Guide to the Records of Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. and the Papers of Lois Lilley Howe, Eleanor Manning O'Connor, and Mary Almy
MC.0009

 Series 1. Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. Records 

Scope and Contents note

A. Architecture Firm Records

Little remains of the firm’s correspondence and legal data that does not directly relate to their commission work. These remaining general records and correspondence of the firm have been drawn together in this section. Correspondence and information from organizations that had at least two of the partners as members are also in the general files. These organizations reflect some of the firm’s architectural interests. For example, solutions to the problems of low-cost and urban housing were sought by the Architects Small House Service Bureau and by the Boston Housing Association. Architectural organizations were not the only mutual interests of the firm members, however. All three women were active in MIT alumni groups, as well as in various professional women’s clubs, such as the College Club, the Business Women’s Club, and the American Association of University Women. More organizational records are in the personal papers series of this collection.

The general firm files also provide an idea of the publicity that the Howe, Manning & Almy architects received from both the public and their colleagues. There are reprints from professional journals as well as articles from local newspapers and clippings about architectural interests.

B. Commission Drawings and Files

Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. commission work is reconstructed, when possible, in this section. Some of the drawings and written material are unidentified, and are placed in front of the numbered commissions. The identification of commissions is based upon the list of job numbers that was found in the papers. The commissions are numbered consecutively, starting with work from Lois Lilley Howe’s private practice and continuing until the firm disbanded in 1937. The earliest commission files date back to about 1894. Only about ten percent of Howe’s private work remains, consisting primarily of linen drawings and tracings. The commission files for about forty-four percent of Lois Lilley Howe & Manning’s work and for almost sixty-five percent of Howe, Manning & Almy’s work are in the collection. These percentages are sufficient to provide information about the firm’s various types of architectural work.

The amount of information varies for each commission, and more data is present in the later commission files. Correspondence, financial data, specifications, reports, notes, drawings, tracings, blueprints, and photographs can all be found in the commission files. The files also include over five hundred rolled blueprints and tracings which have been cleaned, flattened, and placed in a map case. The folder list indicates the type of material available for each commission. Occasionally, assignment of a commission number was a guess. An annotated job list containing the dates for many of the firm’s commissions is included in this series.

C. Reference Files

The reference files in the collection reflect the extensive research that the Howe, Manning & Almy firm made to insure accurate plans. The three architects kept architectural postcards, design patterns, photographs, and drawings for reference purposes.

The measured drawings are of houses’ interior details, especially in the colonial style. These drawings are from homes that the firm worked on and historic houses that the architects visited. The measured drawings were filed alphabetically by the firm but were not always well identified. A list of names and, when possible, dates and addresses is in folder number 546.

The firm kept loose-leaf notebooks on the work they did for clients on various aspects of architectural design. The photographs and printed material were removed from these notebooks and are maintained in their original order. Photographs of work for clients is alphabetical, but some of the notebooks are missing. Photographs and printed material about architectural details, such as doorways and roofs, compose the remainder of the visual reference files. These details are alphabetical by subject.

The collection also included a considerable amount of printed material that the partners probably kept for reference use; their clipping files can be found in this series.

Historical note

Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. is believed to be the first women’s architectural firm founded in Boston and the second such in the country. The beginnings of the firm can be traced back to 1894 when Lois Lilley Howe started to receive commissions. The firm’s commission numbers start at this time and are continuous until 1937 when the firm disbanded. In 1913 Howe asked Eleanor Manning O’Connor, one of her draftsmen, to be her partner; the firm of Lois Lilley Howe & Manning resulted. The firm was successful and another draftsman from the office became a partner; Howe, Manning & Almy officially began on April 1, 1926. Since Mary Almy assumed responsibility for the business aspects of the firm, O’Connor focused on the technical architectural work and on design problems. Howe continued to concentrate on design and to guide her partners as the senior member of the firm. While the firm continued for eleven more years, the depression had an economic impact on the firm. The number of commissions decreased and the firm did more renovating than building during the 1930s. When Lois Lilley Howe retired at the age of 73, on September 1, 1937, O’Connor and Almy started separate practices. The firm’s connections did not dissolve, however; Howe occasionally worked for O’Connor’s private practice.

Lois Lilley Howe’s early work involved both the building and remodeling of houses. Throughout the firm’s existence, this emphasis on domestic architecture continued. Most of their commissioned work was done on houses, and the architects were well known for their ability to do renovations and alterations. The work was usually in the Colonial Revival style and the Georgian Revival style--a reflection of contemporary taste. The firm's architects did extensive research into the historical veracity of the revival styles by using measured drawings, photographs, postcards, and printed material. An example of their revival work is the Louis C. Cornish house, built in 1916 at 15 Fayerweather Street, the first 17th Century Revival house in Cambridge.

