, she communicated her vision in a more soft-spoken manner than Pope, who is remembered for her forceful and unapologetic approach. 37

By working only for herself and her friends, however, Pope had the distinct

33 34

Judith Paine, "Pioneer Women Architects: in Torre, p. 54.

Diane Favro, "Sincere and Good: The Architectural Practice of Julia Morgan: TournaI of Architectural & Plannin~ Research, vol. 9, no. 2, (Summer 1992), p. 116.

One of Morgan's draftsmen wrote to her, "There are no reasons why girls should follow up Architecture in preference to marriage, but there are many good reasons why they should do just the reverse . . . You cannot quote yourself as an example because I firmly believe that you are one in centuries, as a woman architect... " [Sara Holmes Boutelle, Tulia Mor~an. Architect (New York: Abbeville Press Pub., 1988), p. 86.)

Morgan herself expressed disappointment in contemporary women architects, saying once in an interview about women in architecture, "The few professional women architects have contributed little or nothing to the profession - no great artist, no revolutionary ideas, no outstanding design. They have, however, done sincere good work along with the tide, and as the years go on, undoubtedly some greater than other architects will be developed...• [Ibid., p. 87) 35 Interview with Edward Henry in October 1974 by Suzanne Riess, in Suzanne Riess, Iulja Mor~an, Her Office and a ~ vol. 2 (Regents of the University of California, 1976), p. 67.

36 Phyllis Fenn Cunningham, My Godmother Theodate PQpe Riddle: A Reminiscence ofCreatiyitv (Canaan, New Hampshire: Phoenix Publishing, 1983), p. 4.

It is amusing to note that Pope's architecture perhaps reflects this tendency toward solid frames.

37 Emeny, p. 9.

-12-

advantage of generally behaving as she pleased. Her wealth and privileged background, which allowed her to build for herself, relatives, and friends, enabled Pope to bypass many of the obstacles that had stymied so many other contemporary ambitious women.

Pope was able, for example, to avoid the issue of pay inequity by being

self-employed throughout her entire career, while Morgan was forced to endure blatant sexism: her employer, John Galen Howard, referred to Morgan as "the best and most talented designer, whom I have to pay almost nothing, as she is a woman."38 It is to Pope's credit that she had both the courage and commitment to undertake the ambitious project of Avon Old Farms, especially at a time when "prevailing opinion at best relegated the woman's role in architecture to interior design."39 Residential - not public, commercial, or educational - work had become the easiest form of architecture for women architects to obtain, for it was assumed to be the "most satisfying and natural for women to engage in."40

Additionally, early female architects were also expected to be more sensitive and compliant to

the client's wishes than were male architects. 41 Pope and her female contemporaries were held up to more demanding standards and expectations than their male counterparts, despite the lack of support, precedent, or education which male architects had enjoyed for centuries.

POPE'S EDUCATIONAL IDEALS

In her decision to make the boys' school single-sex, not co-educational, Pope was merely subscribing to a tradition for elite boarding schools.

However, it was her choice of which gender to build for that is so significant

in drawing a relationship between gender and Pope's architecture.

Coeducation was shunned by most private

schools until the 1960s, although public schools were already well-integrated by this time, for a contemporary concern feared: "What if the same forces which develop all that is most manly in one sex and dwarf all that is most womanly in the other?"42

Such ideas received sustenance froin some of the country's leading educational

figures, such as the President of Clark University, who in 1895 explicitly stated that boys needed a different

38

Glenna Dunning, Julia Mori:an: Pioneer Woman Architect (Vance Bibliographies, Bibliography #A 1880, 1987),

p.l.

39 40

Longstreth, p. 8.

Torre, p. 21.

41 Favro, p. 124.

42 Valerie E. Lee and Helen M. Marks, "Who Goes Where? Choice of Single-Sex and Coeducational Independent Secondary Schools," Socio!oi:Y of Education. vol. 65 (July 1992): 229.; Horowitz, p. 74, quoting unknown source.

-13-

discipline, moral regimen and atmosphere of work than girls, since it was during adolescence "when some

'brutish ' elements in his nature should have an opportunity to vent themselves off in a wholesome way. " 43

To this

end Pope had founded Avon as a protest against contemporary educational methods, which emphasized mental, rather than physical, exercise. In 1914 she wrote to a close friend and one-time fiance, I saw three schools for boys while on our recent motor trip - St. Paul's, 51. Mark's and Middlesex.

Have also seen Pomfret - Groton and Hotchkiss and Andover; they all illustrate exceedingly well the things which I wish to avoid. 44

Pope's ideas earned her substantial respect from other educational theorists.

Not only did she become

acquainted with educator John Dewey, who agreed with Pope that physical work that was performed outside was often more important than what was learned inside the classroom, but she also received public support in published statements from the presidents of several prestigious all-boys schools and universities, such as the President of Harvard, Dr. Charles Eliot, who called Avon "a bold and far-looking experiment."45 One of Pope's Plost progressive and innovative educational theories centered around the idea of mtegration of farm labor and craftsmanship into the scholastic curriculum. (lUus. 5)

The purpose of this was

to develop the boys' physical and mental strength, which Pope very explicitly and consciously linked to "virility."

Section 2 of the Deed reads: Virility is developed through action - extroversion.

Culture is acquired through the thought process - introversion.

The combined qualities of culture and virility make the well-balanced individua1. 46

Note that Pope posited "culture," not "femininity," as the counterbalance to "virility." She seems unable to use the word "femininity," although she does allow that balance is necessary and that virility should be cultivated in

43

G. Stanley Hall, 'The Question of Coeducation," Munsey's Ma~azjne, Feb. 1895, p. 588-90, quoted in Dorrit Ann Cowan, "Single-Sex to Coeducation at Princeton and Yale: Two Case Studies," Diss. Columbia University 1982 (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1982), p. 50.

In an early interview given in 1921, Pope then promised, "The equipment of the school will naturally favor all kinds of projects - the farm in connection with agriculture, forestry, stockraising, vegetables, fruits, etc. The shops and the garage will furnish opportunities for projects - automobile repairing, carpentry, boat building, cabinet making, etc. The bank for accounting. The school office and printing press are two other practical fields for endeavor. The library will serve for literary projects and research. Opportunities will be give for developing in the older boys administrative and executive power." ["Avon School Strikes Note," p. 3, col. 1.]

44 Information in a letter to Harris Whittemore by Pope, 8 July 1914, p. 7, Westover School Archives.

Here she does not go on to say what exactly it is about these prestigious schools that she finds problematic. She is, on the other hand, very sure and articulate about what she dots want to establish. She said in an interview in 1925, 'The main purpose of Avon College is to develop in each boy a sound moral character. There is a great need today for men of independent thought who are capable of assuming responsibility on a strong ethical basis." [Adams, p. 5.]

45 Andrew Gulliford. America's Country Schools (Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1984), p. 40; Dr. Charles Eliot, "Education for Boys," The New York Times, 17 November 1924.

46 Ramsey,~, p. 201.

-14-

lllustration 5: Avon Old Farms School- Working Farm

illustration 6: Avon Old Farms School Students Engaged in Farmwork

Avon Old Farms School Engaged in Community Service Activities

The Village Court, 19305

conjunction with thought, not independently of it.

A school would therefore be an ideal site for boys to develop

into mature individuals.

Pope saw the relationship between physical labor and moral strength as symbiotic and thus offered farmwork as an antidote to the weakening of the nation's elite sons. (Illus. 6) The issue of class thus becomes inextricably intertwined with the issue of gender.

Once, when describing the privately-educated young sons of

some friends of hers, she judged them as: [p lleasant little gentlemen. lacking initiative and will power. If they had an idea, they were, with few exceptions, without the backbone to put it through; and yet. these boys, because of their wealth or social standing. or both, would as men be placed in positions where ability and stamina are needed to bring issues to a successful completion.47

It seemed to Pope that with every generation that separated them from working the land, the vitality of the nation's sons was being sapped by the complacency that often accompanies wealth.

In one interview in which

she discussed tbe need for physical discipline to develop personal strength, Pope said that she "regretted that there is no satisfactory polite synonym for 'guts."'48 More than introducing any new educational theories, this quote is engaging in what it reveals about Pope's own character: while she wished to remain within the boundaries of etiquette, she also harbored a coarser, less refined side.

Pope consistently felt an ambivalence about feminine

social grace, for she vacillated between aspiring to be cultured and refined and also intending to be direct and "honest."

This conflict between the alleged artificiality of culture and the honesty of nature will later applied to

her architecture, which also struggled between refinement and coarseness.

Pope very consciously did not apply these same educational ideals to the handful of girls' schools with which she was earlier involved.

Avon was her most personal, meaningful project, and thus it is highly

significant that she dedicated it to the education of only boys. Reflecting the gendered dichotomies of adulthood, the educational goals for boys and for girls were radically split: whereas boys were being trained to become the country's next wave of leaders, girls were being educated so that they serve as better mothers, sisters, and da1.ighters. 49 As we have little direct evidence about her theories of education for girls, it seems that Pope never developed any to the degree that she did for boys.

Her neglect of girls' education underscores the disparity of her

47

Emeny, p. 10.

"Avon School Strikes Note," p. 3, col. 2.

Pat Mahony, Schools for the Boys? Co-Education Reassessed (London: Hutchinson and Co., Publishers Ltd. in association with The Explorations in Feminism Collective, 1985), p. 8.

48 49

-15-

attention to the two genders.

In the few projects for all-girls schools, Pope was much less influential or

personally involved than she was later at Avon.

Soon after leaving Miss Porter's School, Pope founded several

infonnal schools only for girls, much in the spirit of Catherine Beecher, who idealized and promoted female domesticity by establishing several female seminaries in the 1820s and 1830s and who wrote the Treatise on

Domestic Economy: For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School in 183~.50

After Pope renovated the

O'Rourkery and the Gundy, which were open to the girls of Miss Porter's for afternoon tea, she restored the "Old Academy, " also located in Fannington, and offered classes for sewing and domestic skills for girls from nearby townS. 51

She also established a visiting nurse program and arranged for poor women with children from New

York City to spend their summers in Farmington. 52

Clearly Pope held a vision of the social purpose, and thus

of the necessary education, of women that fundamentally differed from her vision for men.

Pope's most important and lasting contribution to female education, however, came in 1909, one year before she was legally licensed as an architect by Connecticut State.

Located in Middlebury, Connecticut, the

Westover School for Girls was commissioned by Mary Hillard, Pope's closest friend and an aspiring headmistress, and was to be jointly financed by Pope's father and her one-time fiance, Harris Whittemore.

(Illus. 7)

It is crucial to note that Pope never adopted a leading role in this project, since it was the brainchild of

Hillard and was dedicated to improving the lives of only girls.

Evidence of this is given by a letter written by

artist Mary Cassatt, with whom both Pope and Hillard were acquainted and who took a particular interest in their plans for Westover. She wrote to Pope at Christmas, 1910: " . . every day we have talked of you and Mary Hillard and your joint effort for the Schoo!.

(1 could not remember the name, but names always escape me). But my sister mentioned it in connection with the daughter of a friend from Philadelphia. This child is wild about the Schoo!. One can see what Miss Hillard can do with girls, from the report. Isn 't it splendid to be able to influence whole generations! (emphasis added)53

Cassatt clearly appreciated Hillard's effort to affect and shape the lives of girls. Also, in this quote she is able to identify the compelling appeal of founding almost any school: it bears the potential ability to "influence whole generations."

50

51 52 53

Cassatt's words are particularly meaningful, in that when deciding the program for a memorial

Dolores Hayden, "Challenging the American Domestic Ideal," in Torre, p. 42.

Emeny,p. 7.

National Park Service, p. 4.

Cunningham, p. 50.

-16-

Illustration 7:

Westover School- Aerial View of Present Campus

.J,

.<'

. ..

. . -~~

mustration 9: Westover School - Detail of Interior Courtyard

Illustration 8: Westover School- Fa9lde from Middlebury Green I ~' j

....-.

~"'ICE~ r.' ~ 6-

,!S, ';:,AL1:l ~ .~.

.

..-.

N.....,.

. ~....,.,.,..

&JItar:oc.

I

e ....,路.....-.-路

_,,.s

MouH ....,..

~

-a...... s.

to her father, Pope would later remember that a school would be an effective tool with which she could mold the nation's sons.

In terms of the architectural design of the school, well-known architect Cass Gilbert praised Pope's design highly, writing: The work is beautifully designed and beautifully planned. It is in fact the best girl's school that I know in the country. The details are refined and scholarly, and the proportions of the architecture are exceedingly well sustained throughout. The building is a rather extensive one, forming four sides of a large quadrangle or cloister, and is refreshing in its charm and simplicity.54

The campus is compact and unified, for it is centered around one main building that houses the major functions of the school. Built with stuccoed brick, the pale yellow buildings seem a hybrid of the Colonial Georgian style and clean French Neo-classicism: the clapboard shutters and red brick walkways co-exist with ornamental flourishes and streamlined columns. (Illus. 8 and 9) As it faces directly onto the Village Green in Middlebury, it is integrated into the fabric of the town. Its falj=ades seem to promise culture and refinement, community and Ten years later, Pope would contrast these images of culture with images of nature in her design of

warmth.

Avon Old Farms. At both Westover and Avon, however, Pope was keenly sensitive

~o

the future inhabitants of

her buildings and thus designed deliberately for those inhabitants.

After designing the school's architecture, Pope only subtly influenced its educational structure, for it was her closest friends and family who were the intellectual parents of the school.

Jeanette Dempsey, the sister of

Philip Johnson and distant niece to Pope, later recalled, "... my mother knew that Cousin Theodate in backing the school felt that only history and french were worthy of female study:'55

By taking active roles in directing the

course of modern education for girls, both Pope and Catherine Beecher adhered to

~e

tradition for women-

especially spinsters, young single women, and widows-to be entrusted with the education of the nation's young. 56

It seems incongruous that Pope promoted a lifestyle of female domesticity through her schools and yet

eschewed that lifestyle in her own life.

If one can ignore the double-standard set by this inconsistency, it is

understandable that Pope attempted at least personally to transcend the roles assigned to her gender, which was consistently undervalued and minimized by her contemporary culture.

54

55 56

Given her identification with her father

Emeny,p.8.

Information in a letter to Westover School from Jeannette Dempsey, 1969, p. 1, Westover School Archives.

Ben E. Graves, School Ways: The Plannin& and Desi~ of America's Schools (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1993),

p.21.

-17-

and patrilineal heritage, it also seems plausible that she could have on some level hoped to live vicariously through the boys of the school. She would provide them with the education and environment she herself might have appreciated during her youth.

In summary, Pope's personal experiences made her acutely aware of the socially constructed limitations of her sex.

Her notions of appropriate gender roles remained largely unchanged over the course of her life,

despite the significant shift in American perceptions of gender away from earlier traditionalism. 57 Pope learned to skillfully maneuver around both internal and societal contradictions.

For example, while down playing her

own gender in her professional life, she simultaneously endorsed traditional gender roles in her educational theories.

She similarly played the traditionally "feminine" role of educator, although she feared a "feminization"

of education for boys.58

By consistently embracing polarity and casting the world in simplified black and white

contrasts, she was forced also to embrace contradictions and inconsistency.

Several national crises, such as the Depression and World War II, contributed to this shift. They created extenuating circumstances that forced many women to "overstep" traditionally-defined professional and social boundaries.

58 Lee and Marks, p. 74.

57

-18-

I. COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY

A Village Environment In order to instill a sense of social responsibility in the boys, Pope designed the configuration of the school's buildings to simulate a village environment, for a community atmosphere would encourage the boys' entry into the masculine realm of public life.

That the architectural configuration should reflect the social and

educational theories of the administration was hardly a new idea.

During the nineteenth century, for instance,

many architects employed Classical urban planning conventions when designing schools, since the connotations of rational and ordered architecture reinforced the ideals of an education based primarily on the study of Western Civilization. 59 The central Lawn and Rotunda of the University of Virginia, designed by Thomas Jefferson, is one such example.

Pope, therefore, was not without precedent in her use of architecture as a

tool to reinforce her educational ideals.

In her design of the most important communal parts of the campus,

rather than employ a classical site plan based on geometric proportions and rationalism, Pope sought instead to re-create a village environment in which the buildings emerge according to a more "organic" or naturally occurring organization. Pope was of course as much of a master planner as the classicists.

A 1925 review of the

school described the school: It is a complete village, distant, secluded, still wholly apart from any settlement, one mile from a railway station ... twelve miles from a sizable city. But it is complete in all that should make a boy's life complete . ..60

In the three years following the death of her father in 1913, Pope had purchased almost 3,000 acres of abandoned farmland on a low plateau, with a view on all sides of more farmland. 61 (Illus. 10) Thus, the site of the school was isolated and separate, ideal for a small, hermetic community.

59 Henry Sanoff, School Desi~ (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, Pub., 1994), p. 14l.

60 Francis Call Woodman,"Avon College- A School for Boys," Boston Transcript, 27 May 1925, p. 1, coIs. 1-2.

At the time, Pope's organizational plan immediately elicited positive responses from several prominent sources: Dr. MacCracken, the president of Vassar College, then still a single-sex, girls school, praised the school for its potential for "continued growth beyond what is now contemplated." ["Dr. MacCracken Gives Education Talks at Vassar," Semi-Weekly EUle and News Tele~raph, 25 November 1924, p. 2, col. 1.) Likewise, a contemporary women's journal complimented Pope that there was "nothing stiff or formal about any of the plans - but, on the other hand, there is studied attention to all details.

The buildings are not framed around plumbing and beating systems, as is often the case nowadays."(Adams, p. 17) 61 "Dream School for Boys," Newsweek, 15 March 1948, p. 82. The school has since had to sell much of the estate and now retains 791 acres. [Ramsey, p. 9)

-19-

Avon Old Farms School- Dlustrative Site Plan, 1961

It is helpful to view Avon in light of Michel Foucault's theory of "crisis heterotopias."

