MIT Libraries logo MIT Libraries

MIT logo Search Contact

Maihaugen Gallery Exhibit

Howe, Manning & Almy

Boston’s First All-Woman Firm and the Changing Face of Architecture

August 19, 2026 - May 27, 2027

Architectural drawing showing the east elevation of a house addition, featuring a two-story design with a gabled roof, windows, and a porch.This exhibit celebrates the first-known all-women architecture firm in Massachusetts, founded in 1900 by Lois Lilley Howe, the first woman to graduate with an architecture degree from MIT. Howe, along with architects Eleanor Manning and Mary Almy, completed more than 900 commissions throughout the course of their company’s history. The exhibit will look at the role MIT’s architecture program played in supporting women in the field since the 1890s, as well as Howe, Manning & Almy’s influence on the built environment of Cambridge and the firm’s ecofriendly approaches to renovation.