Revival work was only one aspect of the firm's interest in domestic architecture. During World War I, the firm began to concentrate on smaller, more efficient homes for middle-income families. Although the smaller house was a new concept, it was becoming a necessity. Development of smaller house designs was part of the architects’ interest in urban housing problems. The firm's architects worked with the Architect’s Small House Service throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The firm also submitted small house designs to the Department of the Interior for the Subsistence Homestead Communities, especially those in Massachusetts, and remodeled apartments for the Lynn Slum Clearance Project.

The architects received recognition for their contributions to housing throughout their careers. A prestigious commission was for John Nolen, the town planner. He chose them to be among the architects commissioned to design houses for Mariemont, Ohio, one of the country’s first planned communities. The firm designed the houses for Denny Place in Mariemont. These houses were built with stone from the area so that the buildings would blend into the environs and would be economical.

In 1913 McCall's magazine asked the firm to submit a design for their small house series. The design appeared in the March 1924 issue, and a book compiled by Marcia Mead also included the plan. In 1926, Howe, Manning & Almy won first prize in the Cape Cod home competition that the Cape Cod Real Estate Board sponsored. Because the small house was often used as a vacation home, the firm was familiar with Cape Cod design. In fact, Howe, Manning & Almy houses, including "Cape Cods," were built throughout New England’s summer resort areas. One of Howe, Manning & Almy's first commissions after Mary Almy joined was Mrs. Charles Almy’s house, which later served as a temporary residence for Governor Joseph Ely. The Almy house was one of ten houses chosen from  House Beautiful's Small House Competition. The plans appeared in the May 1929 issue and then were exhibited throughout the country.

Further published recognition came to the firm in the 1930s. The Frothingham house at 4 Grey Gardens, Cambridge, was included in an article titled “One Hundred Small Houses” in the October 1935 Architecture issue. The May 1937 issue of  American Architect and Architecture showed the Lynn home of James Morgan that the firm built.

Some of their other commissions included factory alterations, plans for barns and stables, and even an ice house. In 1916, the Concord Art Association house was remodeled, and in the 1920s the firm worked on the Art Center in Fitchburg. The architects also helped to plan both the Lynn Boy Scout Camp and the Fleur-de-Lis Camp. All three women were involved in many activities, and they did architectural work for their clubs and schools, including the College Club, the Business Women’s Club, Masschusetts Institute of Technology, Simmons College, and Radcliffe College.

 Series 2. Mary Almy Personal Papers 

Biography

Mary Almy, 1883-1967, BA 1905, Radcliffe College; SB in architecture, 1922, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Mary Almy was born at Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, to Judge Charles Almy and Helen Jackson Cabot Almy. After graduating from Radcliffe College in 1905, Almy taught at the Boardman School in Cambridge until 1917, when she started to study architecture at MIT. Her course work was finished in 1920, although her SB degree was not awarded until 1922. Her thesis was titled “Design for an Office Building.” After MIT, Almy worked in London at the architectural firm of Collcut and Hamp for two years. When she returned to the United States, she was a draftsman for Ellwell and Rachall and for the Lois Lilley Howe and Manning architecture firm. She was also associated with the Small House Service Bureau of House Beautiful for a short time.

Mary Almy became partners with Lois Lilley Howe and Eleanor Manning O’Connor in 1926, the same year that she was admitted to the American Institute of Architects. She assumed responsibility for much of the correspondence and other business matters when she joined the firm. Mary Almy’s family connections helped to gain commissions for the firm. For example, many of the houses at the Almy vacation complex in Cotuit were designed by the Howe, Manning & Almy firm.

After the firm disbanded in 1937, Mary Almy went into architecture practice with Henrietta Pope, a landscape architect. She later started a private practice in her own home. Almy’s other activities gradually superseded her architecture work. During World War II, she served as an administrator for the Red Cross. From 1947 until 1949, she was social secretary to Rebecca Bradford, wife of Governor Robert Bradford, during his term in office.

Mary Almy was active in many clubs and organizations, such as the Cambridge Historical Society, the Cambridge Social Dramatic Club, and the MIT Women’s Association. After working on the Membership Committee, she was the College Club’s director from 1932 to 1934. For ten years, starting in 1938, she served as secretary to the Board of the Cambridge Center for Adult Education. Her most active participation was with Radcliffe alumnae. In 1933, she designed the Radcliffe Booth for the Century of Progress building at the International Exposition in Chicago. Three years later she helped to create the Radcliffe Exhibit for the Harvard Tercentenary. Throughout her life she remained active with Radcliffe alumnae; in 1961, she served on the board of the Radcliffe Quarterly.