Citing the

boarding school as just such a place, Foucault maintains that societies often create secluded, sequestered environments for its weakest members, such as "adolescents, menstruating women, pregnant women, the elderly, etc." Note that these groups are designated by either age or gender, both of which come into play at a single-sex boarding school such as Avon. Foucault explains, "For example, the boarding school, in its nine-teenth century form, or military service for young men, have certainly played such a role, as the first manifestations of sexual virility were in fact supposed to take place "elsewhere" than at home."62 One might consider a work in creating an isolated environment in which the boys could develop their virility more fully than at their natural homes as such a "heterotopia."

Despite this isolation, which would suggest internal consistency, the project as a whole is not . particularly uniform.

Although "[tlraditional design usually produced a unified design with a particular

architectural character," it is not entirely appropriate to characterize Pope's plan as unified because she included many contrasts of spatial experience that defy a sense of clear unity.63 Cass Gilbert's high praise of Westover for its "refreshing charm and simplicity" would not be a wholly appropriate characterization of Avon. When one walks through the campus, one is struck by the unity of materials, heights of buildings, and architectural style, yet there is great contrast within Pope's choices about the organization of buildings.

This is largely because she

borrowed from at least three traditional models when planning the positioning of the various components of her school: a colonial model for the most important communal buildings, a Cotswold model for the minor communal buildings, and a neo-classical model for the dormitories.

Avon's village-like plan was partially modeled on a New England town, for Pope bad an affinity for Colonial village life.

Ideally, the community of boys at the school, like the men of struggling early Colonial

communities (which were often predominantly male) would develop interdependence and commitment to the greater social good.

Just as in many New England towns, such as New Haven, Guilford, and Middlebury, a

"Village Green" was intended to serve as the center of the campus. (lllus. 11)

Originally it was to be bounded on

Michel Foucault, "Of Other Spaces," Diacritic;~ (Spring 1986), p. 24-25.

Sanoff, p. 41 . Pope had few restriction placed on her design: she was fortunate to be able to build on what was essentially a tabula rasa, for there were no significant already-existing buildings on the abandoned farmland of Avon's site that had to be integrated into her design, nor were there any outside clients to force Pope into compromising her design.

62

63

-20-

10 .POWER JlOVSE-

OLD

fil11!;tTation 11:

FARMS

Avon Old Farms School- Campus Plan, circa 1922

路 all sides by the most of the important of the school's communal buildings: the Dean's House, the Headmaster's House, the Refectory, the Cloister, the Chapel, and the Library.64 (Illus. 12)

The close juxtapositions and

connections of these varied buildings were deliberate; traditional New England vernacular architecture often arranges a group of buildings by connecting them to one another with smaller buildings, low-ceilinged rooms, short stairs, or covered walkways.65 Pope did not literaliy reproduce the Colonial configuration, but instead identified and adopted two of its most characteristic traits: a central Green in the middle of village buildings and an eclectic organization of relatively small, connected buildings on individual farms.

Pope reinforced the architectural encouragement of masculine social responsibility by also using the academic curriculum to inspire an interest in politics.

At a meeting held the night before the school opened in

1927, Theodate recommended, "The operation of the school. .. might especially... emphasize preparation for the diplomatic service and matters pertinent to international relations."66 After all, Theodore Roosevelt had specifically charged the educated elite of boys with the moral and patriotic responsibility to enter the public realm: Another thing that must not be forgotten by the man desirous of doing good political work is the need of the rougher, manlier virtues, and above all the virtue of personal courage. physical as well as moral.... we must be vigorous in mind and body, able to hold our own in rough conflict with our fellows . . . A heavy moral obligation Tests upon the man of means and upon the man of education to do their full duty by their country.67 (emphasis added) The country's prestigious male academies had a commitment to producing the country's future leaders. When Yale College, for example, was undergoing the growing pains of becoming coeducational forty years after Avon was built, an anonymous professor was quoted in the Yale Daily News as saying, "As a professor, I feel a greater sense of accomplishment when I direct my efforts toward those who will one day have a greater role in society men."68

In order to give the boys political practice she established a student government, complete with its own

student court, a post office, a Fire Brigade, and a police force. Thus, Avon would not only suggest an abstract feeling of a separate community, but actively and explicitly declare its sovereignty.

The Deed insists that the

64 It is important to remember that Pope was able to build only about half of the Avon design, which shows how comprehensive and extensive her ambitions were. Only the Dean's House, Headmaster's House and Refectory were actually built, leaving the "Village Green" partially undefined. It remains so, despite additions, such as the Gymnasium, built in the last decades.

65 Hewitt, p. 856. Pope employed these conventions in 1899 when designing Hill-Stead, her parents' house.

66 Ramsey, p. 17.

67 Roosevelt, pp. 43 and 48.

68 Alison Buttenheim, ed., Celebratin~ Women: Twenty Years of Coeducation at Yale Co!le~e - the Commemorative l.2lmlil (North Adams, Mass.: Lamb Printing Company, 1989), p. 3.

-21-

illustration 12:

Avon Old Fanns School- Proposed Buildings for the Village Green, signed by Theodate Pope Riddle, 1933

boys "govern themselves ... as members of a sovereign state," with the boys designated as citizens with voting rights and opportunities to election. 69 In addition to being committed to developing the boys' political skills, Pope was also resolved to teach them the merits of community service. Section 2 of the school's Deed reads: Avon was founded for the sons of the gentry.. . As the sons of gentle training, however, often lack initiative and will power, the Founder stresses the value of community路 service in developing virility?O

Even her encouragement of community service, therefore, was designed to instill traditional gender and class values in the students. As one alumnus remembers, The program of community service at Avon was an excellent one. It was more constructive and workable than most of those I have worked with. Adminedly, such work as kitchen helping were considered not for a gentieman. 71

Connotations of class becomes particularly relevant at this point, for it becomes clear that by "community service" Pope meant the execution of tasks that benefited the community of the school, not a underprivileged neighborhood.

Among the many photographs of Avon's students engaged in farming, riding horses, riding in

the Fire Brigade, there is no record of the boys engaged in what had traditionally been "women's work."n

Only

tasks-such as waiting tables at meals and grooming the school's animals-that were deemed appropriate for young gentlemen were required, while generally more un romanticized labor-such as laundry and cookingwas to be left to the lower classes and women working in the back kitchen . . Nevertheless, a 1934 article about the school chose to emphasize the humility taught by the some of the more menial work that the boys were asked to perform: And there he was, son of a once important figure in the world of journalism, on his knees cleaning a dynamo. Hubbard is gening all the cultural advantage of any exclusive prep. school, but he is also learning what's more important-the other fellow's viewpoint and the value of work. 73

~ in Ramsey, p. 231. Freshmen, furthermore, were not allowed to vote yet, which indicates that Pope believed in 69 granting rights selectively . ["New School to Revive Colonial Spirit, " The New York Times Ma~a z ine. 21 December 1924, p. 9, col 2.)

70 ~ in Ramsey, p. 201.

71 John S. Iversen, Jr., "On Rediscovering Mrs. John Wallace (Theodate Pope) Riddle, in Ramsey, p. 140.

72 Matrix Collective, Makin~ Space: Women and the Man-Made Enyironment (London: The Pluto Press Limited, reprint 1985), p. 106.

73 Donald Smith, "Boys Are Taught to Work With Their Hands; Hartford Dajlv Courant 13 May 1934, p. D5.

-22-

The author of this contemporary review was able to succinctly identify two of Pope's ideals: respect for the lower classes and self-discipline through hard work. By 1934, therefore, Pope's plan for Avon was largely in place and legiole to visitors to the school.

Although the configuration of Avon was in part indebted to the model of Colonial life, it was also modelled on the configuration of a Cotswold village.

During her numerous trips to England, such as a vacation

in 1910 with her parents through the Lake District, Scotland and the Cotswolds, Pope faithfully collected architectural postcards as memoirs, to which she could later refer as she designed Avon. (Illus. 13)14 The Cotswold village model inspired Pope to utilize an "organic," picturesque configuration when arranging those buildings, such as the Club House, the Post Office, and the Craft Shops, that were to be located between the Village Green and the dormitories.

As can be easily read on the plan of Avon, these relatively small buildings are

arranged in a complicated, twisted and interactive way. (Illus. 11) The buildings stard in close proximity to each other, often at odd angles that create narrow alleys and tight corners. (Illus. 14)

Frederick Law Olmsted, had he

seen Avon, would very likely have endorsed this area of Pope's plan; having personally designed over twenty schools, he "proposed to a adopt a picturesque, rather than a formal and perfectly symmetrical, campus arrangement."75 A picturesque arrangement would create a neighborhood feeling; the students would hopefully sense that they were part of a community, not merely part of an academic institution.

Just as she did not simply copy the Colonial model when designing the Village Green, Pope did not faithfully adhere to the Cotswold model in designing the smaller communal buildings. As a result, Avon "would never be mistaken for a Cotswold Village. There the crisp orderly buildings address the street in a line, with prim window boxes filled with geraniums on display and white trim on doors and windows to make everything look neat and clean."76

Pope was most likely aware of her deviation from the model, for postcards

74 Hill-Stead Museum Archives, "Chronology: Theodate Pope Riddle and Hill-Stead," unpublished, p. 4.

Also preserved are many of her sketches from these trips, most often of architectural details such as medirevai door latches or chamfering. [Theodate Pope Riddle, Sketches 1920, unpublished, American Institute of Architects Archives.)

75 Sanoff, p. 41.

76 Judith Paine, "Avon Old Farms School: The Architecture of Theodate Pope Riddle," Perspecta 18 (1982),46.

Architectural historian E. Guy Dawber explained the authentic configuration of the Cotswolds: "The houses were mostly placed in such positions as would shelter them from exposure to the weather, and give ready access to such roads as then existed." [E. Guy Dawber, Old Cotta~es. Farm-Houses Etc. in the Cotswold District (London: B.T. Batsford Pub., 1905), p. 9.)

Pugin would have frowned upon her deviance: "Unless the ancient arrangement be restored, and the true principles carried out, all mouldings, pinnacles, tracery, and details, be they ever so well executed, are a mere disguise." (A. W. Pugin, Contrasts:

-23-

llIustration 13:

Postcards of . Cotswold Architecture, Collection of Theodate Pope Riddle

. ~-

:

.-

,.-..- "

~ -- .

-

-.

•. ~ r -: --/ ~~-:."':.: :::-

~

...;..> '.:,<., ...._..;.

• .;.•

..,.

¥,

~-.

•

~~

!I I

•

. .~ :.". ::~. ··i;~~~.·: .~- ::- ~ : ..

Dlustration 14:

Ii.; :.... ' . . . .'- . ~ ": ..:•.:

~..,- ~

-.<.; ..~:;:'

Avon Old Farms School - Perspective Drawing of ''Village'' Street, signed by 1heodate Pope Riddle, 1933

from her travels depicted the narrow, winding streets, for which the Cotswold is so well-known.

Thus, Pope

demonstrated an ability to glean the essential elements from the models and apply them in her design, thereby achieving an authentic design that was rooted in architectural precedent.

In contrast to her reference to Colonial and Cotiwold villages in her: design for the public parts of the campus, Pope turned for inspiration to a third model of configuration, the Neo-Classical plan, when designing the private, residential areas of the campus. motif throughout the campus.

Clearly, Pope did not feel bound to apply the same configurational

Evidence of her affinity for cleanly ordered and organized living is offered by one

particular postcard, found in the Hill-Stead archives and which Pope collected on one of her numerous trips abroad: it depicts a rectangular courtyard at Eton that is not only orthogonal but symmetrical as well. (Illus. 15) Pope must have found the rational and geometric formality of this kind of configuration appealing, for the Pope Quadrangle and the Brooks Quadrangle at Avon are symmetrical not only to themselves, but also to one another.77

In plan, moreover, they form two adjoined, identical circles that give the plan a regularity that

contrasts the seemingly arbitrary configuration of the public buildings of the campus.

An engaging comparison with Pope in terms of dormitory design can be made with Bernard Maybeck, who designed the campus of Principia College in the 19205. (Illus. 16)

The overall plan bears a striking

resemblance to Pope's, for it configures the residential units in two circular courtyards in order to flank the joint communal spaces. However, Maybeck's design for the dormitories is not nearly as geometric as Pope's: the angles between the buildings are inconsistent, and the two different sides of the campus are not symmetrical with one another or with themselves.

The organization thus appears more chaotic and haphazard, as a consequence

of fundamentally different design intentions. The irregularity of Maybeck's campus is precisely what Pope was wished to avoid, for by orthagonally arranging her dormitories, she could achieve order and crispness as a contrast of experience to her organically configured public areas.

The contrast of the "geometric" and "organic" parts of the campus help to create not only a variety of spatial experience, but also a combination of public and private spaces, thereby creating "androgynous Or. A Parallel Between the Noble Edifices of the Middle A~es. and the Correspondin~ Buildin~s of the Present Dav; Shewini the Present Decav ofIaste (Edinburgh: John Grant, Pub., 1898), p. 58.]

77 The Brooks Quadrangle was never built, although its foundations were laid in the ground and still remain there today. Thus, while the Pope Quadrangle still establishes symmetry and regularity, it must do so alone.

-24-

illustration 15:

Postcards of Eton Courtyard, Collection of Theodate Pope Riddle

illustration 16:

Principia College - General Plan and Residential Units, St. Louis, Missouri, Bernard May-beck, 1927

architecture," for traditionally the private sphere has been associated with the "feminine" and the public realm with the "masculine."

A Family Environment By creating Avon Old Farms as a utopia in which she could implement her ideal of a community, Pope presided over the school as a maternal figure for the displaced sons of the nation's upper classes. Her encouragement of a sense of community consequently can be seen as an effort by Pope to create a kind of a surrogate family, in which she would playa parental role in determining how best to rear the young boys.78 Since residential living plays such an integral role in the life of a boarding school such as Avon, Pope recognized that she could use architecture as a tool to cultivate a family environment.

As philanthropic acts, Pope's informal adoptions of the three male orphans during the mid-191Os were the first time that Pope was able to assume the role of surrogate mother, and they impelled her resolve to build a boys' school.

Her diaries reveal an early sense of social responsibility in the form of surrogate parenthood, for

they "record dreams of having a farmhouse, taking in poor children, and developing

an ideal educational

system."79 By "children" Pope must have simply meant "boys," for she never took in any young female orphans, nor did she include girls at Avon. The rural tradition of a preference for male heirs, 'who were expected be more successful and productive members of society than girls, thus had exerted a strong influence on Pope.

She was

conscious of her maternal relationship to the boys, for her public statements and writings are saturated with references to the male students as "sons."

In a "Statement to the Parents of Boys at Avon Old Farms," written in

June 1930, Pope explained a recent controversy at the school and closes the statement with the assurance that: Avon Old Fanns will now and always be governed in the manner best calculated to develop honour, culture and courage in her sons. 80

78 When the school first opened, the community of students was comprised of about forty boys. Today, that number is approximately four hundred, thus making it much more difficult to foster a sense of coherence and belonging. [Ramsey, ASJ'iration, p. 95.]

79 Mark Hewitt, The Architect and the American Couote' House 1890 - 1940 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 157.

80 Theodate Pope Riddle, "Statement to the Parents of Boys at Avon Old Fanns," (2 June 1930) Hill-Stead School Archives. p. 4.

-25-

The metaphor of the architect as mother can be extended to the school as mother, for the former was often disguised in the latter. In other words, the founder could sublimate maternal intentions in the program and the form of the school.

If the school served as a "mother" to the boys, and Pope was the "mother" to the school, then

she was matrilineally linked, in an albeit abstract way, to the boys.8!

Pope was not revolutionary in her ambition to found and direct a private school, nor in her maternal relationship to the school, for women had traditionally been accorded the role of educators.

School planners

around the turn of the century often felt "that a woman, whether a mother or not, could better understand the needs of young children and the infirm" than a man could. 82 Several other contemporary childless women, such as Ethel Walker and Coral Armin Barlow, founded private schools that bore their names, much like heirs.83 One author has posited that Maria Bissell Hotchkiss, the founder of the eponymous school and widow of a developer of the machine gun, "had established an elite school for boys in order to atone in some measure for the many promising young male lives that her husband's invention, or perfection, had mowed down during the course of various wars."84 Following this reasoning, then, both Pope and Hotchkiss deliberately founded allboys schools in an attempt to replace lost or missing sons. Moreover, both women might have been working as a result of feelings of guilt: Hotchkiss for the merciless deaths of World War I, and Pope for her privileged background.

Despite her maternal attitude towards the school, Pope curiously did not plan to live on campus with the boys.

She instead continued to live with her husband at the house at Hill-Stead, located ten minutes away in

Farmington, after the deaths of her parents.

Nevertheless, she ensured a measured infusion of "femininity" into

the daily life of the boys by creating several administrative positions that were to be filled only by \Vomen.

The

"Dame," for instance, was intended as "the source to whom the mothers of the boys may go with their anxieties,"

81 Interestingly, Pope's husband, John Riddle, also peppered his language with references to family and filial development, but took more the role of a distancing father. In a letter written during World War II to the Editor ofthe Herald Tribune, he derides boys who had "been the object of their mother's full-time solicitation" as needing to be "freed from home influence." Perhaps jealous of his wife's zealous commitment to Avon and her "sons," Riddle seems to nevertheless also view the boys as sons. [Information in a letter to the Editor of the Herald Tribune by John W. Riddle, unpublished, (31 Jul. 1943), p.l.]

82 Favro, p. 120.

83 Gordon Clark Ramsey, "The Vision of Theodate Pope Riddle," Opening Remarks given at the Avon Old Farms School, Avon, Conn., Oct. 1979, transcript in Westover School Archives, p. 2.

84 Stephen Birmingham, "vVhat Made Maria Do It?," in Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School, ed. Ernest Kolowrat (New Amsterdam, 1992), p. 2.

