ABSTRACT
In the early twentieth century women’s presence in the field of architecture expanded in the United States, and, among women practitioners, Verna Cook was one of the most successful. She designed over sixty suburban homes, had her designs published as an “Ideal House” on the cover of the utmost popular magazine Better Homes & Gardens, and was the only woman to participate as an architect in the 1939 New York World’s Fair’s legendary exposition, the Town of Tomorrow. This chapter reviews Cook’s work and the strategies she employed to gain access to the male-dominated field. Based on archival documents, published interviews, and magazine articles from the 1920s and 1930s, the author argues that Cook used the discourse of domesticity to her advantage and advanced by writing for home magazines and presenting herself as a most capable professional with broad expertise in the design of traditional houses.