Scope and Contents note

This series contains a small number of personal papers of Mary Almy, an architect in the firm of Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. Other personal papers of Mary Almy can be found at the Schlesinger Library of Radcliffe College, where the Almy Family Papers are housed.

 Series 3. Lois Lilley Howe Papers 

Scope and Contents note

This series are personal papers of Lois Lilley Howe, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who earned the SB degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1890. A few of her sketchbooks contain drawings she made at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she studied design. Sketchbooks, sketches, watercolors, photographs, and portraits of a later period are also present. Family papers including genealogical notes, family and personal correspondence (1826-1959), a scrapbook, and photographs are part of this series. It also includes a small amount of material from some of the public organizations with which Lois Lilley Howe was involved, including the Old Cambridge Shakespeare Association and the Cambridge Historical Society.

The collection also has some of Howe’s architectural scrapbooks which contain many drawings from her early work. The scrapbook’s original order is intact. Few dates and no commission numbers are on the drawings; a client’s name is usually present, however.

Biographical note

Lois Lilley Howe, 1964-1964, was born into the Cambridge, Massachusetts, family of Estes and Lois Lilly White Howe. In 1882, she entered the Museum School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, concentrating on design, and finished the program in 1886. Her later architectural work reflected this artistic training, and she maintained contacts with artists throughout her life. She became a member of the Copley Society of Boston, an association of artists, in 1883. She joined the Council of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1897; later the Museum School named her an annual “Visitor to the School.” She also served as director of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts from 1916 to 1919.

As a result of her alteration of a stairway for the Reverend Francis G. Peabody’s home, she gained the admiration of architect Robert Swain Peabody, and he became her mentor. In 1888, she entered the School of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and took the two-year course in “Partial Architecture,” earning an SB degree in 1890. At MIT she was a founding member of the women's group Eta Sigma Mu; this sorority later beame Cleofan.

With Peabody’s help, Lois Lilley Howe was hired as a draftsman with the firm of Allen and Kenway after finishing at MIT. Peabody also told her of the competition for a Women’s Building at the Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago. She and her classmate Sophia Hayden Bennett (also MIT class of 1890) both entered. Hayden won and Howe placed second. The prize money made it possible for Lois Howe to take her mother and sisters to Europe. After fifteen months Howe returned to Boston and worked as a part-time librarian in the MIT School of Architecture. She received her first commission to build a house in 1894 and worked alone and with various partners until 1900. She then established her own firm.

Lois Lilley Howe concentrated on domestic architecture from the beginning of her career. This emphasis continued when her firm added as partners Eleanor Manning in 1913 and Mary Almy in 1926. Howe's work with houses was often innovative. For example, an article about her experimental plaster work appeared in a 1907 issue of Architectural Review and   Architectural Record. In another 1907 issue she gave advice about designing serving pantries for small houses. Lois Lilley Howe initiated Howe, Manning & Almy’s use of the Colonial Revival style for both building and renovating and stressed the need to research architectural details.  Details from Old New England Houses was published in 1913 by Howe and Constance Fuller (MIT class of 1914).

The problems of urban housing concerned Howe enough to steer the Howe, Manning & Almy firm towards the development of small houses and of urban planning. Howe was on the Planning Committee for the Architect’s Small House Bureau and was a member of the Boston Society of Architect’s Small House Service Bureau of the American Institute of Architects. She also participated in the Committee on Small Houses for AIA and was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Housing Association of Metropolitan Boston. The housing committees of both the MIT Women’s Association and the Business Women’s Club were chaired by her as well.

Organizations concerned with housing problems represented only part of Lois Lilley Howe’s activities. She supported women’s educational opportunities as a member of the American Association of University Women and as the MIT representative for the general committee of the “Naples Table,” which later became the Association to Aid Scientific Research by Women. In 1918, Howe was elected vice-president of the MIT Women’s Association and subsequently president. Firm partner Eleanor O’Connor became the next president. Howe helped to found the Business Women’s Club, and she was part of the Organizing Committee for Technology Architects.

Professionally, Howe was a leader since there were few women architects at that time. In 1901, she became the first woman to be officially elected when Robert Swain Peabody sponsored her for membership in the AIA. She was also one of the first women admitted to the Boston Society of Architects. Perhaps her greatest honor came in 1931, when she was elected a Fellow of the AIA, the first woman to be chosen.