-26-

and was to be chosen "for her interest and love of boys and for no sentimentalism."ss While only men could serve on the academic faculty to provide male role models for the boys, the positions of Nurse and Librarian were reserved for women. S6

Moreover, the statutes of the college, which were largely written by Pope herself, mandate

that at least three members of the Board of Regents of the school must be women. S7

One can infer from this that

while Pope believed women were valuable in their ability to govern and plan, they should remain distant, in the background, lest they dilute the effect of the male role models on the boys.

Pope's design for the school's configuration is conducive to residential interaction between students and faculty, and thus to a family environment of supervision.

In addition to being in contact in the classroom,

students and faculty live together, subtly separated from one another to establish hierarchy, but still remain in close proximity.

All four of the dormitories that were actually built, i. e. Diogenes, Elephant, Eagle, and Pelican,

are buttressed at each end by a faculty house. (Illus. 17)

As

~

result, the faculty live on the diagonals of the quad,

in the comers, while the students are bounded inside, in the middle of the sides of the quad. With the faculty living nearby, a student would feel protected, monitored, and parented. Based on a mediaeval model, where the students and faculty reside together and near the classrooms, this positioning maximized the administration's ability to monitor the students.SS

Serving in loco parentis, the school had a responsibility to not only protecting,

but also controlling and guiding, the lives of its "sons."

It is illuminating to note that examples of residential colleges which directly contrast with this approach may be cited.

For instance, James Gamble Rogers, the principal architect of the new dorms at Yale campus,

designed complexes and quadrangles where the students lived separately from both faculty houses and classrooms. S9

While the residential colleges do contain apartments for some faculty, it was expected that most

faculty would live elsewhere in New Haven. that function.

Furthermore, classes were to be taught in buildings devoted solely to

While Rogers cleanly separated the different parts of campus life to different campus buildings, 路

Pope designed the opposite: she integrated classrooms and residences, faculty and students. The ground floor of

85

"Avon School Strikes Note," p. 3, col. 3.

86

Ramsey, p. 14.

~

"Where Boys May be Boys," p. 12.

Susan Ryan, "The Architecture ofIames Gamble Rogers at Yale University," Perspecta 18 (1982), 34.

88 89

Ibid.

-27-

lustration 17: Avon Old Farms School- Detail of Faculty Housing in Relation to Student Dormitories

: illustration 18:

Yale College - Sub-Courtyard in Branford College, James Gamble Rogers, 1917-21

the four dorms is comprised of classrooms; the second floor houses 48 single-occupancy dorm rooms; the third (and top) floor contains 20 double-occupancy rooms, opening onto a single hallway.90 The rooms are related horizontally, rather than vertically as in an entryway system.

Both architects nevertheless wanted to facilitate a

sense of community and thus designed communal quadrangles within the walls formed by the dormitories.

Pope's quadrangles are not quite as complicated as Rogers: for she did not employ Rogers' convention of subcourtyards, as can be found inside several of the residential colleges, such as the Branford or Saybrook Colleges.

(Illus. 18) Inside the Pope Quadrangle, one's gaze is never blocked or not allowed to see every corner.

Hence,

Pope succeeded in achieving the simultaneous sense of protection and exposure one often feels in a family: while one may be sheltered from the outside world, one is also often closely watched or controlled according to the discretion of the "parent."

All-girls schools also attempted to regulate and monitor student life through architecture, but employed different means to that end. Like Avon, these schools maintained a single-sex faculty to correlate with the singlesex student body.

At Mt. Holyoke Seminary, for example, the fact that all the teachers were female simplified

questions about the appropriateness of close proximity in residential living and allowed the administration to house students and faculty together in one large building, finished in 1876. 91 (Illus. 19)

Although we have no

record of any direct comments made by Pope about Mt. Holyoke, it is probable that Pope was nevertheless familiar with its configuration, for her Westover School bears a striking resemblance to it.

As Westover was

designed "so that all activities of school life take place under one roof, from eating and sleeping to chapel attendance and classroom instruction," both schools have one, main easy-to-monitor quadrangle. 92 (Illus. 7 and 19)

Significantly, Pope rejected the sprawling model of her own alma mater, Miss Porter's School, where the

campus buildings are separate and scattered. (lllus. 20) When designing the configurations of both Westover and Avon, she was instead determined to create closed communities.

90 "Aspirando et Perseverando," Sjlhouettes Mu;azine, Oct. 1927, p. 17; and Information in telephone conversation of author with Avon Old Fanns School Admissions Office, February 1995.

Bernard Maybeck used a similar design in his 1924 plan of the Principia College, for he placed the classrooms and lounges on the first floors and put private rooms above.

[Kenneth Cardwell, Bernard Maybeck: Artisan. Architect. Artist (Santa Barbara, Cal.: Peregrine Smith Inc., 1977), p. 204.J 91 Horowitz, pp. 55,227.

92 National Park Service, p. 9.

-28-

lustration 19:

Mount Holyoke Seminary - Aerial View, 1880-96

.. f~t!l

~; MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL

L -________________

~~-.,,~.,,~,-----'· $d l

FAR~I~GTO~, CO~~ECTICLl

l.•

,.. ; .. 1 . : ;

lllustration 20:

:.....~

Miss Porter's School- Campus Plan Showing Unconnected Buildings

While most all-girls' institutions housed their faculty and students together and employed a hallway system to facilitate supervision of the students, not all schools complied with this model. Smith College was one such exception, in that it had been configured on the "cottage" system, which essentially placed the girls in . "home-like" environments. 93 Designed as large houses with porches, living rooms and communal kitchens, the female students' dormitories were consciously intended to look like houses. .

This architectural design was

rooted in the idea that while women deserved to be educated at boarding schools, colleges, and seminaries, it was still necessary to keep the girls in home environments, where female chastity could be neither threatened nor questioned.

In this way Smith's organization establishes a family-like environment more effectively than

Avon's, which attempts to create one enormous family in each of the two planned quadrangles.

In terms of her treatment of male faculty housing, Pope's plan at Avon allows for more flexibility for the male faculty than her design for the female faculty at Westover. The administrations of boys' schools generally assumed that the male faculty would come with their own families, while the female teachers were "spinsters" and thus would not. 94 For student housing, Pope did not generously offer the young Avon students the same .

.

freedom that college men enjoyed, and instead arranged the configuration of the school to facilitate stricter monitoring.

However, Pope's plan for the Junior College, which was to form the right side of the plan but never

was built, is identical to the Pope Quadrangle. Still encouraging the same close interactions between faculty and students, the symmetry of the plan reveals that Pope did not significantly differentiate between the older and the younger boys.

Also, Pope did not situate the gates in a way that maximized control of the students' exit and entry

into the quadrangle: the gates are located in the middle of the ground floors of each of the dorms. (Illus. 21) Pope nevertheless cleverly offset this potential weakness by keeping the quadrangle very open and exposed, evoking a feeling of being in a complete circle, enclosed and protected.

93

Horowitz, pp. 73-5.

94

Ibid., p. 40.

-29-

illustration 21:

Avon Old Farms School - Portals in the Middle of Donnitory Wings

II. PHYSICALITY AND CLOSE CONTACT WITH NATURE

The second ideal of the past with which Pope hoped to inspire the boys was close contact with nature.

The purpose of this was to develop their vigor and health; in conjunction with the moral and intellectual training that the school's curriculum would provide, for Pope associated physical strength with masculinity. way, Avon was intended to work like a tonic, nourishing and strengthening the boys.

In this

An early school brochure

claims, Boys of two generations ago came face to face with the vital problems oflife during their formative years, which were often spent on farms in direct contact with nature. Today our boys are deprived of this character-forming experience.95

Pope's selections for the school's site, architectural style, and materials were all in part informed by her emphasis on returning to reliance on the physical body: she not only chose rural Connecticut as the school's site because it allowed her to include a working farm, but also selected the Cotswold architectural style for the buildings because, to her, its unclad and "timeless" materials symbolized Nature.

"Timelessness" is meant in this context to refer

to a quality in architecture that suggests the transcendance of time through the illusion of permanence, slow evolution, or "natural law."

Pope aspired in her architecture to achieve this timelessness primarily by

suggesting a return to Nature and thus materials older than humankind.

A Return to the Farm Pope believed that the bard physical labor and direct contact with the soil that farmlife demands would develop not only a strong work ethic, but also virility, in the boys. Pope's father shared bel' enthusiasm for farm life and concurred with his daughter when sbe insisted that Hill-Stead include a working farm. Letters dating from the early years at Hill-Stead reveal that the father and daughter often discussed sucb banal farming details as the sickness of particular cows. 96 Farming became increasingly central to Pope's educational ideals for boys in the ensuing years, as reflected in the name of the scbool, "Avon Old Farms."

Further evidence of the emphasis

Promotional Brochure, unpaginated.

Information in a Jetter to Theodate Pope Riddle from Alfred A. Pope, (3 March 1904) Lener #565, Hill-Stead Museum Archives.

95

96

-30-

on farming can be found in the school newsletter, The Avonian, which reminded the students in 1941, while Pope was still very much alive and in charge of the school, that: [i)n just such an environment [as Avon's 2800 acres of field, forests and brooks), early generations of Americans, farm born and fann bred, developed a sturdiness of character, an initiative, and a resourcefulness not to be learned from book-learning alone. 97

These repeated allusions to the potency of the earth cannot help but recall Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship.98 Also an isolated community established for the purpose of a directed education, Taliesin offered a retreat into Nature in the sprawling landscape of the American West. Both Pope and Wright believed in the potency of landscape: barely tamed, it would remind students about the ephemeral nature of human dwelling.

This is more striking at Taliesin not only because of the vastness of space, but also because Pope built with the specific intention of fighting the destructive effects Nature. She designed her architecture not just to be strong, but also to look "indestructible."

As a daughter of socialite Cleveland, Pope had little personal experience with farms.

Nonetheless, she

romanticized a vision of farmlife that offered introversion and retreat in addition to the self-discipline taught by the manual labor.

Several times she herself expressed a desire to work in the fields as a way of somehow

achieving a more "authentic" existence. In one diary entry from 1887, for instance, she explicitly wrote, "I have always wanted to go to work on a farm and see how people lived."99 Pope never once mentions other girls or women in the context of farming and character building. This elision is significant, for it starkly contrasts her own interest in experiencing the rigors and routing of farm life, if not farm labor.

Although she herself was

sturdily built, the prevailing attitude held that women were not supposed to be physically strong:

'17 W. Brook, Stabler, "History of Avon Old Farms," The Avonjan. vol. 1, no. 11, Founder's Day Issue, 24 May 1941, p. I, Westover School Archiv~. Yet another insistence on this principle is given in the School's Deed: "Our forefathers of colonial times . .. owe[d) their initiative and will power to the fact that in their youth they performed [farm)work." ~ in Ramsey, p. 36.)

Also, at Avon, this translated into a desire to see the boys do actual farm labor, not just a pathetic imitation of it. She is quoted as claiming, " The average so-called country schools are really only a thin veneer on nature, but do not really partake of the soil, which can be secured only by putting the boy to the tasks that arise out of actual country life. That life shared by the early New Englanders had an incalculable value in the formation of the characters of our men and women." (emphasis added [Ramsey, p. 11.]

98 Frank lloyd Wright, An AutQbjo~aphv (New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1933), pp. 16-25. It is interesting to note that Wright was born just one year before Pope and thus belongs to the same generation of architects.

99 Information in Diary of Theodate Pope Riddle, 17 May 1887, p. 36. Hill-Stead Museum Archives.

Gilbert nevertheless wrote to Pope that he was also impressed by Avon, once writing to her in a personal letter: "It gives me great pleasure to say that I am familiar with your work as shown by the School at Avon Old Farms, which I regard as one of the most charming, picturesque and attractive examples of rural architecture in this country. ,It has unusual merit; it is a highly creditable performance." (Illus.22) Two years later, while on her Grand Tour through Europe, she wrote, "The church is small and of stone covered with ivy, the regular English country church that we see in no other country... What I would not give to live in the country and thus be able to walk in the fields whenever I wish." [Sommer, p. 76.]

-31-

CoJrr.r • Cr.SS

GILB:m'

:A-i :':acison :"vcnue-:ln f York

No~ember

17,19SS

I un,,~.,;rs'U.nd "r.at 70~ ~:ave applied !'or a l1cen:; e. :0 !)rr.ctice archi t'''ct~? .zli ' ~r !.r.e h .... s or -:108 St.:lte . of Co!:nec,,1cut ':..nd yo~ !.!,ve '71\'-:'; !l ~ nnme ~s alDCll!1;'; tl',o~e ;.. t.D c.:-e f.::.:n1i!.:.l" -,\'1 tL yo-.;:r 'i'orks.

.

It ::iV4"-5 :lP _'r -,,:' !ll~: ,sure to say ~..J.·l~ I : ~ .y:-i ~h lo~ work '_3 sr: o~n 'J"j !he Scbool ~ t Avon Old rcrIils, i!r.i r!h I rcgc.rd ,~ s O~ :, ': :f :Le mo~t chara1n~, plcturee~ :.nd £t~.rGctlve eXi:Jllpl,:,s of !"".lr~l ' ~rc}-.i t·... cturl! 1n this CO:JD t.ry.

It r.a~ 1.IDu3u£1 ~' ~ritJ it is ;. hi. 'Lly ::r i:di~,. ble ~rrO~!l~e. r ::.. cdl.i ~,.r

:'1':e 3£lnl!! ..:-::.. ~ t2I:ent':p?1l :~3 to ':1,,> ~estov~r Sl!hool at :.t1ddlc~·7' Conn., .\ ~ :ich I h; .ve v1~1 -:.e<i :. nu,.ab.~r or timCf'.

I no Gleo r:.::rl.ll;:r '1'1 t!l yOlJ:' ':iork in til" Roosf;velt :lemori.::.l Hou; ; ~ t~t :8 ZE.st ':Oth :tr', et, yr;'A York C:.ty, lOr.i~h 1s 1.'1 1 t3 W:JY 0(: . ~117 iil!!1irable.

It ~1\""3 !:lC ?L~ u 3ure t(:~r~fo'f! to J::!artlly end or,:;c .:our l!??ll("c.:.tl:n.

Ii' h!';J f'lr~er t.est1."lIOn1~ 1s nec;:c ~i, I .:l.all i;f> ~l ;.. d :'0 :- ~:s?on·i.

~s.

Jom 'f. Ridale

~' ~"l c-t ,:)'1

Con."lec ::.icut

illustration 22:

Copy of a Letter from Architect Cass Gilbert to Theodate Pope Riddle, 1933

IUD

.

'-

,....

_.

'

..路_ ......1fI/I5 ". . .- .- - - -

~

' \. ,

)

..

Particularly interesting in this quote is that she writes that it is men who design and use machines and thus are responsible for the beneficial and detrimental effects of technology. However, she clearly was not casting this role in a positive light: men were responsible for the devaluation of craftsmanship and for the anonymity of mass production. Women do not seem to playa role in effecting the course of society; significantly, she did not mention them outside of the passive role of being effected by the changes wrought by man's inventions.

A Return to Naked Materiality ... Dining-Room and Drawing-Room -- right and left -- were guessed only by their wall-papers. ;[hey were just room where one could shelter from the rain. Across the ceiling of each ran a great beam. The Dining-Room and Hall revealed theirs openly, but the Drawing-Room's was matchboarded -- because the facts of life must be concealed from ladies . .. 121 (E. M. Forster, Howards End)

In her attempt to return to a closer relationship to nature, Pope chose to maintain the natural appearance of the materials instead of cladding them.

Thus, her choice of which materials to use became

strikingly significant. Since cladding would cover the true nature of the materials and obscure evidence of the process of construction of the building, Pope considered it less "honest" than unclad architecture. however, Pope had still employed this method of architectural disguise.

At Hill-Stead,

Although the house was ostensibly "a

farm built in the old way," the cladding reveals Pope's inclination towards inconsistency, in that the design concurrently admits the passage of time and the benefits of progress by including modern amenities such as fireproof brick construction behind the clapboard exterior. 122

Pope also used cladding at Westover, built ten

years after Hill-Stead and ten years before Avon. Since she had chosen to use a Neo-Classical Georgian style at Westover, the school seems clean, uniform and perfectly crafted, much like a delicate object one tries not to break.

At Avon, Pope chose the Cotswold style in direct rejection of this fragility and entirely abandoned the practice of cladding.

In effect, the forthright treatment of the materials was intended to strip architecture literally of its

pretenses of refinement.

The materials were to remain raw and appear untreated, thereby underscoring the

beauty and honesty of their natural state.

In The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1849, John Ruskin demanded in the "Lamp of Truth" that there be no dishonest suggestion of structure or support where none exists, no painting of surfaces to 121 Edward R. Ford, The Details of Modem Architecture (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), p. 123.

122 Hewitt, Antiques, p. 851. Moreover, McKim, Mead and White themselves had "a reputation of indifference to the real structure of buildings." [Ford, p. 53.)

-37-

Early Victorian girls were constantly reminded of their sex's purpose and nature. They were taught that facial colour and muscular strength were unrefined, and that physical effort could damage their reproductive organs as well as their attractiveness to men.! 00 By extension, the womanly virtues of" 'piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity' restricted upper class women to a world circumscribed by the parlor, kitchen, and nursery."IOI

According to this way of thinking,

women were to remain inside, while men could not only move freely between inside and outside, but also dominate the outside world, uncontested in their own domain.

Pope's preference for boys can be now be

explained as more than simply an investment in the nation's future leaders: her preference was also related to the rural reliance on sons to do more physical labor than daughters. I02 Ironically, it was during World War I, when male farmhands temporarily left Pope's farm to fight in World War I and were replaced by female undergraduates from Vassar, that Pope first became convinced of the educational potential offarmwork.

