Ethel B. Power (1881–1969) was an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and the editor of ''

House Beautiful ''House Beautiful'' is an interior decorating magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts. First published in 1896, it is currently published by the Hearst Corporation, who began publishing it in 1934. It is the oldest still-publi ...

'' magazine. Power championed a generation of women architects who emerged from the newly founded Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. She also published a compilation of plans for small houses by notable architects of the day.

Publishing career

''House Beautiful''

Power was the editor of the influential shelter magazine ''House Beautiful'' (1923–34) for more than a decade. She also often published her own articles. She championed the work of Cambridge School graduates in general, and in particular on

Eleanor Raymond Eleanor Raymond (March 4, 1887 – July 24, 1989) was an American architect and historian of architecture and design. During a professional career spanning some sixty years of practice, mainly in residential housing, Raymond explored the use ...

's work, many of which she wrote herself. When in 1934 the magazine was sold and its editorial offices transferred to New York City, Power resigned because she did not choose to leave Boston.

''The Smaller American Home''

Her book ''The Smaller American Home'' (1927) is a compilation of 55 designs by notable architects of the 1910s and 1920s, with a focus on built-in features. She includes floor plans of houses in the Colonial,

Spanish Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (), often known simply as Spanish Revival, is a term used to encompass a number of Revivalism (architecture), revivalist architectural styles based in both Spanish colonial architecture and Spanish archi ...

Creole cottage Creole architecture in the United States is present in buildings in Louisiana and elsewhere in the South, and also in the U.S. associated territories of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A variant is Ponce Creole style. Creole cottages In ...

, and

Storybook house Storybook architecture or fairytale architecture is a style popularized in the 1920s in England and the United States. Houses built in this style may be referred to as storybook houses. Description The storybook style is a nod toward Hollywoo ...

styles together with shots of example interiors and landscaping. Selected architects included

Dwight James Baum Dwight James Baum (June 24, 1886 – December 14, 1939) was an American architect most active in New York and in Sarasota, Florida. His work includes Cà d'Zan, the Sarasota Times Building (1925), Sarasota County Courthouse (1926), early resid ...

, Wallace Frost, John F. Staub,

Wallace Neff Edwin Wallace Neff (January 28, 1895 – June 8, 1982) was an architect based in Southern California and was largely responsible for developing the region's distinct architectural style referred to as "California" style. Neff was a student of ...

, and Henry Atherton Frost. Unlike some critics of the day who liked to position historicist and modernist architecture as antithetical to each other, Power stressed the features the two approaches shared, such as simple rectilinear plans and absence of ornamentation. A portfolio of materials about Raymond's architectural work held by the museum

Historic New England Historic New England, previously known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), is a charitable, non-profit, historic preservation organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is focused on New England a ...

includes a number of articles by Power about Raymond.

Education and personal life

Power was part of the first cohort to enter the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in 1915. This group included her life partner, architect

(1887–1989), whom she had previously met through a suffragist organization. She graduated in 1920. Power and Raymond remained together for more than half a century, until Power's death. They resided on Beacon Hill in Boston.

Publications

* ''The Smaller American House'' (1927) * "Variation on the Colonial," ''House Beautiful'' (1935)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Power, Ethel B. 1881 births 1969 deaths 20th-century American non-fiction writers American magazine editors American women architects American women magazine editors