Lois Lilley Howe retired and the firm Howe, Manning & Almy disbanded in 1937, but Howe never stopped working. After retirement, she occasionally worked on commissions for Eleanor O’Connor’s private practice. Howe was also treasurer of the Old Cambridge Shakespeare Association, president of the Cambridge Plant Club, vice-president of the Cambridge Historical Society, a member of the Cambridge Social Dramatic Club and other organizations in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When she died in 1964, she was twelve days short of her hundredth birthday.

 Series 4. Eleanor Manning O'Connor Papers 

Biography

Eleanor Manning (later O'Connor), 1884-1973, earned the SB in architecture in 1906 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Eleanor Manning was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, to Delia Josephine Grady and James Manning, a building contractor. Unlike Lois Lilley Howe and Mary Almy, Eleanor Manning started studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) School of Architecture after she finished high school. Upon completion of a thesis titled “Design for a Country Residence,” she received her degree in 1906. During her senior year, she served as president of Cleofan, the Institute’s club for women.

Two years after graduation Eleanor Manning started to work as a draftsman for Lois Lilley Howe. While in this position, she also did some private architectural commissions. Her classmate Eliza J. Newkirk Rogers (MIT class of 1905) helped with these commissions, and they may have entered into an informal partnership for a short period. When Manning took an extended leave of absence from Howe’s office in 1912, she went to Europe with Eliza Newkirk Rogers. Eleanor Manning cut her trip short in order to accept Howe’s offer of partnership.

During World War I, Eleanor Manning served on the Mayor’s Committee for an Open Air Canteen and on several committees for the Boston Army and Navy Canteen, a facility that Lois Lilley Howe & Manning built. She also chaired the Business Women’s Club’s Social Committee and was on the Ways and Means Committee for the Massachusetts Women’s Suffrage Association.

Eleanor Manning started teaching after World War I. She was a special instructor of architecture and then of housing at Simmons College for fifty years. During the 1930s she also began to teach at three other schools: Pine Manor Junior College, Chamberlain School for Retailing, and Garland College. She was also involved in the College Club and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Throughout her career, Eleanor Manning O’Connor was a frequent lecturer and guest instructor in the New England area. In the 1940s, one of her major tasks as housing chairman of the Massachusetts Civic League was the development and implementation of one of the country’s early Housing Management courses for housing specialists.

Eleanor Manning O’Connor’s major professional concern was housing and urban planning. After World War I, the rise of middle-income families and the growth of the urban population created a need for more compact, less expensive, housing. In addition to her work with the Howe, Manning & Almy firm, she was on both the Committee to Reclaim Areas for Better Housing and the Women’s Committee on Membership for the Boston Housing Association. In her home town of Lynn, she served on the City Planning Board for seven years starting in 1923; this position led to her role as secretary for the Massachusetts Federation of Planning Boards. She also attended the 1931 President’s Conference on Home Building and Ownership, where she served on both the Design and the Kitchen Committees. In 1941, she served on the Committee on Housing the Family for the White House Conference on Children in a Democracy. Because of her ten-year chairmanship of the Housing Committee for the Massachusetts Civic League, she was appointed to the Executive Committee of the New England Regional Council of the National Association of Housing Officials in 1944. She belonged to the Housing Association of Metropolitan Boston and to the Architect’s Small House Service Bureau and served on Housing Committees for her non-architectural clubs, such as the AAUW and the Business Women’s Club.

One of O’Connor’s greatest honors as a housing expert was her partnership with the Seventeen Associated Architects. This select group of architects planned Old Harbor Village, the first low-cost housing project in Boston, with funding from the Public Works Administration. O’Connor worked with the Seventeen Associated Architects from 1933 to 1938, while continuing as a partner of Howe, Manning & Almy.

After the Howe, Manning & Almy firm dissolved, Eleanor O’Connor went into private architectural practice. Her practice continued until at least 1959. Home-building and renovating predominated, but she also designed for Providence Gas, the Garland School, the William Lawrence Camp, and the Fleur-de-Lis Camp.

Eleanor O’Connor kept close ties with architectural colleagues. She became a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923 and the following year attended the AIA convention as a delegate from the Boston Society of Architects (BSA). She participated in various committees for the BSA such as the Entertainment Committee and the Rogers Building Exhibit Committee, as well as serving as secretary for the Education Committee. She was also a member of the Massachusetts Association of Architects and the Society of Technology Architects.

