Early Blueprints
Born in Chicago in 1871, months before the Great Chicago Fire, Marion Mahony spent much of her formative years witnessing the city’s reinvention through development. Raised largely by her mother, aunt, and grandmother (her mother was a prominent school principal who socialized with suffragists), Mahony pursued architecture even though, at the time, women were almost entirely excluded from the profession. In 1894, Mahony became the second woman to receive an architecture degree from MIT and returned to Chicago to work as a draftsperson for her cousin, architect Dwight H. Perkins. The next year, after they were introduced by Perkins, Wright hired Mahony at his burgeoning practice, which eventually became his Oak Park, Illinois, studio (above left). The decision was groundbreaking for the era, though the pair had much…