The president of Vassar, who personally knew Pope, explained,

Mrs. Riddle became interested in the organization of life at Vassar through the work of Vassar undergraduates upon her large farm during the war [WWl} at a time when her male workmen were in the army. Since that time I have been in constant consultation with her upon the scope and plan of this junior college .. .103

Despite this compelling evidence that women could indeed perform farmwork, Pope still chose to exclude girls from Avon and from its farm curriculum. Since she had personally employed the young Vassar women to work her farm at Hill-Stead, it seems that Pope did not find farmwork a highly objectionable activity for women. her employment of these women was only an emergency measure.

Yet,

When given the choice, she saw more value

in the physical development of men than of women.

A Return to the Pre-Industrial Life In her effort to return to the farm, Pope sought also to wholly reject any modes of living that had been derived from the Industrial Revolution. Like her view of farm life, her view of "the simple life" was largely romanticized and thus relies heavily on stereotypes of gender and class behavior.

She hoped to return to a

Geoffrey Walford, The Private Schoolin~ of Girls: Past and Present (London: The Woburn Press, 1993), p. 36.

Patricia Smith Butcher, Education for EQuality: Women's Ri~hts Periodicals and Women's Hi~her Education 1849illQ (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989), p. 15.

102 If Pope saw women as planners, but not physical executors, the metaphor of school as beehive might be apt: the hard physical labor of the underlings serves the greater purpose and vision of the planning queen bee.

103 "Dr. MacCracken Gives Education Talks," p. 2, col. 1.

100 101

-32-

simpler way of life, where gender roles were more clearly defined due to the emphasis on the body and physical strength. Additionally, her attempt to emulate another era, or another society, is indicative of a nostalgic discontent with modernity. of her time.

One could say that she was either ahead or behind her time, but she did not fe~l part

She was nevertheless a product of her own era, the first half of the century, for her convictions were

born of the confusion resulting from challenges to previously unquestioned stereotypes.

It was possible, and

perhaps very understandable, in this constantly-changing environment to hold on to certain vestiges of the past that were inconsistent with the strides into the future.

As technological progress moved at an increasingly rapid

pace, the ways of the pre-industrial past must have seemed to offer stability and security as a direct contrast.

While at Miss Porter's in the late 1880s, Pope experienced some of this confusion, for she was simultaneously exposed to the privileged life of her peers at the school and, for the first time, to New England rural life. Enamored of the farms she saw in Farmington and also in England, Pope quickly abandoned her already weak loyalty to her upbringing and longed for the possibility of retreating into a simpler life. Her restoration of the O'Rourkery and the Gundy offered just such an opportunity, as she recalled many years later: Life in my cottage gave me just the experience I had been longing for from the time I ran away from school in my attempt to see real life. For a year I cooked every meal. Through the night I frequently struck matches to see my watch by candle light, in order to be up at six o'clock to build the kitchen fire. 104

What is extremely intriguing here is Pope's own interest in farming and the "real life" as a preferred way of life

for herself, while none of her diaries or letters make reference to any other girls in this context.

Pope frequently wrote of the relationship of a simple way of life, farming, and boys. lOS

In stark contrast,

Although she may have

wanted to experience personally what she saw as the cathartic effects of farmlife, Pope did not choose not to offer the opportunity to members of her own gender, for she no longer identified with them as she had transgressed so many gender boundaries in her personal and professional life.

As an independent upper class woman, Pope devoted herself to a considerable amount of social work, perhaps believing in Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth," which had inspired a social conscience in America's nouveau riche. 106 It would be fair to say that many philanthropists, however, were more interested in immortalizing their 104 Pope 1937 Memoirs, unpaginated, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

105 Although I do not have numbers to support my assertion, this was the general sense gained from reading Pope's letters and diaries at the Hill-Stead Museum Archives.

106 Birmingham, p. 9.

-33-

their family name, by giving money for a school, museum, or park, than in altruistically improving the lives of the lower classes. While Pope, too, was perhaps searching for a way to achieve immortality, she hoped that the physical permanence and the professional successes of the alumni would assure her and the school a place in history. Furthermore, Pope even became a member of the Socialist Party for several years, despite the fact that this infuriated her father. I07

Pope was by no means an egalitarian, however; she explicitly admitted that she had

established Avon for "the sons of the gentry," and she also claimed that "[rJevolutions which endeavor to establish classless societies always pass ... "108

In saying this Pope contradicted her earlier commitment in the

Avon Brochure to achieve a classless society, or at least one in which the problem of class is not actually a problem: [T)he whole is such a place as should readily breed that noblesse of feeling which is apart from class distinction and has its foundation in the strength of righteousness and the courage to live above reproach. 109

Pope also came out against women's suffrage in a 1911 newspaper article, saying that women needed to wait for the right to vote for at least another ten years. I 10

It seems that she did not feel the compunction to improve the

lives of her female peers the way she wanted to improve young boys' lives, for she did not seem to appreciate that not all women had the advantages of wealth to overcome gender hurdles. Pope's social conscience was often selective and gender specific.

In an interview given while the school was being constructed, Pope asserted that she acquired the Connecticut property: to provide a place resembling one of the old Colonial villages, a place where young students would live and work as did the early pioneers who did their own planting and reaping, building and governing - where boys might, in short, get the all-around training formerly provided by village life. III

Pope's architectural nostalgia for Colonial life first became manifest in her architecture when in 1899-1901 she helped design Hill-Stead, her parents' country retreat.

Having been convinced by his daughter to move from

107 Paine, "Avon Old Farms," p. 43.

108 ~ in Ramsey, p. 201 and Information in a letter to the Editor of the New York Times by Theodate Pope Riddle, 31 July 1943, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

109 Promotional Brochure, unpaginated.

HO "Connecticut Women Don't Want Ballot: Hundreds Make Protest Against the Suffrage," Hartford Dajly Courant, 1 June 1911, p. 61. Neither the article nor Pope clarified Pope's reasons for proposing the delay.

HI "New School to Revive Colonial Spirit," p. 9, col. 1.

-34-

Cleveland to the East Coast and specifically to Farmington, her father had employed Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White to oversee the design of the house. The firm had become well-known largely for popularizing and celebrating the New England vernacular style, which the Popes had already decided would be the appropriate architectural style for their "farmhouse." (Illus. 23 )112

To build a farmhouse as one's country estate was in

itself unusual, when most self-made millionaires were building in grand Beaux-Arts styles.

To insist on using

the New England vernacular underscored the Popes' desire to return to a pre-industrial life, because of its association with Colonial farmlife.

In yet another attempt to return to the past, Pope would later, when

designing Avon, shift her taste in architectural style from the New World to the Old World, but she retained the New World ideal of a Colonial farm for the school's site.

Although Stanford White is most often credited with the design of the house, the design reveals that Pope, with the blessing of her father, clearly exerted considerable influence on the organization of its eclectic As architectural historian Mark Hewitt has noted, "The plan resembles neither the shingle style plans

parts. 113

which the firm developed during the 1870s and 1880s nor the classical and academic plans of the 1890s houses."114

Instead, the plan sprawls in unexpected ways, suggesting not only many design changes, erasures,

additions, but also successfully re-creating the scattered configuration of New England farm complexes. (Illus.

24) Consequently, "Hill-Stead is no slavish copy" of its Colonial precedents, as architect Robert Stern has

remarked, 115 as Pope was already exhibiting her ability to begin with a precedent, distill and retain its essential features, discard the non-essential or outdated details, and then reconfigure the essential elements for her own purposes. Author Henry James, one of several noted figures with whom Pope was acquainted, remarked on Pope's talent for adaptation when, after visiting Hill-Stead during the summer of i911, he wrote in his book The

American Scene : A great new house on a hill-top that overlooked the most composed of communities (Farmington, Connecticut), - a house apparently conceived and with the greatest felicity - on the lines of a magnificent Mount Vernon ... 116

Information in a letter to Theodate Pope Riddle from Alfred Pope, 1904; and Leland Roth, McKim. Mead and White.

112 Architects (New York: Harper & Row, Pub., 1983), p. 4.

113 Hewitt, Antiques, p. 854.

114 115 ~

116

Ibid.

Robert A. M. Stern, "Guest Speaker: Robert A. M. Stern on Hill-Stead, Hollyhook House and Others," Architectural 43, April 1986, p. 33.

Cunningham, p. 52-53.

-35-

illustration 23:

lllustration 24:

Hill-Stead - House of Alfred and Ada Brooks Pope, Farmington, Connecticut, McKim, Mead and White in Conjunction with Theodate Pope Riddle

Hill-Stead - First-floor Plan

Fint Floor Plan, House for A. A. Pope Esq. at Farmin(ton, Ct., ,reparw! bg SUltJrlUIout, 1899. Ink on paper. New-York Historical Society; photorraph by courtesy orthe historical society.

\

L:~.~~-~~-~

--. . ........

rUL~T

i i

i

HOU

~

r-~

_

. --.l

flOC"'" PLAN

f.. rOl1.- ""A路POPf.- f.-

._-_... ._-

"T ' rAlI.MINCiTON路C%

Despite her penchant for adaptation, Pope was constantly struggling to achieve what can be called "forthright" architecture, defined as a treatment of building that honestly and faithfully represents its method of construction and its materials, as a way to arrive at simplicity.

In her own words, Pope recalled:

When I began the preliminary designing of Avon, I made up my mind that the buildings should be erected by simplified methods, knowing that this would increase their beauty.117 The "simplified methods" would facilitate a return to a simpler way of life, b'u t returning to these simplified methods proved to be a complicated endeavor. As Pope was extremely particular in her insistence on the use of original and "authentic" building techniques, "oxen were used to pull stumps and drag stone boats," despite the availability of newer methods of transportation. lIB

More significantly, she actually imported six craftsmen

from the Cotswolds who were knowledgeable in 16th-century construction methods to begin construction in 1923 on the Station House.1I9 Pope went to these great lengths in the hope that the use of techniques appropriate to the time of the chosen architectural style would achieve a level of the "honesty" that was appropriate for the simple life.

Pope's choice of architectural style further reinforces the feeling of retreat to a pre-industrial era, for it flatly rejects materials and construction techniques produced by the Industrial Revolution.

Consciously

making a selection as if from an historical menu of styles, Pope chose to employ the English Cotswold style as the school's predominant architectural style, for its characteristically steep, slated roofs and thick stone walls immediately bespeak

s~urdiness

and simplicity.

Much of the Cotswold region, which lies to the west of London,

had escaped the Industrial Revolution and thus was able to maintain its reliance on human craftsmanship, while other areas increasingly replaced the human hand with machines.

It is then no surprise that Pope wrote

into the Deed, ... since the Industrial Revolution which took place in England in the early part of the nineteenth century, there has been a complete social change in the lives of millions of men and women .. . Men design machines; make machines; drive machines' repair machines. .. 120

117 Pope 1937 Memoirs, p. 2, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

118 Iversen in Ramsey, p. 178. As a result of this close attention to the building process, the construction of Avon has been well-documented, especially in photographs and Pope's personal memoirs. (Illus. 25) 119 Emeny, p. 12. Once arrived, these workmen then taught local Connecticut workmen their techniques. Thus, despite her rhetoric of using local materials, the way that those materials were employed was imported. [Ramsey, p. 133.)

120 I!tt!1 in Ramsey, p. 233.

-36-

illustration 25: Avon Old Farms School- Construction Photographs Depicting 16th-Century Building Techniques

"

0' ",

........ ,-.-.-..-.-

~-~

-.

.

simulate another material, and no ornaments made by modem machines. 123

Pope had therefore violated

several Ruskinian principles at Hill-Stead. The wooden doors of the library on the first floor, for example, were painted an ochre color with a feigned texture of a more expensive type of wood. 124 By the time she designed Avon, Pope bad substantially moved away from the tendency to cover or disguise, for she then instead searched for "bon est" architecture as a way to instill the virtue of honesty in her sons. Her strict disavowal of dressed stone or veneered wood was an attempt to move away from modernity and its predilection for visual effects; it was a rejection of anything that did not remain in its natural state.

If Pope bore a particular affinity for England, she had an equally strong distaste for France.

She avoided

the Beaux-Arts influence of the French, opting instead to employ a mediceval English style, heavily infused with Ruskinian theory.125 By strictly keeping within the Beaux-Arts, contemporary architect Sophia Hayden serves as a foil to Pope's character in her design of the Woman's Building at Chicago. (lUus. 26) The building was immediately labeled as "feminine," not simply because it was by and for women, but also because the Beaux-Arts architectural styles came to be seen as feminine in themselves. 126 One architect went so far as to say that Hayden's building had: . .. a certain quality of sentiment, which might be designated as ... graceful timidity or gentleness, combined however, with evident technical knowledge, which at once reveals the sex of its author."127

Suggesting culture, education, refinement, history, cleanliness, accuracy, respect, and tradition, these styles reinforced everything that nineteenth-century upper class women were supposed to represent. In light of Pope's determination to return to the natural, her rejection of the Beaux-Arts does not seem surprising.

It is possible

that Pope simply rejected these architectural styles due to ber explicit antipathy towards the French people.

In

1910 she wrote home from a disastrous trip to France, " I have been all afternoon trying to cool down my

emotions in regard to France and the French; their selfishness and avarice is appalling!"128

Although she does

123 John Ruskin, "Seven Lamps of Architecture," in Selected Prose ofIohn Ruskin, ed. M. Hodgart, (New York: Signet Pub., 1972), p. 65, quoted in Ford, p. 123.

124 House Tour, conducted by Hill-Stead Museum Staff (January 1995). However, the real wood had been found locally, thus already establishing Pope's penchant for the use of local materials.

125 Hewitt, The Architect, p. 31.

126 Madelaine Stern, We the Women (New York: Schulte Publishing Co., 1963), p. 75, quoted in Paine, "Pioneer Women Architects," p. 58.

127 Ibid.

128 Information in a letter to Alfred Pope and Ada Brooks Pope by Theodate Pope Riddle (Aug. 1910), Letter #821 , HillStead Museum Archives.

-38-

illustration 26:

1he Woman's Building at the World Exposition in Chicago, .

Sophia Hayden, 1893

not remark on the character of the English people, Pope clearly revered English architecture.

To her, it succinctly

embodied the ideals she saw as masculine: solidity, heaviness, sturdiness, and, above all, closeness with nature.

Although Pope was adamant in keeping the architecture unclad, she added several ornamental flourishes to complement the relative starkness of the materials and to invest the architecture with intellectual references.

She was an architect who reveled in detail, as can be gleaned from her extensive observations in

writing and sketches of what she saw in the Cotswolds. (lllus. 27) 129 On each successive trip to England Pope noticed and recorded an increasing number of architectural details and construction methods.

During

construction of Avon she drew upon these observations to guide her in her design: Hipped ends with little gablets occur often in many of the Surrey cottages and less often in Kent and Hampshire . . . Most of the chimneys in Sussex and on the borders of Kent rise out of the rod without any base except for the projecting course forming a kind of drip above the tiles. The width of these chimneys does not alter very much, the great majority being 1 foot 10 112 inches, that is 2 1/2 bricks, and occasionally 3 bricks wide. One of the charms of the Cotweold cottages is the high-pitched roof covered with stone slate, the larger ones hung at the eaves, the sizes getting gradually smaller towards the ridge ... 130 In speculating as to the building techniques and being so specific about construction details, Pope is perhaps trying to demonstrate that she is not only a knowledgeable and practical architect, but also a knowledgeable and worthy emulator of the previous architectural styles.

When building the Westover School ten years earlier,

Pope already exhibited her loving attention to detail, as a close friend and teacher at Westover was astute enough to comment: "Every peg in every closet, every latch of every door, every screw in its place sings Theodate."131 Pope's consistent attention to detail was manifest not only in personal responsibility for designing construction details, but also for designing ornament.

In fact, "[a]ll the imagery connected with the statuary,

and all the classical and Shakespearean quotations around the School, were chosen by Mrs. Riddle herself."132 Here Pope defied the advice of several theorists, such as Pugin, who in The Principles of Pointed or Christian

Architecture argued that ornament must arise from the function of the architecture itself. Ornament was not to

129 For example, when reminiscing about Christmas circa 1875 Pope was particularly sensitive to materiality, mentioning several wood types, seven colors, door weight. (Emeny, p. 4.)

130 Information in Construction Notes by Theodate Pope Riddle, Document #R 6871, 1920, p. 1, American Institute of Architects Archives. Biographer Judith Paine wrote that Pope had "always been concerned with the building process itself, and perhaps for that reason was drawn to the medieval half-timbering of English vernacular architecture in which the exterior surface reveals the structural framework." (Paine, "Avon Old Farms," p. 43) 131 Information in a letter to Theodate Pope Riddle from Lucy Pratt, (30 April 1909), Letter #98, Hill-Stead Museum Archives.

132 Ramsey, p. 13.

-39-

!.

:- - ... ...

.

'

-

•

-

;:i!~' . ~~.:~~~~, ".

... .! .

~~,<. ~i.s~~~d ..·"S~' . '

. .'

. .

,

. .. .

.

~

6.u-(~~J "

.

, ~ ' , :' :', ~

at\.4 . ' 4be~

,:·olo6l\..

b>\"~ " k~ :~ '. ' ,:\-. '

.

~;

:.:. .

",.:.i

b..u~h

.

"

,

:. "

: ~..·. .i:tCQ . .~ ,--..-::-','~-. -:..';;':::, ~:.-. ~'~:-~.-: -' ..~.. ~ 7 "'~ '~ ' .. .:........, .•

;.

+.

~

.•

. ' ~

•• ':

.~

.':

::-~:~/:~ . ...

, .'

.

..'

',' ...

."

.

~ ' ..~

, : "':'. . ft~ ~ "<:, .:.:. ~L~ /

,

.lJiJA"

.

''t

__ .__

. JL~\Y.t

f

:'··iH,;: ;~~m~~I~~~~~;~to~

f!

\.~ :

I'

~i ;

.

• ,

(

f: '

Sketches from Trips to the Cotswold Region, Theodate Pope Riddle

l

! ' \

illustration 27:

il l.

!

-~ (ot l'l'

:

:~ ;

;

:-CJf:

-----~

.

,

._

~t"o.. ~JSVt. oS

.~ ~ '

', ' ,' " .. . .