Eleanor Manning O’Connor also continued her connections with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1924 to 1926, she served as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Women’s Association. Later, she was a member of Tech Dames and worked on the Rotch Scholarship Committee for the MIT Alumni Association.

In 1931, Eleanor Manning became Johnson O’Connor’s second wife; they died within days of each other in 1973. Johnson O’Connor founded the Human Engineering Laboratory and the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation. Eleanor O’Connor traveled around the country with him visiting laboratories and served on the Board of Directors and as treasurer. She also designed laboratories and compiled architectural vocabularies for the Human Engineering Laboratory.

Scope and Contents note

A. General Materials

Eleanor Manning O’Connor’s personal papers form a large part of the collection. The first subgroup in her section consists of general material, including correspondence, engagement calendars, organizational data, notes, and newspaper clippings. The correspondence and the engagement calendars are in chronological order. The organizational data does not relate to O’Connor’s architectural concerns.

B. Travel Albums, Diaries, Sketches, and Notes

Eleanor Manning O’Connor traveled extensively and recorded the trips through diaries and sketches. Her interest in architecture is reflected in the drawings and notes that are in this section. The material is arrange chronologically. Besides diaries and sketches, the travel section includes letters to her family during her first trip to Europe and information from later trips.

C. Seventeen Associated Architects Records

Eleanor Manning O’Connor’s partnership in Seventeen Associated Architects is an important aspect of her career. The architects used blueprints to disseminate information, such as financial data, and these copies are in this section along with correspondence, reports, contracts, and a newspaper clipping file about the group. O’Connor remained with Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. while working with Seventeen Associated Architects; their agreement about this arrangement is also in this section.

D. O'Connor's Office Records

Eleanor Manning did some private commission work before she became partners with Lois Lilley Howe, and went into private practice after the firm disbanded. O'Connor's records include general correspondence, addresses, notes, and a ledger.

E. O'Connor's Commission Drawings

The bulk of Eleanor Manning O'Connor's records consists of identified and unidentified commission files. The unidentified files include a few drawings by other architects that O’Connor probably referred to for her own work. Both a report and drawings for various Human Engineering Laboratories are also in the unnumbered group. The numbered commissions start with three examples of O’Connor’s earliest work. In her later practice she continued with Howe, Manning & Almy's numbering system for the commissions; the firm stopped at number 946 and O’Connor starts with commission 1000. The commission files include photographs, financial data, notes, reports, specifications, correspondence, tracings, blueprints, and printed material. The folder listing indicates the contents for each commission.

There was no complete job listing for O’Connor’s private practice included in the collection. As a result, the exact commission number and the client’s full name are not always available.

F. Professional Affiliation Files

Eleanor Manning O’Connor was active in many organizations. Her predominant affiliations were with groups concerned about housing. Her work for better housing and urban planning is well documented and shows her involvement on both the local and federal levels. This section also contains articles and notes from O’Connor’s research on housing solutions. The associations are in alphabetical order and the general housing information and notes are at the end. Other records concerning organizations are in Series 1.

G. Articles, Lectures, and Teaching Information

O’Connor’s educational activities are documented in this section. Her articles and lectures are about architecture and housing. She taught at women’s colleges in the Boston area, and her course outlines, notes, lectures, exams, grades, reports, and correspondence are in this section of her personal papers. Her articles and lectures precede the unidentified course information and her teaching material from Chamberlain, Garland, Pine Manor, and Simmons College.

G. Book Drafts

Eleanor Manning O’Connor wrote a book that is an in-depth discussion of house-building. She included chapters on the history of housing, how to choose a site and obtain a plan, as well as details about excavating, plumbing, furnishing, etc. Essentially a “how-to” book, it was probably started in 1928, and it was still being revised in 1942. The book was never published.

This section also includes the architectural vocabulary booklets that O’Connor compiled for the Human Engineering Laboratory.

H. Watercolors and Oil Paintings

The collection includes watercolors and oil paintings that Eleanor Manning O’Connor painted, usually during her trips to Europe. These paintings are of buildings and landscapes.

 Series 5. Photographs 

Scope and Contents note

Whenever possible, photographs of a specific commission of the Howe, Manning & Almy architecture firm are in the appropriate commission file. Some photographs could not be identified according to commission number, however, and those photographs constitute this series. Some photographs are labeled; completely unidentified photographs of houses and other buildings are at the end of this series. Some of these may be pictures from the firm’s own work, but most of them are historical houses or tourist shots of foreign buildings. These snapshots were probably used by the Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. firm for reference purposes.