Women Who Built Illinois: Database of 100 Women Who Shaped the State

Landmarks Illinois launched 'Women Who Built Illinois' in 2020, a digital archive documenting over 100 women architects, engineers, developers, interior and landscape designers, and builders whose projects from 1879 to 1979 shaped Illinois' urban and built environments. The database aims to increase awareness of these professionals who lacked recognition and to protect their works, many of which lack local landmark status or National Register designation, reducing funding. Lisa Di Chiera, Advocacy Director at Landmarks Illinois and project coordinator, stated: 'This new database recognizes those who paved the way for women today and continue to impact the built environment of Illinois and Chicago.' Notable figures include Georgia Louise Harris Brown, the second African American woman licensed as an architect and engineer in the US, who performed structural analyses for projects including Mies van der Rohe's Promontory Apartments; Gertrude Lempp Kerbis, who opened her own firm in 1967 and designed O'Hare Airport's Rotunda (opened 1962), which Landmarks Illinois listed in 2017 as endangered due to terminal expansion; and Natalie Griffin de Blois, who taught at the University of Texas and spent 30 years at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill from 1945, becoming a pioneer in a male-dominated field. The launch coincided with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage.