An Architect Ahead of Her Time

Annie Cobb (1830-1911)
Pursuing a design and building career in Newton Highlands by the mid-1870s, Annie Cobb was arguably the first American woman architect of the pre-professional period. Cobb made her building debut in pre-Civil War South Boston, flourished during the last three decades of the 19th century in Newton Highlands, and exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. She succeeded in fashioning a career for herself in the exclusive male world of architecture and building in a time when women’s work was mainly limited to the home. This exhibition is the first ever about Cobb herself, as well as the first time all five female architects who presented at the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition are featured together since the Fair took place in 1893.