W

~\ , !

i

t~

..

..

I i

, ,.

'.

~

S~'b \)J'~ if

~

•

wc.Rlc~

, .. csu..Y.?

-

. ..

----_

-_.. -

.. ... _........ ' . . . . . ..

_

._._-------_ ._ ._ . . _-----

.

_ ._ .__ .. _--_ . . -

'c

'&TUL~ '~

.' ~~~

.

~~~~

.

~~4

t..u1 : ~ ' ~~~ -. ... _ .

I

.

: '-.ct:

: t<MQ~ ' -r ~L;Y

-路k~路路

'0i6

. ~ : ~, ~tQ.'-l~ '.

~

.

l---~~-~~~-------颅 l

~'r'

GCI.A.t

~ ~'-'~ (;,~ ~~~.,

- , -----~ ,- .-- .. ...

..

,

,.,.

'.

-.-_ .,

be arbitrary or whimsical. Pope's ornament, which includes such details as a statue of a winged beaver, a sundial above the door of the Dean's House, and written text are certainly her "whimsical signatures."133 (Illus. 28 )

In

general, Pope subscribed more to Ruskin 's theories of ornament, for he "dismissed the idea that ornament had a functional or symbolic relationship to structure."134 infused it with literal and symbolic meanings.

To compensate for ornament's lack of function, Pope

For instance, at Avon she placed representative gargoyles on each

of the four dormitories on Pope Quadrangle: on top of Pelican, the freshman dorm, a mother pelican holds two babies, representing maternal protection; on Eagle, the sophomore dorm, an eagle perches to represent bravery; on Elephant, the senior dorm, stands an elephant, representing memory and longevity; and on Diogenes, the junior dorm, Diogenes holds a lantern, to represent truth and honesty.135

It is interesting to note that, except perhaps

for the last gargoyle, these ornaments are all references to Nature and thus reinforce Pope's encouragement of a close relationship with Nature.

Part of Pope's agenda to return to Nature and to "naked," unclad architecture took the form of sexual imagery, as revealed in the configuration of the buildings.

Although Pope revised' and refined her plans for the

schools with great care over the course of several years, the basic structure of the plan Was conceived during one short epiphany and thus could be a direct expression of Pope's unconscious thinking. In June 1918, as expressed in her diary, Pope thought, thought, Why, I want to go to the Field House [at Hill-Stead)" and started off, sending word that the draftsman was to meet me there. I asked him to pin detail paper on the board, and taking a piece of charcoal in my hand, which I was never in the habit of using, I drew within a minute and a half the rough outline of all the buildings, including those now existing and those that are planned and are to be erected after my death. 136

What emerged from this rough sketch is a plan that reveals a phallic image.

Given Pope's interest in

psychology, it is possible that she herself was aware of connotations of the plan. 137 It seems more likely, however, that any such phallic imagery was only unconsciously included, for although she was a gender revolutionary in 133 Paine, "Avon Old Farms," p. 46. Pope personally invented the winged beaver, as a mascot that symbolized both perseverance (the beaver) and aspiration (wings) .

134 Ruskin, quoted in Ford, p. 11.

135 Gordon Clark Ramsey, "Guide to the Buildings of Avon Old Farms School 1984," in Ramsey, Aspiration , p. 170.

136 Emeny, p. 11.

137 Emen)" p. 8. In addition to architecture, Pope was heavily involved in psychic research, even proposing to endow a Chair in Psychic Phenomenon at Harvard University. In fact, Pope was en route to a psychic conference when she experienced the Lusitania disaster in 1915. [Ibid.)

-40-

,

1

illustration 28:

Avon Old Farms School- Sundial and &:ript Above the Entrance to the Dean's House

. illustration 29:

Maison de Plaisir, Claude Nicholas Ledoux, 1802

revolutionary in many ways, she was also fiercely traditional and refined.

Since Pope was consistently trying to

instill and mature the virile virtues in the boys through her architecture, it does not seem inconceivable that this would be transferred into her configurational plan in such a graphic, albeit unconscious, way.

A striking contrast can be made with the very conscious and perhaps satiric imagery that the architect Claude Nicholas Ledoux employed when designing his "Maison de Plaisir," the House of Pleasure, in 1802.

(Illus. 29)

Within a circular two-story colonnade sits a blatantly phallic building, which houses numerous

bedrooms.

What is analogous to Avon in this context is that both plans reveal the sexual aspect of their design

only in plan. 138

As plans are read predominantly by architects and not by the actual inhabitant, this imagery is

often latent and understood only by the architect.

In other words, as one casually walks around the Avon

campus, one does not read this elusive component of Pope's design.

The configuration of Avon is much less

cohesive than Ledoux's brothel, and thus better masks the phallic nature of the plan.

The students might never

consciously recognize the sexual connotations of the organization. One might, however, indeed sense what the overall plan is in Ledoux's plan, since the progressive movement between the different parts of the building is so deliberate and controlled that one might begin to question it. As architectural historian Harbison has suggested, "The symbolism would be more satisfactory to the male participants; . .. The woman on the other hand might feel more a pawn than ever, subjected to this architectural stylization of male anatomy."139 Whether one agrees with this interpretation of Pope's design or not, it is clear that both Ledoux and Pope were building for the male experience, trying on still another level to inspire virility through architecture.

138 Robert Harbison, The Built. the Unbuilt. and the UnbuUdable: In Pursuit of Architectural Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), p. 9l.

139

Ibid., p. 92.

-41-

Meanin~

(Cambridge,

III.

RESPECT

FOR CRAFTSMANSHIP

Attempting to remove what he saw as the artificial distinction between the fine and applied arts, Ruskin "recalled his contemporaries to the charms of solid, careful craftsmanship, as opposed to the spurious materials, senseless forms and crude, cheap execution of Victorian products."140

Pope wholeheartedly concurred and

consequently utilized the architecture at Avon as an opportunity to re-instill a respect for hand craftsmanship in the boys.

In addition to being exposed to good craftsmanship executed by expert hands, the boys were also

supposed to develop their own craft skills as part of their development into virile men.

This was aimed not only

to develop manual dexterity and a disciplined work ethic in the boys themselves, but also to teach a regard for the lower classes.

Craftsmen were traditionally male and thus offered themselves, in Pope's eyes, as excellent

masculine role models to the boys.

However, it is important to note that there are few simple dichotomies in

Pope's theories, despite her overt support of traditional gender roles.

Although Pope wished to teach

craftsmanship to the boys as a way to enhance their virility, tactility had traditionally been associated with women, while sight had been associated with men.

The issue of class further complicates the issue of gender and

tactility: the lower classes, not the wealthy elite, were traditionally associated with tactility.

According to this

logic, a working class woman would be the ideal role model for these boys, then; clearly, Pope did not intend this, for she held up the craftsman, a working class man, as the ideal.

An Appreciation of Tactility

Touch was so central to Pope's theories about craftsmanship that she even includes this architectural theme in the school's Deed under the section about practical work for the boys, quoting II Corinthians: ... while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but things which are not seen are eternal. 141

140 Arnold Hauser, The Social Hist0a' of Art (1952), quoted in George P. Landow, "Ruskin," in Victorian Thinkers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 113.

141 I2wl in Ramsey, Aspiration, p. 229.

-42-

If vision cannot assure permanence, perhaps tactility can. In contrast to her agreement with Ruskin in matters of ornament or craftsmanship, Pope's emphasis on tactility is a rejection of the Ruskinian school of thought, which taught that "all truth is comprehended visually."142

Pope built for the hand to pass over the uneven

surfaces of the stone, to feel the depths of the ornamental carvings, and to feel the warmth of the wood and the coldness of the stone. (Illus.30) In 1944, in fact, Pope offered Avon Old Farms to President Franklin Roosevelt, whom she personally knew, for use as a cODvalescent home for soldiers blinded in World War 11.143

Pope's

emphasis on tactility consequently had a very practical use, for the "hand-hewn oak beams, scored oak panels and bulbous balustrade railings served with hand-forged latches and lanterns to guide their [the blind soldiers'] way."144 One of the most significant consequences of using 16th century building techniques is that the hard work and struggle of the craftsman is physically manifest in the product.

The students could thus actually

witness evidence of the hard work that had been invested in the construction of their school.

In the Arts and

Crafts Movement, "imperfect craftsmanship came to be valued," for it patently rejected the Industrial Revolution's move towards mass production.145 Later, Edward Lutyens in England was also critical of modern architecture and technology for its lack of craftsmanship and tactility. In a 1931 article entitled What I Think of

Modern Architecture, dated 1931, he wrote, I regret the passing, be it temporary or permanent, of humanism and the personal note; the eclipse by impersonal machines of bricklayer, mason, and joiner as the makers of buildings . ..

Traditional ways of handling materials are the basis of style in architecture. 146 .

What the imperfection essentially does is effect a "suspension of disbelief," i.e. the vestigial mark of the artist forces the viewer to acknowledge the process of construction. Such a mark could take the form of roughly hewn timber beam, a capricious ornament carved into the stone, or a sagging eave, all of which confront the viewer with not only the method of construction, but also the time and effort of manual craftsmanship. It is like a signature of the anonymous craftsman, who represents only his tradition and not himself. This is a curious mixture, then, of individuality and collective humanity: the individuality of the craftsman is transferred into the 142 143 144 145 146

Landow, p. 127.

"Dream School," p. 82.

Sommer, p. 80.

Ford, p. 7.

Edward Lutyens, "What I Think of Modem Architecture," (1931), p. 776, quoted in Ford, p. 99.

-43-

lliustration 30:

Avon Old Farms 5chool- Detail of Stonework

architecture, which becomes unique and inconsistent, while the human maker becomes part of an architectural style, part of faceless history.

Pope's sincere admiration of craftsmanship is visible in the ubiquity of the woodworking, found scattered throughout all the original buildings at Avon.

Several of Pope's ;irchitectural contemporaries shared

with her this attention to wood det~iling. Bernard Maybeck, for example, also "drew inspiration from the construction of medireval

craftsmen~

and allowed the timbering to remain exposed so that the construction

method would be discernible. 147 (Illus. 31)

Evidence of Pope's interest in English medireval woodworking is

offered by her collection of architectural postcards, many of which show details of half-timbering or vaulting.

(Illus. 32) Additionally, Pope's extensive notes taken '\.\'hile touring Cheshire, Shropshire, and Herefordshire reveal her attentive interest in wood construction: Stout oak sills are laid horizontally upon a low wall of stone or brick, and into these are tenoned upright posts, the larger ones being placed at the external angles. 148

The importance of woodwork is further underscored by the fact that Pope intended for the planned Chapel to be ,

called the "Chapel ofJesus the Carpenter."149 Although the Chapel v.路as never constructed, the original craft shop is today used as the school's Chapel, an adaptation of which Pope would certainly ha\'e approved. (Illus. 33) Pope there seemed to exist a strong connection between woodworking and spirituality.

To

Hence, despite the lack of

a strong religious affiliation of the school, Pope offered craftsmanship as a cathartic and purifying substitute for religion in developing character in the school's boys.

Despite her efforts to instill the virtues of respect and honesty through her support of craftsmanship, Pope ironically was forced to employ several inauthentic methods of construction to achieve the appearance of "authenticity". For instance, she dictated that young, pliable saplings were to be used as supports under the

147 Cardwell, p. 86.

Additionally, Viollet-le-Duc, one of the most influential Gothic Revivalist theorists, had also strongly argued in favor of leaving timber exposed, in an effort to avoid the vices of inefficiency, deception, and monolithiclooking construction. [Ford, p. 19.]

148 During the construction of Avon, Pope also recorded in her Construction Notes, "Care is being taken to see that where the upright sticks occur they are set with their root ends in the air. This is being done because upon research it was found that the old half timber invariably were built this way to help preserve the timber from decay." [Information in Construction Notes by Theodate Pope Riddle, 1923 unpublished, Document #R 4155, p. 2, American Institute of Architects Archives. 1 149 Ramsey, "Guide: p. 170.

-44-

illustration 31:

Living Room of the Erlanger House, San Francisco, Bernard Maybeck, 1912.

lustration 32: Postcard Depicting Woodworking at Abingdon Abbey, England and the Barn Interior of Great Coxwell, Collection of Theodate Pope Riddle

IDustration 33:

Avon Old Fanns School - Interior of the Carpentry Shop, n w the Chap'

heavy slate tiles above, to ensure that the roofs would sag unevenly, as if shaped by the weight of time. ISO Moreover, although she insisted in her construction notes of 1923 that "all the timber in this building is of oak

cut on the property,"lsl Pope allowed a limited amount of beautiful and refined wood from Louisiana to be used for the interior woodwork. 1s2

Many contemporary architects were employing the same tricks of artifice to

achieve certain architectural special effects. Richard Norman Shaw, for example, committed similar constructional indiscretions, for he specified, according to one critic, that "the space between the timbers be varied slightly in width, and that the width of the boards be varied also. Shaw was obviously trying to achieve the imprecise look of a vernacular half-timbered house."ls3 Ironically, what both Pope and Shaw were trying to achieve is the look of an architecture not designed by architects. Both might well have agreed with Rudofsky, who advised, There is much to learn from architecture before it became an expert's art. The untutored builders in space and time .. . demonstrate an admirable talent for fitting their buildings into the natural surroundings. 154

Architecture was to appear as if it had evolved slowly, had been hewn of ageless materials, and had been designed and built by the same hands that had been building similar structures for centuries.

It is important to note that

neither architect strictly copied their models. Perhaps they understood that it would be a futile and naIve effort, for they could never actually design exactly like the original Cotswold builders, who, as contemporary architectural historian Dawber wrote, "seem to have understood intuitively the exact relation of voids and solids, of heights and widths, and in a quiet and unpretentious way their houses are almost perfect specimens of village craftsmanship and building." 155

Further evidence of Pope's appreciation of original craftsmanship is offered by her insistence on the use of authentic tools. Based on research that she had done during her travels in England and studies of books about medireval building methods, Pope commissioned the production of special tools modelled on the sixteenth 150 151

National Park Service, p. 17.

Construction Notes Document #4155, p. 2.

152 "Aspirando," p. 17.

153 Ford,p. 7.

154 Bernard Rudofsk"}'. Architecture Without Architects' A Short Introduction to NQn-Pedi~reed Architecture (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1964), p. 4.

155 Dawber, p. 8.

-45-

century originals for all of the school's woodwork and stonework. IS6 (lllus. 34) used for the heavy wooden beams and roof vaulting. IS7

For instance, a broad axe was

Stonework, too, was deliberately chiseled and roughened

by tools not indigenous to Connecticut: The stone for the Avon buildings was taken out of our own quarry; the unevenness was removed with a point, and the surface was then finished with a peen hammer, such as they use in Worcestershire, England. 158

The resulting unevenness would enhance the tactile nature of the school's architecture and thus reinforce the ideal of craftsmanship.

Pope not only insisted on using these "originals," but also strictly insisted on

deliberately not using modem tools as a supplement to the authentic tools.

As Brooks Emeny, her distant

cousin and biographer, has recalled, Pope discovered during the construction of the Water Tower that: one of the workmen using a plumb line and leveL She was infuriated, called the superintendent, and told him that thenceforth in the construction of the buildings no plumb line or level were ever to appear on the property again.159

The decision to use time-honored tools and building techniques had several design implications.

Leaving the materials exposed, as discussed above, for the purpose of appreciating the work of the human hand was one such result. Another consequence was that almost all of Pope's buildings at Avon are just one room thick, a Cotswold convention that had evolved because the builders there were able to span only fairly short spaces, such as one room. 160

Avon's architecture was thus very much informed by the "limitations" of the old

ways of doing things. In this way, Pope's attitude once again directlx contrasts with

~at

of Bernard Maybeck,

who embraced the technological progress of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: "Exploitation of structural order, application of visual phenomena, and respect for new materials and industrial processes, as well as a firm belief in the expressive qualities of form were the bases of his work."161

Pope rejected these forms of progress, and

chose to rely on the past, and its media and tools, for design cues.

156 157 158

"Dream School," p. 82.

Emeny, p. 12.

Pope 1937 Memoirs, p. 3.

159 Emeny, p. 13. In her own words, "I insisted that the stone and brick masons build without their plumbs or levels.

By doing this, I could work more quickly and give freedom the stone pattern." [Pope 1937 Memoirs, p. 2.]

160 Dawber, p. 12.

161 Cardwell, p. 83.

-46-

illustration 34:

Tools Copied from 16th-Century Originals for the Construction of Avon Old Farms School

, -,

r-:--I.

1.

II. III. IV .

V. and VIII. VI.

VII.

BOX SCRAPER for finishing wood BROAD AXE for hewing wood PEEN HAMMER for shaping and finishing stone blocks STEEL BR USH for roughing up wood STAPLE and WEDGES used in laying floors METAL FLATTENER - used for iron work, hinge s, etc.

FILE for scratching wood and marking lines

Eager to offer the boys the opportunity to develop their own skills, Pope included classes in craft instruction in Avon's curriculum and designed a craft shop for the campus.

In 1921, just as she was

formulating her educational plan, Pope plainly stated in an interview,

It would be part of my scheme of physical education that every youth in the state should I earn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hand, so as to let him know that touch meant; and what stout craftsmanship meant . . . 162 (emphasis adde~)

Therefore, just as she would struggle to achieve "authenticity" in her architectural style and building techniques, so too would she try to offer "authentic" experiences to the boys.

While Pope was indeed revolutionary in her

combination of these educational ideals with her architecture, her intent to teach tactile skills to the boys was not unprecedented in American schools.

During the late nineteenth-century, " 'manual training' classes began to

