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Minerva Parker Nichols Collection
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Held at: University of Pennsylvania: Architectural Archives [Contact Us]220 South 34th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19094
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the University of Pennsylvania: Architectural Archives. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Minerva Parker Nichols was born ca. 1861 near Chicago, IL., daughter of Amanda Melvina Doane Parker and granddaughter of the architect-builder Seth Brown Doane. During her early years her mother worked as a very active assistant in Doane's architectural office, an experience which made a strong impression on her young mind. She studied architecture in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute Drawings School (honorable mention, 1884-1885; certificate, 1886), and entered active practice in Philadelphia in 1888. During her first year of practice she worked in the office of Edwin W. Thorne and studied at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Arts (1888-1889).
Minerva Parker was one of the first American female architects to establish a successful professional practice without entering into a partnership with a male architect. She also lectured in architecture and ornamental design at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (later the Moore School of Art and Design). Fifty-three commissions are listed in the Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide between 1888 and 1893. Her professional practice specialized in residential architecture, and in addition she designed churches, schools, commercial buildings and women's clubs. She received national recognition by being selected to design the Queen Isabella Pavilion for the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, but her design was not built.
In 1891 Minerva Parker married the Reverend William Ichabod Nichols. She continued active architectural practice until the birth of her first child in 1894, when she moved her office into her home and continued to practice on a more limited basis. After she and her husband moved to Brooklyn in 1896, she undertook only a small number of projects, primarily for friends and relatives.
The Minerva Parker Nichols Collection includes architectural drawings (especially the New Century Club in Philadelphia and a pair of houses in Germantown, Pa.), as well as an assortment of personal and family correspondence, photographs and other mementos related to Minerva Parker Nichols' life, work, and family. The collection also includes research files and writings about Minerva Parker Nichols, including collected articles published during her life, a manuscript copy of Adelaide Baker's biography, and Kathleen Sinclair Wood's thesis. The collection is arranged into four series based on accession.
Collection is arranged into four series based on original accessions:
- Series I. Architectural Drawings for a Pair of Houses for Misses Mary and J. Campbell, circa 1891
- Series II. Accession 2022-01, circa 1900-1975
- Series III. Accession 2022-02, 1870-1975
- Series IV. Accession 2022-03, 1891-1897
Gifts of Willman Spawn, 1997; Carrie Baker, 2022; and Liz Halstead, 2022. Some published materials in the collection were purchased by the Architectural Archives in 2022.
The collection was processed and the finding aid prepared by William Whitaker, Emily Cooperman, Laura Stroffolino and Nancy Thorne, with the research assistance of Jennifer Webb in 2001. Finding aid updated to include descriptions of unprocessed accessions 2022-01, 2022-02 and 2022-03 by Courtney Smerz in 2025.
- Publisher
- University of Pennsylvania: Architectural Archives
- Finding Aid Date
- 2025
- Access Restrictions
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This collection is available for research by appointment only.
- Use Restrictions
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The Minerva Parker Nichols Collection (Collection 100) is the physical property of the Architectural Archives, Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. Materials in the collection may be subject to copyright not held by the Archives. Researchers are responsible for determining the identity of those rights holders and obtaining their permission for publication and for other purposes where stated.
Collection Inventory
Includes drawings and specifications for a single project, a twin dwelling for Misses Mary and J. Campbell at 417-419 School House Lane, Germantown, Philadelphia.
Accession 2022-01 includes family correspondence from 1917; a baby book kept by Parker Nichols for her children beginning in 1894; her daughter Adelaide's wedding planning album from 1924; photographs taken at the family house in Westport from the 1930s to 1960s; and miscellaneous ephemera for the Unitarian Church in Germantown, Philadelphia, the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, New York, the New Century Club in Philadelphia, and other organizations with which Parker Nichols was connected, all dating from 1891 to 1935. There are also photocopies of assorted family records documenting marriages, pensions and hospital stays, circa 1920, and newspaper clippings dating from 1900 and 1973.
Accession 2022-02 includes architectural drawings specifications for the New Century Club, Philadelphia (circa 1907), as well as an assortment of incidental personal and family correspondence, photographs and other mementos of Minerva Parker Nichols' life, work and family. There are family correspondence (1894-1923), family photographs (circa 1895-1930s, 1970s), passport of Minerva Parker Nichols (1934), news clippings and ephemera (1891, 1993), records related to Adelaide Baker's efforts to save the New Century Club (1970s) and her manuscript for Minerva Parker Nichols biography. Also included is Kathleen Sinclair Wood's research files and draft thesis on Minerva Parker Nichols. There is geneaological research on Nichols family, 35 mm slides, Travel album from a European Tour, mounted photographs of a house exterior, Interior photograph of staircase of J. R. Patterson house in Overbrook, Pa..
There are four lantern slides: (1) cambridge school gym, (2) cambridge school front school, (3) New Century Club, and (4) Double house in Germantown, Pa., Parker Nichols' WRICO lettering kit and wrist watch. Clippings: Harper's Weekly, 1891; Women's Progress, 1893; and Philadelphia Inquirer, 1993, Specifications for New Century Club, 1907; ephemera: birthday card; etching of Ichabod Nichols; and membership certificate for American Unitarian Society Creation 1907, New Century Club, Philadelphia, Pa., blueprints and linens 1907, Small nursery school, elevations and floor plan, St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, view of quadrangle, etching, 1811, Certificates: Honorable Mention, Columbian Exposition; Daughters of the American Revolution membership; Teaching certificate, Philadelphia Normal School, 1894-1919, and Books: The Home Maker (2 volumes), House on Curtain Street, Witch's Breed, The History of the Women's Club Movement, and Return to Arcady by Adelaide Baker.
Accession 2022-03 is comprised of five published volumes containing articles related to Minerva Parker Nichols' work: Carpentry and Building, vol. IX and XV, 1893, 1897; History of Women's Club Movement in America; and The Homemaker, volumes 7 and 8, 1891, 1892.