ABSTRACT
The chapter argues that in the early and mid-twentieth century, women decorators, no longer satisfied to be viewed merely as furniture arrangers and home stylists, were instrumental in redefining the field of interior decorating (later interior design) as a paying profession akin to architecture that they could practice outside of the home as well as within it.
In order to deemphasize decorating as an exercise in pure aesthetics, which could be perceived as amateurish, a number of female authors began to focus on the technical aspects of home decoration, while designers, such as Dorothy Draper and Eleanor McMillen Brown, emphasized professionalism by handling the business aspects of their design practices and keeping strictly to budgets. Working with rich residential and commercial clients, male decorators, and sympathetic architects, female decorators like Draper and Brown rebranded interior decorating, not as underpaid “women’s work” but as a bona fide and well-paid profession, which women could successfully practice.
In the United States, interior decorating, soon to be reconceived and renamed as interior design, was well on its way to being professionalized by the 1930s. Decorator Nancy Vincent McClelland became one of the first women to become the president of the American Institute of Interior Designers in 1941. McClelland and others worked hard to promote interior design education and increase membership of designers in professional organizations.