appear. Boys took metal or woodworking classes and girls, 'home arts'."163 Pope therefore grew up in an era when tasks such as these were still very much divided along gender lines.

Interestingly, Pope herself realized

that an interest in crafts or physical work did not in reality follow gender lines so neatly. She was, after all, personally intrigued by craft, farming, and cars - the same interests which she tried to encourage in the male students at her school. 164 The subject of automobiles and boys arose in one particular interview in which she insisted on "authenticity": There will be no pasteboard automobile models in our workshop. If a boy wants to learn about his automobile there will be a repair shop where the instruction he receives will be practically applied.1 65

She also wrote that only "boys of a mechanical turn of mind" should use the machine shop, electrical laboratory, and smithy, carpenter shop and mechanical drafting room, indicating that Pope understood that not all boys would be interested in the traditionally male hobbies and that gender is not a monolithic social construction. 166 Nevertheless, Pope continued to reinforce a gendered approach to crafts through Avon's curriculum. states: The instructors shall demand excellent craftsmanship. .. The precision of mechanics will

162 163 164

165 166

"Avon School Strikes Notes," p. 3, col. 1.

Graves. p. 25.

Betty Price Goodrich. Theodate PQpe Riddle. p. 10. transcript in Westover School Archives.

"New School to Revive Colonial Spirit," p. 9., col. 1.

Promotional Brochure. unpaginated, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

-47-

The Deed

develop the brain processes; and a sense of honour will be developed through precision. 167 It is clear that Pope intended to use craftsmanship as an educational tool, as well as an architectural medium

through which she could express her support for the individualism of the common craftsman.

An Appreciation of Individualism After utilizing issues of tactility to promote a respect for architectural craftsmanship, Pope in turn employed craftsmanship to inspire a respect for individualism and irregularity. As a result of hand craftsmanship, for example, no two rooms in the school are identical or exactly consistent. 168

Pope appreciated

the inconsistency, because it seemed to emphasize the singularities of both the students and her architecture.

Her intentions regarding individualism were twofold: first, she sought to instill respect for the individuality of the craftsman, and secondly, she hoped to develop a sense of individuality in the boys themselves.

Ideally, the

former would induce the latter. An early review of Avon's educational ideals maintains: Avon holds steadily to the cultural traditions of old, but it regards boys as separate and distinct individuals. 169

To preclude homogeneity among the students, then, Pope insisted on small classes and personal interaction between faculty and students.

Valuing community above the individual, however, she was willing to let the

needs of the former dominate the rights of the latter. Book II of the Policies of Avon states that Modem methods of education are over-emphasizing the right of self-expression, thereby ignoring an essential part of the individual's life, his function as a member of society. 170

A potentially fatal flaw in Pope's theory of individualism is that while Pope was professing to nurture individualism, she continued to generalize along gender lines, for her ideas of how boys should develop were significantly different from her view on girls.

It is helpful to remember that Pope was herself strongly individualistic.

In Pope's own words, she

explains that "the solitariness of my childhood days developed in me an independence of thought which has

167 ~ in Ramsey, p. 235.

Likewise, an early copy of the Avon School Brochure claims, "craft-work is an important part of the younger boy's daily occupation, as educators are now fully aware of the importance of handwork in the development of the brain."[Promotional Brochure, unpaginated, Avon Old Farms School Archives.]

168 Emeny, p. 14. .

169 Smith, p. DS. 170 Theodate Pope Riddle, "Policies," Book II, unpublished, p. 1, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

-48-

made it possible for me to make independent judgments."171

Throughout her life, she displayed an

independence of thought and resolve: after her Grand Tour she was willing to leave Cleveland and her parents to live alone in Farmington; she maintained her own architectural practice without every joining in collaboration with another firm; she maintained her own apartment in New York City;l72 she did not marry until she was 48 years old; and, most significantly, she remained committed to her decision to become an architect at a time that was a highly unusual career choice for women.

Sophia Hayden did not share Pope's stamina and thus was not

able to endure the physical tolls of extreme stress and discouragement. After undergoing the stresses of discrimination and road blocking of her successful design of the Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition, Hayden suffered a severe nervous breakdown that almost prevented the construction of her building. 173

In striking contrast, Pope was strong enough to survive the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915.

The combination of Pope's physical and personal vigor undoubtedly relate to her enthusiasm for individualism as a way to develop strength in the boys at Avon.

Although it was on the wane by this time, the Arts and Crafts Movement was still extremely influential for Pope and several of her contemporaries, such as Julia Morgan, who adopted the Movement's respect for craftsmanship and human-made, individualized details.

As intellectual children of the Movement, these

architects appreciated what can be distilled as the four main tenets of the Movement: the importance of respect for traditional crafts, an "honest" relationship of design with the materials, a close relationship of buildings to their site to ensure individuality of design, and a reverence for vernacular styles of architecture and their building techniques. 174 The socialist ideals Arts and Crafts Movement also particularly resonate in Pope's architecture, which relies so heavily on the romanticized craftsman and work executed by hand. Pope was not entirely original in her nostalgia for pre-industrial life, for as Ford bas noted: [ljike Ruskin in his ideas for reviving cottage industries, many reformers looked to the idealized example of pre-industrial agricultural society, when craft production had been centered on the family unit. . . (my italics) 175

171 172 173 174 175

Pope 1937 Memoirs, p. 21, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

Ramsey, p. 3.

Paine in Torre, p. 60.

Ford, p. 125.

Anthea Callen, Women Artists of the Arts and Crafts Movement 1870 - 1914 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979),

p. 4.

-49-

In fact, several members of the Arts and Crafts Movement went so far as to actually move to the Cotswold District, to villages such as a Sapperton, in attempt to retreat authentically into a pre-industrial life. 176 However, as Harbison concluded, due to Arts and Crafts architects' zealous pursuit of original building techniques, they actually marred the "pure" Eden that they were seeking when they trained the rural Cotswold inhabitants in techniques that had long ago disappeared from the region. In Thus, the search for authenticity harbored the potential to deform the original model. In a similar vein, Pope's relationship to the hand laborers was likewise skewed by her avid intent to return to the past.

One of the most egregious of Pope's inconsistencies is between her professed and actual attitudes towards craftsmen. One of her grandmothers reportedly had instilled in her an appreciation for the working class by often advising, "Acquaint yourselves in youth with homely tasks, that you may be one in spirit with those who labour."178

As it was linked to her ideal of individualism, Pope theoretically hoped to restore the individuality

to the craftsman. The Deed of Avon, for instance, optimistically challenges: Skilled workmen will demand and should receive an improved status for themselves and their families in the future framework of society. 179

As a result of her public statements and employment of the six English craftsmen, Pope gained a reputation during her life of being closely allied with hand-laborers. A letter of 1927 from A. 1. Kocher, a professor of architecture at the University of Virginia, commended: .. .the architectural work you produce is closely associated with the art of the craftsman.

I know of no other firm in which this observation would be so clearly justified, The iron worker, the plasterer, the wood hewer and the mason all appear to supplement the dominating conception of the architect. .. What you are doing is exactly what the American Institute of Architects took such pains to impress upon the Profession as desirable. 180

176

Harbison, p. 93.

177 Ibid.

One is reminded here of the first chapter ofJames Joyce's Ulysses, in which the vacationing English characters speak the Gaelic tongue more proficiently than the local Irish maid that they have employed.

178 "A New Departure in Education," Vanity Fajr, April 1926, p. 96.

179 ~in Ramsey, Aspjration, p. 233.

180 Information in a letter to Theodate Pope Riddle from A. Lawrence Kocher, ( 9 June 1927), p. 1. Avon Old Farms School Archives. It is amusing to note that this letter was addressed to Mr. Theodate Pope, Architect and the opening read "Dear Sir."

-50-

Yet, Pope did not simply transfer her theories about respecting craftsmanship into practice, but instead allowed issues of pride and economy to somewhat dilute her appreciation of the craftsmen that she employed at Avon.

Once again, the issue of class complicates an understanding of her views on gender, for it is highly significant that she was a wealthy woman superintending and directing over 500 male laborers.1 81 As architect, educational administrator and philanthropist, Pope was in complete control at Avon, and as much as she may have respected the skills of the craftsmen, she still dictated the design, methods of its execution, and materials.

The dominance

of the architect over the craftsmen had steadily asserted itself in the nineteenth century, as architect Edward Ford has noted: In 1850 there were plenty [of craftsmen], but Ruskin and others lamented that they were linle better than slaves, since all they did was mechanically execute forms designed by others. The death of craftsmanship on the level of art and on the level of skill has been ascribed to the Industrial Revolution, but it was not a simple case of machines replacing men. In any case, nine-teenth century architects exercised more and more control over the craft of building. 182

While Pope cannot be criticized for being insistent on the exact execution of her architectural vision, her rhetoric about craftsmanship and its importance in developing virility in young boys must then ring a little false, for Pope's respect for individual craftsmen was not enough to compel her to allow them to direct even their own art.

In her words, Had I union men, as they must have had at the Harkness Buildings in New Haven, I could not have obtained the surface on the stone which we have at Avon. I have been told that they would have insisted upon the stone being brought to a smooth surface before it was tooled. In the Harkness Buildings, if I remember correctly, there are four different methods of surfacing - - one split, one sawn and two methods oftooling. 183 .

Despite her use of non-union workers, Pope's own Socialist streak had led her to find the idea of guilds very appealing theoretically, for the collaborative ideals of the Middle Ages spoke to her sense of nobility of the handlaborer.184 Additionally, despite the fact that Pope claims to have insisted on authentic building techniques as a way to restore prestige to the status and work of the labourer, financial concerns also played a part in inducing Pope to employ craftsmen: it was quickly discovered that handwork done on the premises was cheaper than importing it. The lanterns, for example, were made of20 gauge sheet metal for $10 apiece on the site, whereas by

181 182 183 184

Emeny, p. 13.

Ford,p. 7.

Pope 1937 Memoir, p. 3, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

Boutelle, p. 8.

-51-

report they would have cost $50 if made elsewhere. 18s

This is not to say that finances entirely dictated Pope's

architectural work. Rather, they merely helped to support her decisions, giving them viability and credence.

While building the estate at San Simeon (1922-26) for William Randoph Hearst during exactly the same years, Julia Morgan "presided over a kind of brotherhood of highly qualified artisans."186 Like Pope, she had a high regard for craftsmanship, but differed from Pope in her actual relationship to the workers, for Morgan adopted a much less authoritative style of supervision than Pope. This can be seen through the metaphor of the clothes which they wore when supervising their respective sites.

One architectural journal had

claimed, The work of superintending would probably be found too laborious and inconvenient, and would .. . involve a change in fashion . . and the preparation of working drawings would be almost equally awkward.187

Neither Pope nor Morgan agreed that the work was too "laborious" or "inconvenient" to them as architects, but differed in their approach and appearance. As a perceived obstacle to the architectural supervision of the site by women, their characteristic styles of dressing reveal the way in which each of these women wished to be perceived.

Pope, who was daily at the site for anywhere between two and eight hours, was "clothed in a costume she designed herself and wore on her daily inspection tour of the buildings under construction."188 (Illus. 35)

Her "costume,"

while not overtly masculine, and her signature turban served to disguise her feminine body while in at the construction site, a distinctly masculine environment.

In contrast, Morgan, while she "clambered over scaffolds

and descended into trenches to make sure that the wall and drains met her high standards," still wore distinctive tailored suits and French silk blouses. 189 It can be inferred that while Morgan sought to retain her "femininity," narrowly defined by prevailing attitudes to the skirt-suits and fine materials (which Pope likewise appreciated), Pope once again sought to transcend and obscure the issue of her gender. 190

185 Similarly, woodwork was also cheaper when done on the premises. (Brooks Emeny, "Mrs. Riddle and her Construction Methods," in Ramsey, Aspiration. p. 126.)

186 Boutelle, p. 12.

187 The American Architect & Buildine News 28, 26 November 1882, p. 134, quoted in Paine in Torre, p. 60.

188 Emeny, p. 20.

189 Boutelle, p. 7.

190 Ramsey, p. 133.

-52-

illustration 35:

Theodate Pope Riddle, Dressed for Supervision, circa 1925

IV. PERMANENCE AND HISTORICAL CONTINUITY

A Struggle for Indestructibility Crucial to understanding Pope is an appreciation of her "passionate love of permanence".

A letter

written in 1910 to her parents asserts: The pathos of growing up is that we know that nothing lasts. And how strange that that passionate love of pennanence in planted in every heart.1 91

Her fear of a fleeting existence, in which one makes and leaves no permanent personal mark on the world, was powerful. She sought to build an indestructible kind of architecture that would outlive herself and defy the limits of mortality. In this respect she was again Ruskinian, for one biographer of Ruskin has written, "Since Ruskin believed both that architecture is an inheritance one generation passes on to another and also that it is the embodiment of the society that built it, he tried to convince his readers to build solidly for future generations."192 Architecture, to Ruskin, was an heirloom and was to be built with the idea of permanence and transcendence of time in mind.

Evidence of Pope's belief that architecture possessed the potential for this transcendence is offered

by a sundial in the garden at Hill-Stead which reads, in Old English letters no less: ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS. One can infer from this juxtaposition that Pope saw a cause-and-effect relationship between life and art: precisely because life is so short, art (or architecture) must endure.

The issue of gender enters in that Pope wanted to build an architecture that could withstand not only erosion by Time, but by boys as well. As she anticipated that "boys will be boys" and in all likelihood abuse the buildings, she sensibly designed the architecture of the school to be both durable and practical. In an interview given before the final construction of Avon was complete, Pope laughed when praised for the plan and said in one of her most revealing statements, Beauty of material and authentic design, but imagine the boys trooping in with muddy boots from the fann and you will see the reason for stone floors and excellently strong and

191 Infonnation in a letter to Alfred Pope and Ada Brooks Pope by Theodate Pope Riddle, (25 December 1910) Letter #730, Hill-Stead Museum Archives.

In her memoirs, she went on to say that "[tlhere seems to be a universal, underlying passion for permanence in the human race which seems to have been thwarted throughout the ages." [Infonnation in Memoirs of Theodate Pope Riddle, (5 January 1939), p. 1, Avon Old Farms School Archives.)

192 Landow, p. 118.

-53-

simple furniture. 193

Stone, old as the earth itself and as difficult to destroy as any material known to builders, served literally as a bulwark against the fear of impermanence.

Using her recollections of English building to guide her design,

Pope invested considerable effort in her treatment and use .of stone at Avon. 194 The undressed stone of Avon is site-specific; it contrasts directly with the "smooth, unadorned surfaces" of the Westover School and with the "lemon-colored brick" of the Hotchkiss School.1 95 The stone is also allowed to be heavy and wide at Avon, for most exterior walls are about two feet thick, which lets in very little light into the deeply recessed classrooms and dorm rooms. 196 In this way, the interior becomes almost womb-like and very protective. The heavy walls confidently assert their presence. 197 Avon's walls still aspire not only to protect their inhabitants not only from the Elements, but also to promise permanence and timelessness to the mortals within.

Pope's choice of stone as

the predominant building material at Avon was not only practical, in that stone can withstand what Pope saw as boyish behavior, but also psychological, in that it attempts to calm fears about vulnerability and mortality by providing visibly indestructible shelter to the boys.

A Struggle for Historical Continuity Pope struggled to reconcile her desire to achieve indestructible architecture with her penchant for designing eclectically historical, dated architecture. The former could be achieved through the use of local materials and vernacular architecture, both of which come from the site and thus appear ageless.

Achieving the

latter, i. e. the sense of continuity with, and indebtedness to, architectural history, was possible by using architectural language specific to styles that referred to particular cultures or eras. Pope never resolved the

193 "Where Boys May be Boys," p. 11. This quote was previously given on page 1.

194 In her construction notes of Avon, for example, she noted that "the walling is full ofvariety in Derbyshire; the large size of the stone - dressed quoins is characteristic, and measures as much as 2 ft. long, 12 inches deep, and 5 inches in the bed."

[Construction Notes, 1920, p. 1, American Institute of Architects Archives.} 195 National Park Service, p. 9; Birmingham, p. 73.

196 Ramsey, "Guide," p. 170.

197 As architectural historian Edward N. Kaufman has noted, "the attempt to represent the masonry waIl marks the limiting conditions of Victorian architecture," for it can't help but fail to represent its own material. [Edward N. Kaufman, "Architectural Representation in Victorian England," Tournai of the Society of Architectural Historjans XLVI: 30-38, (March 1987),36.

