Skip to main content

Juliet Peddle Architectural Drawings Collection

 Collection
Identifier: DADA-053

Scope and Contents

This collection consists of drawings, prints, sketch material, and Christmas card drawings from the corpus of Juliet Peddle. The material covers the period 1928-1967.

Some of the sketches were completed during tours of England and France; others depict subjects in the U.S., including houses, a church, and a Civil War soldier’s memorial. The collection also contains two sets of architectural drawings for private residences; mechanical drawings of the Commercial Solvent Corporation; and a methanol and glycol blending process diagram. Two sheets of preliminary drawings of the Auditorium for the Women’s Department Club and Community Theater are also found in this collection.

A few drawings and cards are framed for exhibition. These framed items include a church sketch, two of the four architectural drawings for the Wallace residence, two of the fifteen architectural drawings of the Meissel residence, and the Auditorium for Women’s Department Club and Community Theater.

Dates

  • Creation: 1928 - 1967

Creator

Language of Materials

Materials entirely in English.

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Copyright Notice

Legal title, copyright, and literary rights reside with Drawings and Documents Archive, Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries, Muncie, IN. All requests to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted to Drawings and Documents Archive.

Biographical Note

Juliet Alice Peddle was born on June 7, 1899, in Terre Haute, Indiana. Her father, John Peddle, worked as a professor of machine design at Rose Polytechnic Institute in Terre Haute. She attended King Classical School during her formative years and began studying architecture at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1918. At the University of Michigan, Peddle was friends with fellow student Bertha Yerex Whitman, who became the architecture school’s first female graduate in 1920. Whitman and Peddle both belonged to the T-Square Society, a club for female architecture and engineering students established in 1915.

Upon graduation in 1922, Peddle followed Whitman to Chicago to work at the architecture firm Perkins, Fellows, and Hamilton, which specialized in designing school buildings. She continued her education through courses at the Berkshire Summer Art Institute, and at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she also taught briefly.

Peddle received her license to practice architecture in Illinois in 1926, and was one of only seven female architects to receive licenses that year. In 1927, she embarked on a six-month sketching trip through England, France, and Italy. She studied and sketched historical buildings, views of canals, and other old-world architecture.

After her trip to Europe, Juliet returned to Chicago and worked for Edwin H. Clark from 1927 to 1931. During her time in Chicago, Juliet Peddle and Whitman, along with seven other women architects, founded the Women’s Architectural Club of Chicago. The group exhibited their work at the first Women’s World’s Fair in Chicago in 1927, and later held exhibitions in the library and social hall of Perkins, Fellows, and Hamilton. Peddle served as an editor at The Architrave, the club’s publication.

In 1928, Peddle was prompted to move closer to home when her father, with whom she was close, suffered a stroke. In 1931, owing to the Great Depression, Peddle lost her job and began working with the government-sponsored Historic American Building Survey (HABS) in Galena, Illinois. During her employment with HABS, she gained considerable knowledge in the field of historic preservation and restoration, in part because she attended a seminar in Colonial Williamsburg.

Peddle returned to Terre Haute, Indiana, and opened her own office in the city’s Opera House building in 1939; she was the first registered female architect in Indiana and would continue to work in Terre Haute until her death on September 6, 1979. Peddle was prolific during her career in Terre Haute, designing the Crawford School (1961) and numerous noteworthy mid-century residences, among other buildings. Clients appreciated her modern designs, but Peddle also valued the past and worked with the Vigo Historical Society to document the historic architecture of her community.

Extent

5 Cubic Feet (OVA box, OVB box, flat file drawer, 6 framed drawings)

Arrangement

The Juliet Peddle Architectural Drawings are arranged chronologically.

Custodial History

The Juliet Peddle Architectural Drawings were received by Drawings and Documents Archive as a donation from Jason Shelly on 09/05/2014. Addition recieved 07/31/2018 by Michael Forsythe. Additions recieved 07/15/2019 by Angie and Warren Britt and Linda M. Miller via Susan Hodge.

Accruals

No additions are expected.

Sources

American Machinist: A Practical Journal of Machine Construction, Vol. 40, No14 .1914 (Hill Publishing Co. New York), pg. 598.

University of Michigan, Michiganensian, Vol. 24, 1920 (published by the Senior Classes of the University of Michigan)., pg. 665, 704-705.

Allaback, Sarah, The First American Women Architects, (Univ. of Illinois Press, Illinois, 2008). accessed: http://www.indianahistory.org/our-collections/collection-guides/juliet-peddle-drawings-1941-1950.pdf.

Processing Information

Collection processing completed. Finding aid created 2003/6/1; revised 2014/12/09 by Julie M. Koomler; revised 2016/2/10 by Sam Burgess.

Title
Juliet Peddle Architectural Drawings
Status
Completed
Author
Revised by Julie M. Koomler in 2014 and by Sam Burgess in 2016.
Date
Completed 2003/6/1; revised 2014/12/09, 2016/2/10
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
English

Repository Details

Part of the Andrew Seager Archives of the Built Environment Repository

Contact:
Architecture Building, Room 120
Muncie IN 47306 USA
765-285-8441
765-285-3726 (Fax)