Juliet Peddle Architectural Drawings Collection

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.