Moreover, Pope was not alone in her appreciation of heavy wails, for the "sculptural strength of the masonry [at Avon Old Farms) may recall H. H. Richardson's libraries." [Paine, "Avon Old Farms," p. 46.} Julia Morgan, too, seemed to revel in the physicality and indestructibility of stone walls: "[a}t a time when many architects were trying to dissolve the wall, Morgan enhanced it, glorifying the waIl's importance. . ." [Boutelle, p. IS.}

-54-

apparent conflict, but nonetheless attempted to use both to develop virility in the boys: a sense of timelessness would instill a responsibility to the preservation of a heritage, and a sense of history would establish in the boys a knowledge of their place in the continuum of human existence. Ideally, the boys would develop a relationship to tradition and history that was integral to the conception of virility.

Pope's choice of materials reveals a consistent se~rch for a way to imply timelessness.

One biographer

has written, "She wanted her work to be sanctioned by tradition, by the illusion of age, and by the evocation of beliefs hallowed by time."198 As a result, Pope was an ardent believer in the use oflocal materials.

Rather than

importing them from elsewhere, building with materials native to site was largely the result of economy, just as had been the case with original craftsmanship: it was more efficient in terms of cost of transportation and labor than "importing materials.

More significantly, however, using local materials seemed to legitimize the design

and construction, for it suggested that the buildings had emerged from the indigenous earth and thus belonged to that particular site. The hand of the individual architect becomes erased, leaving only the hand of the craftsman. 199 Pope hoped that the architecture would seem organic, sprouted from the earth, and timeless.

Originally, Pope planned to construct Avon in red brick, the material she had used at a public elementary school, the Hop Brook School in Naugatuck in 1916. In fact, the first buildings, such as the round Water Tower and the Carpentry Shop (now the Chapel), that one encounters on the site are built ofbrick. 2oo When she continued on to the construction of the dormitories, however, Pope unexpectedly discovered that there was a natural stone quarry within the boundaries of her land. Although the stone for the slate roofs continued to be imported from Middle Graneville, New York (still relatively nearby), Pope insisted that all the remaining buildings be constructed solely with the local sandstone.201

She recalled,

When the first delivery of brick was made in the spring of 1923 for the Water Tower, I was greatly disturbed by their color ... There is a great patch of brick - an island of brick - in the supporting walls on the valley side of a Quadrangle building. This is due to the fact that I intended to do the buildings of brick until we discovered it would be cheaper to haul the

198

National Park Service, p. 7.

199 Curiously, this is in conflict with Pope's relationship to the anonymous, noble craftsman, for here the individuality of the craftsman is asserted while the individuality of the architect is deliberately downplayed.

200 These buildings do not appear on any copies of Pope's original plans, which include the two quadrangles and the Village Green.

201 Emeny, p. 16. Pope also used the crushed iocal stone in her construction of the school's roads, consciously emulating Roman road construction, which employs a layering of differently-sized pebbles and crushed stones. In this detail she engages both Time and Timelessness, for the reference to Classical building techniques draws a connection to Time and history, while the local stone refers to Timelessness and evolution. [Ramsey, "Guide," p. 176.J

-55-

stone from our own quarry, so the details were changed and we went immediately into stone.202

Although Pope cites cost-efficiency as the reason for the shift from brick to stone, the latter better served her aesthetic goals and educational ideals. Not only did it appear more indestructible and monolithic, it also was indigenous and thus bore a claim to "timelessness." Pope was actually coming closer to authenticity of the Cotswold architectural style through her use of locally quarried stone, for in the Cotswold district, "[nJearly every village at one time had its local quarry," just as it was also traditional for New England vernacular schools to be constructed of locally quarried stone. 203 Hence, her use of local materials thus aided her attempt of achieving authenticity of vernacular styles of architecture.

In terms of architectural style, using local materials also provided Pope with a claim to legitimacy.

She

was heavily influenced by Dawber, who wrote in 1905, New buildings should be designed in as modem a spirit as we wish, but using materials at hand. The very fact that in so doing we shall be more or less governed by the same conditions and limitations as these old builders [the vernacular builders] will give our work to-day a continuity in design and feeling. 204

It is crucial to note Pope's intention to establish a continuity with the past in order to achieve a greater level of legitimacy and purpose of design. Continuity would suggest that the later, referential architecture was not arbitrary or site-unspecified, like much Modem Architecture, but instead belonged to a long heritage of architectural lineage. Vernacular architecture has at least the illusion of the ability to transcend time and especially history, for it does not refer to a specific era.

As John Brinckerhoff Jackson has written, the vernacular

inherently "suggests something countrified, homemade, original... designed by a craftsman, not an architect . . little influenced by history ... That is why the word timeless is much used in descriptions of vernacular building. "205

202 Theodate Pope Riddle, Diary entry recording conversation of Pope with Harry Lee, undated, p. 1, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

203 Dawber, p. 3; Gulliford, p. 166.

204 Dawber, p. 72. . Furthermore, Dawber linked the end of the use of local materials to the death of traditional building methods: "In these cosmopolitan days the use of railways and cheap means of transit have almost obliterated the older crafts, and the advent of bricks and mortar, corrugated iron and foreign timber, is very rapidly driving the local materials and methods out of use." [Ibid., p. 7] 205 John BrinckerhoffJackson, Djscoverin& the Vernacular Landscape (1984), quoted in Gulliford, p. 164.

-56-

Instead of simply copying the vernacular, however, Pope manipulated its elements to produce an innovative design.

Having already exercised her skills at Hill-Stead and Westover, Pope was familiar with the

methods of adaptation of architectural precedent. Many of her contemporaries, such as Bernard Maybeck, McKim, Mead, & White, Julia Morgan, and Richard Morris Hunt, were likewise inspired by architectural history, but one can question why Pope didn't extend the unconventionality of her personal life to her architecture. (Illus.

36) She was contemporary, after all, to Eileen Gray, the Bauhaus, and Le Corbusier, although they were a generation younger, but chose to re-invent the past instead of forging ahead into never-before seen architecture.

Nevertheless, Pope was not blindly reverent of the original, for she was not trying to imitate the Cotswold model verbatim; instead, she wanted to emulate its best qualities, but adapt it in such a way as to add her own signature. 206 In an early example of her determination to invent and re-invent, Pope had once scribbled next to an early sketch depicting a young girl holding a bouquet of flowers, "copy =no credit." (lllus. 37)

Despite her

nostalgia, Pope realized early in her life that she would have to be creative and progressive to make her mark on society. Anything less would be mere imitation and following, not earning her any credit for her work.

Just as Hill-Stead, in Robert Stem's words, is no "slavish copy" of its Colonial precedents, Avon is not an emulation of the Cotswold style. For instance, one contemporary magazine observed, Cleverly worked into this seventeenth century simplicity. . . are innumerable reminders of the century in which we live. Oak gratings along the walls conceal the most modern radiators; hand-made windowpanes, imported from France, contain the sought-after violet ray; pewter and iron sconces between windows contain electric lights of most efficient performance.. .207 What appears to be old and traditional thus actually masks modern comforts and innovations. Pope also altered several details of the vernacular: the use of indigenous red sandstone prevents the buildings from blending into the landscape the way the slate and ubiquitous limestone of the Cotswolds blend into the dark English sky; the pitches of Avon's roofs are more exaggerated than in England; Avon's roofs are also simply larger; and, finally, Pope's protrude from the slate roofs, an uncommon practice in the Cotswold area. 20S The Water Tower and one of the heavy wooden portals particularly illustrate Pope's adaptive skills, for they could correspond directly to two postcards in Pope's possession at that time. (lllus. 38) the site of vernacular architecture.

The most significant variation was Pope's alteration of

Despite the fact that it had little or no precedent in Farmington, Pope readily

206 This is a virtue, for an attempt at direct emulation would have been an exercise in futility to search for authenticity.

As Kaufman has noted, "a building which simply was Gothic would utterly fail to represent Gothic." [Kaufman, p. 138.]

207 "Aspirando," p. 17.

208 Paine, "Avon Old Farms," p. 46.

-57-

illustration 36:

lllustration 37:

Roman Pool at San Simeon, Julia Morgan, 1920-1937

Childhood Sketch, Theodate Pope Riddle

;.

illustration 38:

Postcards of English Dovecot and Porch, Collection of Theodate Pope Riddle

路 transplanted the Cotswold style into the Connecticut landscape, thereby creating a seemingly misplaced, separate world. 209

For this reason, Pope's importation of vernacular architecture might be accurately depicted as a

corruption of the original.

Unlike many of her contemporaries in architecture, Pope eschewed abstraction of the original forms as a method of adaptation. Abstraction, as one form of adaptation, meant to Ruskin, "taking first the essential elements of the thing to be represented, then the rest in the order of importance, and using any expedient to impress what we want upon the mind."210

While she may have agreed with the impulse to identify and

,reconfigure the essential elements of the original model, Pope did not feel compelled to remove ornament or other details which made references to a particular era. James Gamble Rogers at Yale, however, "became increasingly interested in the idea of modernizing historic styles, an idea very much in the air amongst traditionalist architects [such as Goodhue)."211

Streamlining was thus another method of adaptation, of avoiding strict

replication. Nonetheless, architects such as Rogers and Goodhue shared with Pope the desire to create an architecture that was simultaneously new and old.

In one sense, the fact that Pope deliberately chose and then altered a vernacular language makes her "eclectic." Certainly, she selected the Cotswold style from the template of history and applied it to her understanding of program and function. 212 The Cotswold style was deliberately chosen according to what Pope felt was appropriate for a boys' boarding school. architectural style.

Significantly, it was a somewhat unusual choice for a school's

When given the program of a school, most architects touring through England returned

home enamored of the strict Gothic styles of Oxford and Cambridge, or Eton and Harrow, and it was to these models to which most school designers turned when planning American school~.213 (Illus. 39)

209 It was H. H. Richardson who first popularized English architecture, for his use of the Queen Anne Style in the 1870s has been attributed with causing the trend that "avant-garde architectural styles were again aligned with the mother country."

[Robert Judson Clark, The Arts and Crafts Movement in America 1876 - 1916 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 9.]

210 John Ruskin, Works IX, p. 288, quoted in Kaufman, p. 34.

211 "James Gamble Rogers," p. 29.

212 In fin-de-siecle Vienna, for example, eclectic architects felt that the Gothic style was the most appropriate for the communal Town Hall and the Classical style for the democratic Parliament.

213 Paine, "Avon Old Farms," p. 44.

-58-

Dlustration 39:

<::;OWe Revival Primary School in Westerly, Rhode Island, Henry Barnard, 184t

illustration 40:

Avon Old Farms School- Interior of Refectory

illustration 41:

Avon Old Farms School - School Bank

Compared to her contemporaries, who took the opportunities to display their learned and antiquarian knowledge of architectural precedent, Pope's use of eclecticism was quite restrained. 214 With the exception of her reference to an Etonian courtyard when designing the residential quadrangles at Avon, Pope emulated the "Oxbridge" model only in Avon's Refectory. (Illus. 40) In one other campus building, the School Bank, where the boys were to learn financial skills, Pope felt a rational, geometric style was appropriate for the function of the building and consequently built it in the Classical style. (lllus. 41) Except for these buildings, Pope consistently kept to the vernacular Cotswold style at Avon.

When a fellow member of the American Institute of Architects

wrote to Pope in 1926 after seeing the plans of the school, he congratulated her on so sparingly using eclecticism as a design tool, saying that it was "... pitifully rare in this old world ever since the Renaissance made of Architecture a thing of precedent ..."215 Pope's relative consistency in her use of the Cotswold style actually reinforced her attempt to achieve historical continuity, for use of vernacular, rather than eclectic, architecture, bespoke a heritage of generations of architects and craftsmen.

214

National Park Service, p. 2.

Contemporary Julia Morgan, while building San Simeon in California for William Randolph Hearst, was much more typical of contemporary architecture. This is because Morgan built for her clients, not for herself, as Pope was able to do because of her wealth. Also, "unlike her colleagues enamored of the Beaux Arts Classicism so fashionable after the World's Colombian Exposition of 1893, she was inspired by the simple strength of English vernacular architecture." [Ibid.)

215 Information in a letter to Theodate Pope Riddle from Harry Cunningham AIA, (4 December 1926), p. 1, Avon Old Farms School Archives.

-59-

:.~_.f.l;;;;==========~ :-.~

illustration 42:

Avon Old Farms School- Proposed Plan Compared with Existing Buildings

Dlustration 43:

Avon Old Farms School- Proposed Building for the Far End of the Village Green, signed by Theodate Pope Riddle, 1933

, \

\

\. . ,.

\ ,\V(I\ - O\'J) - .. \lt1'15 M.\'"

·I L"';' .

• " ... ~r. ...

unr.\r.·' .nOI.~tl·.• CII .\I't: I. .~Ut:~1

nr rr:""n·•.(tI "0' W .• ; \H

\

\

...

no •.,r..H'~ lInt ·.~r. . ~.\~1\

CONCLUSION

Today, almost fifty years after Pope's death, the original plans of Avon Old Farms have still not been carried to full fruition . The advent of the Depression in 1929 forced permanent suspension of construction, despite only half of the school having been erected and Pope having invested more than two-thirds of her fortune in the school. 216

The far end of the Village Green, including a Library, Cloister, Chapel, Guest House, South

Gate, and Gate House, was never executed, nor was the Brooks Quadrangle, which was intended to house a junior college mirroring the Pope Quadrangle. (lllus. 42 and 43) To compensate for the unbuilt parts of the campus the school administration has in the last decades reassigned functions for several of the original structures.

The old

Maintenance building, for example, has been converted into the Library, and the carpentry shop is now the Chapel. Several modern additions have also been made to the campus, such as a Gymnasium, despite Pope's original intention for farm work to provide all physical exercise for the boys. from the curriculum shortly after Pope's death in 1946.217

In fact, farm work was dropped

This significant departure from Pope's original

architectural and educational plans not only marks the changing values of educational theories, but also suggests that the architect's intentions were not indelibly inscribed into the school.

Given the numerous incongruities between Pope's personal example and her theories of ideal behavior for others, it seems that polarity -

and conflict within that polarity -

making her an especially fascinating and multi-faceted individual.

was one of Pope's defining characteristics, Her simultaneous identification with men

and her essentialist views on gender were a result of polarity, as were her concurrent nostalgia for the past and progressive professional and educational ambitions.

Although she was traditio'nal in her gender values, her

personal example and her architecture thus were both much more complex and innovative than history has accredited her.

Her architecture reflected her tendency for inconsistency, for it is replete with alleged conflicts:

simultaneous "authenticity" and duplicity, varied configuration, eclecticism, and juxtapositions of the New and Old Worlds. Pope succeeded in this sense in designing architecture that Robert Venturi might deem "complex" or "contradictory."218 In fact, just as she personally developed an "androgynous" lifestyle by transgressing 216 217

Ramsey, p. 14.

Based on conversation by the author with the Admissions Office of the Avon Old Farms School. Interestingly, the school reportedly still maintains a reputation for its physical activity and emphasis.

218 Robert Venturi, Complexjty and Contradiction in Architecture (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1967), p. 5.

-60-

gender boundaries, her architecture, too, exhibits both traditionally "masculine" and "feminine" traits,. In her attempt to saturate the architecture of Avon Old Farms with references to virility, she ironically utilized many conventions and themes -

such as Tactility, Nature, and Timelessness -

that had often been allied with

"femininity."219 Therefore, Pope's architecture at Avon is rich and problematic, infusing yet another tension into the space.

In reviewing Pope's endeavor of creating gender-permeated architecture, it is important to note the stark contrast between the fluidity of social constructions such as gender and the solidity of architecture that is designed to a specific end. Adaptation of that architecture to a new purpose - such as co-education -

thus

would seem to be an almost impossible task were it not for the difficulty in actually succeeding initially, i. e. in "gendering" the architecture. architectural historians.

How successful Pope was in this endeavor needs to be further examined by

It seems already clear, however, that Pope's most enduring and significant

contribution to architects today was her attempt to make architecture non-arbitrary. Her example challenges architects to invest designs with as much purpose, information, aspiration, and reference as possible, as a way to actively and benevolently affect the lives of inhabitants.

As her personal memoirs and letters consistently and

credibly assert, part of her design bore the purpose of inspiring virile ideals, such as public responsibility, physical strength, fine craftsmanship, and respect for the past.

Her choices of materials, site, ar.chitectural style,

arrangement of buildings, and building techniques were determined in large part to achieve these ideals, and yet it is possible to walk through the campus of Avon Old Farms and never consciously be confronted with blatantly gender-imbued architecture. In fact, many would interpret Pope's inclusion of a farm, her use of "indestructible" stone, her village-like configuration, and her insistence on hand craftsmanship to be evidence merely of a great admiration of the ways of the past.

Given our knowledge of her personal views, however, this reading seems

limited and fails to appreciate her greater objectives. While not essential to the experience of a space, an understanding of what effects the architect intended inevitably enriches and enlivens that experience.

219

Torre, p.ll.

-61-

Photograph of Theodate taken the year of her death in 1946.

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Louis S. "Avon College - A Remarkable Woman's Remarkable Project." Illinois Clubwoman's World, .

October 1925. pp. 5, 9,17.

"A New Departure in Education." Vanity Fair, April 1926, p. 96.

"Aspirando et Perseverando." Silhouettes

Ma~azine)

October 1927, p. 17.

"Avon-A Notable Advance." The Daily Princetonian, 24 May 1927, p. 2.

Avon Old Farms: A Tunior Colle~e and Preparatory School for Boys (Promotional Brochure). Avon, Conn.: Privately printed, undated. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

"Avon Old Farms, Avon, Conn." (7 June 1950) Typed transcript of general notes, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

"Avon, Old Farms, Avon, Connecticut: A Junior College and Preparatory School for Boys." The Architect, December 1926, pp. 309 - 310, Plates XLIX-LVIII. "Avon, Old Farms, Avon, Connecticut: A Junior College and Preparatory School for Boys." The Junior Lea&ue Magazine, January 1926, p. 30.

Babcock, Elizabeth. "Where Boys May Be Boys." The Woman Citizen, 13 June 1925, pp. 11-12.

Birmingham, Stephen. ''What Made Maria Do It?" In Ernest Kolowarat, ed. Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School. New Amsterdam, 1992.

Blythe, Ronald, ed.

VjUa~e

Schools: A Future for the Past? London: Evans Brothers Limited, 1980.

Boutelle, Sara Holmes. Julia Mor&an. Architect. New York: Abbeville Press Pub., 1988.

Boutelle, Sara Holmes. "Julia Morgan." In Torre, op cit.

Boyd, John Taylor Jr. "Some Principles of Small House Design." The Architectural Record XLVI: V (November 1919): pp. 403 - 409.

Brubach, Holly. "Style: The World of Exteriors." The New York Times Magazine, 5 February 1995, p. 55.

Butcher, Patricia Smith. Education for EQuality: Women's Ri~hts Periodicals and Women's Hi&her Education 1849-1920. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989.

Buttenheim, Alison, ed. Celebrating Women: Twenty Years of Women at Yale College - the Commemorative TournaI. North Adams, Mass.: Lamb Printing Company, 1989.

Callen, Anthea. Women Artists of the Arts and Craft Movement 1879 - 1914. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979.

Cameron, Roderick. ''Hill-Stead: The Legacy of the Pioneering Woman Architect Theodate Pope Riddle." H2lill... & Garden 157: 4 (April 1985): pp. 186 - 196.

Cardwell, Kenneth. Bernard Maybeck: Artisan. Architect. Artist. Santa Barbara, Cal.: Peregrine Smith Inc., 1977.

Carranza, Luis E. "Le Corbusier and the Problems of Representation." TournaI of Architectural Education 48: 2 (November 1994): pp. 70 - 81.

Clark, Robert Judson. The Arts and Crafts Movement in America 1876 - 1916. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1972.

Clifford, Geraldine J., ed. Lone Voya~ers: Academic Women in Coeducational Universities 1870 - 1937.

New York: The Feminist Press, a subsidiary of the City University of New York, 1989.

Cowan, Dorrit Ann. "Single-Sex to Coeducation at Princeton and Yale: Two Case Studies." Ph. D. diss., Columbia University, 1982. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1982.

"Connecticut Women Don't Want Ballot: Hundreds Make Protest Against Suffrage." Hartford Daily Courant, 1 June 1911, p. 61.

Cunningham, Harry. Letter to The.odate Pope Riddle, 4 December 1926. Typed transcript, unpublished.

Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Cunningham, Phyllis Fenn. My Godmother Theodate Pope Riddle: A Reminiscence of Creativity. Canaan, New Hampshire: Phoenix Pub., 1983.

Dawber, E. Guy. Old 1905.

Cotta~es,

Farm-Houses Etc. in the Cotswold District. London: B. T. Batsford, Pub.,

Day & Ertman, Architects. Architectural Drawing of Elevation of the Lodge at Avon Old Farms School, undated.

Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

"Deed of the Avon Old Farms School for Boys." Privately printed by Avon Old Farms Press, 1945.

Reprinted in Ramsey, Aspjratjon,op. cit.

Dempsey, Jeannette. Letter to Westover School (1969) . Typed and signed transcript. Westover School Archives, Middlebury, Connecticut.

Doumato, Laura. 'Women as Architects: A Historical View." Boulder, Col.: University of Colorado, vol. A6, 1978.

"Dream School for Boys." Newsweek, 15 March 1948, p. 82.

"Dr. MacCracken Gives Education Talks at Vassar." The Semi-Weekly Ea~le and News November 1924, p. 2.

Dunning, Glenna. Tulia

Mor~an :

Tele~aph,

25

Pioneer Woman Architect. Vance Bibliographies, Bibliography #AI880, 1987.

Eliot, Dr. Charles. "Education for Boys (A Letter to the Editor)." The New York Times, 17 November 1924.

Emeny, Brooks. Theodate Pope Riddle and the

Foundjn~

of Avon Old Farms. Privately printed, 1973.

Emeny Brooks. "Mrs. Riddle and her Construction Methods." In Ramsey, Aspiration, op. cit., pp. 123- 131.

"Exeter and Andover Entertain Association of Business Officers." Private School News 2: 8 (IO January 1927): p. 1-2.

Favro, Diane. "Sincere and Good: The Architectural Practice ofJulia Morgan." TournaI of Architectural & Plannin~ Research 9: 2 (Summer 1992): pp. 112-127.

Foley, John. "Avon School Strikes Note in Education of Boys." Hartford Daily Courant, 3 April 1921, p. 3.

"For Little Gentlemen." Time, 22 March 1948, p. 72.

Ford, Edward R. The Details of Modern Architecture. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990.

Foucault, Michel. "Of Other Spaces." Diacritics (Spring 1986): pp. 24-25.

Gandee, Charles K. "A Lesson in Deportment: Additions to Westover School, Middlebury Connecticut."

Architectural Record 173 (February 1985): pp. 125 - 133.

Gilbert, Casso Letter to Theodate Pope Riddle, 17 November 1933. Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Gill, Brendan. "Philip the Bold." The New Yorker 70: 5 (14 November 1994): pp. 132 - 141.

Goodrich, Betty P. Theodate PQpe Riddle. Transcript of biography in Westover School Library and Archives, Middlebury, Connecticut.

Graves, Ben E. School Ways: The Inc., 1993.

PlanniDi~

and

Desi~

of America's Schools. New York: McGraw-Hill,

Gulliford, Andrew. America's Country Schools. Washington, D.C.: The Preservation Press, 1984.

Harbison, Robert. The Built, the Unbuilt, and the Unbuildable: In Pursuit of Architectural Cambridge, 'Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.

Meanin~.

Hartman, Anne. "New Insights Revealed in Theodate's Diaries." Hill-Stead News, September 1990, p. 2.

Hayden, Dolores. "Challenging the American Domestic Ideal." In Torre, op. cit.

Hewitt, Mark A. "Hill-Stead, Farmington, Connecticut: The Making of a Colonial Revival House."

AntiQ,ues 134: 4 {l988): p. 848 - 861.

Hewitt, Mark A. The Architect and the American Country House 1890 - 1940. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990.

Hill-Stead Archives. "Chronology: Theodate Pope Riddle and Hill-Stead." Unpublished. Hill-Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut.

Horowitz, Helen. Alma Mater: Desi~n and ExPerience in the Women's Be~innin~s to the 1930s. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984.

Co!le~es

from Their Nineteenth-Century

Iversen, John S. Jr. "On Rediscovering Mrs. John Wallace (Theodate Pope) Riddle." In Ramsey, Aspiration , op. cit.

Kahn, David M. "The Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in New York City." Antiques 116: 1 (July 1979): pp.

176 - 181.

Kaufman, Edward N. "Architectural Representation in Victorian England." TournaI of the Society of Architectural Historians XLVI: 30-38 (March 1987): pp. 30 - 38.

Kocher, A. Lawrence. Letter to Theodate Pope Riddle, 9 June 1927. Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Landow, George P. "Ruskin." In Victorian Thinkers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Lee, Valerie E. and Helen M. Marks. "Who Goes Where? Choice of Single-Sex and Coeducational Independent Secondary Schools." Sociolo~ of Education 65 (July 1992): pp.226-253.

Longstreth, Richard W. Tulia Mor&an, Architect. Berkeley, Cal.: Architectural Heritage Association, 1977.

Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects. New York: Free Press, 1982. S. V. "Theodate Pope Riddle," by Judith Paine. vol. 3, pp. 577-578.

Mahony, Pat. Schools for the Boys? Co-Education Reassessed. London: Hutchinson and Co., Publishers Ltd., in association with The Explorations in Feminism collective, 1985.

Matrix Collective. Makin~ Space: Women and the Man-Made Enyjronment. London, Pluto Press Limited, 1984; reprint, 1985.

"Miss Porter's School: Catalog 1994-1995." Privately printed, 1995. Courtesy of Miss Porter's Admissions Staff.

National Park Service. Theodate Pope Riddle: Her Life and Work. ed. Judith Paine, 2nd printing, 1981.

Nesbit, Molly. "The Language of Industry." In The Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp.

Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991.

"New School to Revive Colonial Spirit." The New York Times

Ma~azine,

21 December 1924, p. 9.

Paine, Judith. "Avon Old Farms School: The Architecture of Theodate Pope Riddle." Perspecta 18 (1982 ): pp.43-49.

Paine, Judith. "Pioneer Women Architects." In Torre, op. cit.

Pope, Alfred A. Letter to Theodate Pope Riddle, 3 March 1904. Typed transcript, unpublished. Letter #565, Hill.

Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Architectural Drawings of Proposed Buildings, 1933. Graphite on pasteboard, signed.

Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. "A Letter." Montague, Mass.: Carl Purington Rollins Pub., Dyke Mill Press, 1916.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. "Carpenter Shop and Gate." Construction Notes, 1923. Typed transcript, unpublished. Document #R 4155, American Institute of Architects Library and Archives, Washington, D. C. Pope Riddle, Theodate. "Cheshire, Shropshire & Herefordshire." Construction Notes, ca. 1920. Typed transcript, unpublished. Document # 4140 in Hill-Stead Museum Archives, credit American Institute of Architects Library and Archives, Washington, D. C. Pope Riddle, Theodate. Construction Sketches, c. 1920. Document # 6871, American Institute of Architects Library and Archives, Washington, D. C. Pope Riddle, Theodate. Diary entry, 17 May 1887. Typed transcript, unpublished. Hill-Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. "Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire." Construction Notes, ca. 1920. Typed transcript, unpublished. Document #R 6871, American Institute of Architects Library and Archives, Washington, D. C. Pope Riddle, Theodate. Letter to Ada Brooks Pope. 11 March 1915. Transcript in the hand of Theodate Pope Riddle, unpublished. Letter #860, Hill-Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Letter to Alfred A. Pope, August 1910. Transcript in the hand of Theodate Pope Riddle. unpublished. Letter #821 , Hill-Stead Museum Archives. Farmington, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle. Theodate. Letter to Alfred A. Pope and Ada Brooks Pope, 25 December 1910. Transcript in the hand of Theodate Pope Riddle, unpublished. Letter #730, Hill-Stead Museum Archives. Farmington.

Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Letter to Harris Whittemore, 8 July 1914. Transcript in the hand of Theodate Pope Riddle, unpublished. Westover School Library and Archives, Middlebury, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Letter to the Editor of The New York Times, 31 July 1943. Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Memoirs, 27-28 April 1937. Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Memoirs, 7 May 1937. Transcript in the hand ofTheodate Pope Riddle, unpublished.

Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Memoirs, 5 January 1939. Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. Memoirs, 16 June 1940. Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. "Policies." (Undated) Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Pope Riddle, Theodate. "Sketches." Charcoal and graphite on paper, 1920. Unpublished. American Institute of Architects Library and Archives, Washington, D. C. Pope Riddle, Theodate. "Statement to the Parents of Boys at Avon Old Farms." (2 June 1930) Typed transcript, unpublished. Hill-Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut.

Pratt, Lucy. Letter to Theodate Pope Riddle, 30 April 1909. Typed transcript, unpublished. Letter #98, Hill-Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut.

Pugin, A. W. Contrasts: Or. A parallel Between the Noble Edifices of the Middle A~es. and the Correspondin~ Buj\din~s of the Present Day; Shewjn~ the Present Decay of Taste. Edinburgh: John Grant, Pub., 1898.

Pulling, Edward. "Millbrook School: A New Informal School Which Aims to Give Boys a Liberal Education and to Prepare Them for College." Iunior r;ea~e Ma~azine, March 1931, pp. 33-34.

Ramsey, Gordon Clark. Aspiration and Perseverance: The History of Avon Old Farms School. Privately printed by the Board of Directors of the Avon Old Farms School, 1984.

Ramsey, Gordon Clark. "Guide to the Buildings of Avon Old Farms School 1984." In Ramsey, Aspiration, op cit. pp. 169 - 183.

Ramsey, Gordon Clark. "The Vision of Theodate Pope Riddle." Opening Remarks given at the Avon Old Farms School, Avon, Connecticut (October 1979). Transcript in the Westover School Library and Archives, . Middlebury, Connecticut.

Riddle, John Wallace. Letter to the Editor of the Herald Tribune, 31 July 1943. Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Riess, Suzanne. "Interview with Edward Henry." Interview by Suzanne Riess (October 1974). Julia Office and A House, vol. 2. Regents of the University of California, 1976.

Mor~an.

Robson, E. R. School Architecture. With an Introduction by Malcolm Seaborne. Surrey, England: Leicester University Press, 1874; reprint, New York: Humanities Press, 1972.

Roosevelt, Theodore. American Ideals and Other Essays. 2nd ed. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons Pub., Knickerbocker Press, 1898.

Her

Roth, Leland. McKim. Mead & White, Architects. New York: Harper & Row, Pub., 1983.

Rudofsky, Bernard. Architecture Without Architects: A Short Introduction to Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1964.

Non-Pedi~reed

Architecture.

Ruskin, John. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Reprint, New York: The Noonday Press, a subsidiary of Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, Pub., 1961.

Ryan, Susan. "The Architecture ofJames Gamble Rogers at Yale University." Perspecta 18 (1982): pp. 24 - 41.

Sanoff, Henry. School

Desi~ .

New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, Pub., 1994.

Sasaki, Walker and Associates Inc. "A Development Plan for Avon Old Farms School." (December 1961) Typed transcript, unpublished. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Schulze, Franz. Philip Johnson: Life and Work. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Pub., 1994.

Sherwood, Mills & Smith, Architects. Architectural Plans of Avon Old Farms School, 1972. Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Smith, Donald. "Boys Are Taught to Work With Their Hands As Well As Their Heads Under Unique Community Service System Opera~ed At Avon Old Farms: Sons of Rich Employed at Humble Jobs."

Hartford Daily Courant, 31 May 1934, p. D5.

Sommer, Mimi. "Designing Woman." Home & Garden, March 1991, pp. 75-80.

Stabler, W. Brook. "History of Avon Old Farms." The Avonian 1: 11 (Founder's Day Issue 24 May 1941): p. 1.

Stem, Robert A. M. "Guest Speaker: Robert A. M. Stern on Hill-Stead, Hollyhook House and Others."

Architectural Di~est 43 (April 1986): pp. 30 - 35.

"The Winged Beaver." Harvard Alumni Bu1!etin, 10 February 1927, pp. 519-520.

"Theodate Pope, Architect." The Architect, December 1926, Plates. XLIX-LVIII. Torre, Susana, ed. Women in American Architecture: A Historic and Contemporary Perspective. New Watson-Guptill Pub., 1977.

"Twelve of the Best American Schools." Fortune

Ma~azine,

York:

January 1936, pp. 48 - 52,104,106,112,115,.

Venturi, Robert. Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1967. ''Venturi and Rauch: The Public Buildings." Architectural MODOiraphs 1, London: Academy Editions, 1978.

Walford, Geoffrey. The Private Schoolini of Girls: Past and Present. London: The Woburn Press, 1993.

Wasserman, Elga. "Coeducation Comes to Yale College." Pamphlet; reprinted from The Educational Record (1970); published by the American Council on Education, Washington, D. C. Webster's Secondary-School Dictionary. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, Co., 1913.

Withey, Henry F. and Elsie R. Withey. Bioiraphical Dictionary of American Architects. Los Angeles: Hennessey & Ingalls Inc., 1970.

"Woman Finances $3,000,000 Scbool." The New York Times, January pre-1927. Copy in Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, Avon, Connecticut.

Woodbridge, Sally. Bernard Maybeck: Visionary Architect. New York: Abbeville Press, 1992.

Woodman, Francis Call. "Avon College - A School for Boys." Boston Transcript 27 (May 1925): p. 1.

Wrede, Stuart. The Architecture of Erik Gunner Asplund. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1980.

Wright, Frank Lloyd. An

Autobio~aphy.

New York: LOflgmans, Green and Company, 1933.

Zahran, Mohsen M. Colle&e Housin~: An Arena of Inv91vement and Conflict. Beirut, Lebanon: Bouheiry Brothers Printers, 1972.

Endnotes for

Illu strations

1.

Brooks Emeny, Theodate Pope Riddle and the Foundins of Avon Old Farms (Privately printed, 1973), p. 20a.

2.

Ibid., p. Sa.

3.

Ibid., p. 8a.

4.

Gordon Clark Ramsey, Aspiratjon and Perseverance: The History of Avon Old Farms School (Privately printed; 1984), p. 207.

5.

Avon Old Farms: A Tunior CoUeie and Preparatory School for Boys (Promotional Brochure) (Privately printed, undated), p. 4.

6.

Ramsey, pp. 35-40.

7.

Ibid.

8.

National Park Service, Theodate Pope Riddle: Her Life and Work (2nd printing, 1981), p. 8.

9.

Photograph C;:ollection of Author.

10.

Sasaki, Walker and Associates, Inc., "A Development Plan for Avon Old Farms School," (Unpublished, 1961), unpaginated.

11.

Emeny, p. 8a.

12.

Louis S. Adams, "Avon College - A Remarkable Woman's Remarkable Project," Illinois Clubwoman's World, October 1925, p. 5.

13.

Hill-Stead Museum Archives, Farmington, Connecticut, Postcards # 115, 313, 380.

14.

Avon Old Farms School Library and Archives, loose and unfiJed.

15.

Hill-Stead, Postcards # 308, 787.

16.

Kenneth Cardwell, Bernard Maybeck: Artisan. Artist. Architect (Santa Barbara, Cal.: Peregrine Smith Inc., 1977), pp. 202-204.

17.

AY2n, p. 6.

18.

Susan Ryan, "The Architecture ofJames Gamble Rogers at Yale University," Perspecta 218 (1982), p. 35.

19.

Helen Horowitz, Alma Mater: Desi~ and Experience in the Women's CoUeses from Their Nineteenth-Century Beiinninis to the 1930s (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984), p. 26.

20.

AYwl, p. 7.

21.

"Theodate Pope, Architect," The Architect, December 1926, Plate 1.

22.

Avon Archives, loose.

23.

Roderick Cameron, "Hill-Stead: The Legacy of the Pioneering Woman Architect Theodate Pope Riddle," House & Garden 157: 4 (April 1985), p. 186.

24.

Mark A. Hewitt, "HilI-Stead, Farmington, Connecticut: The Making of a Colonial Revival House," AntiQues 134:4 (1988), p. 850.

25.

Avon Archives, loose.

26.

Judith Paine, "Pioneer Women Architects," in Susana Torre, ed. Women in American Architecture: A Historic and 路Contemporary Perspective (New York: Watson-Guptill Pub., 1977), p. 57. .

27.

American Institute of Architects Library and Archives, Washington: D. C., 1920.

28.

Photograph Collection of Author.

29.

Robert Harbison, The Built. the Unbuilt. and the Unbuildable: In Pursuit of Architectural Meanin~ (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1991), p. 91.

30.

Emeny, p. 14.

31.

Sally Woodbridge, Bernard Maybeck: Visionary Architect (New York: Abbeville Press, 1992), p. 152.

32.

Hill-Stead Archives, Postcards # 14,240,179.

33.

"Avon Old Farms," p. 43.

34.

Emeny, p. iii.

35.

Ibid., p. 20a

36.

Sara Holmes Boutelle, "Julia Morgan," in Torre, op cit.

37.

Hill-Stead, Sketch #0-12-6

38.

Hill-Stead, Postcards #130,262.

39.

Andrew Gulliford, America's Country Schools (Washington, D.C: The Preservation Press, 1984), p. 168.

40.

Ramsey, p. 35.

41.

Emeny, p. 20d.

42.

Ramsey, p. 25.; Emeny, p. 8b.

I

J