Gannon and Hands, founded in 1894, was the first partnership of women architects in the United States. Its partners were Mary Gannon (1867-1932) and Alice Hands.
[ In the firm's very short existence (1894 – c. 1900), it became known for innovative approaches to low-cost urban housing.][
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Founders' early lives
Mary Nevan Gannon was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Bethlehem is a city in Northampton and Lehigh Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bethlehem had a total population of 75,781. Of this, 55,639 were in Northampton County and 19, ...
, in 1867.[ With some prior experience in an architect's office, she entered the New York School of Applied Design for Women in 1892 as part of its first class. Her future partner Alice J. Hands was one of her classmates. Even less is known about Hands than about Gannon, apart from the fact that she had been studying at the New York City YWCA for a couple of years before entering New York School of Applied Design for Women (NYSAD).][ Gannon and Hands thrived at the school, winning awards for their drawings as well as architectural commissions while they were still students, including the Woman's Building for the 1895 Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia.][
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Architectural work
Right after graduating in 1894, the two women opened their own architectural practice, Gannon and Hands,[ and in that same year they won a large commission to design a hospital in ]San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
with a project budget in the neighborhood of $30,000–$40,000.[ After the Florence Hospital was opened, it received praise from physicians as a model of "sanitation, convenience, and architectural beauty."][
Early in their career, Gannon and Hands joined a city task force, the Sanitary Investigations Committee, and went the extra step of living in a New York tenement in order to better understand urban living conditions for the poor.][ Calling New York's tenements "a reproach to the humanitarianism of this enlightened century,"][ they set to work to find better solutions to urban housing for the poor. The firm quickly became noted for designing innovative apartment buildings that were affordable, sanitary, well-ventilated, and practical. One of their model tenements was designed around a central court (for light and air), with balconies for each apartment, front and rear fire escapes, and ash chutes and garbage receptacles for refuse management.][ Some were specifically designed for the rising class of young urban working women,][ and the partners were elected to the ]Women's Health Protective Association
Women's Health Protective Association (sometimes, Woman's Health Protective Association; original parent body, Ladies' Health Protective Association) was a US women's organization focused on improving a city's public health and protecting the imme ...
of New York.[
Gannon and Hands were praised by the social reformer ]Jacob Riis
Jacob August Riis ( ; May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in America at the turn of the twen ...
in his book ''A Ten Years' War'' (1900) for their light and airy buildings;[ he credited them with solving "the problem of building a decent tenement on a twenty-five-foot lot"—a problem he admitted that he himself had thought insoluble.][ Similarly, philanthropist Sir Sidney Waterlow, who was chairman of the ]Improved Industrial Dwellings Company
The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company (IIDC) was a Victorian Model dwellings company founded in 1863 by the printer, philanthropist and later Lord Mayor of London Sir Sydney Waterlow. The company operated predominantly in Central London as a ...
in London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, called their work "the best plans for single tenements I have ever seen, the most clever and ingenious."[ As late as the 1930s, their apartment designs were still being reproduced as models of low-cost housing.][
Other buildings Gannon and Hands designed include a hotel in New York, a women's club building in New York, a summer home for women students in Twilight Park, seaside cottages in ]New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, and mountain cabins in the Catskills
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...
.[ There was also a lavish, $50,000 villa designed for a California client and modeled on the Russian tsar's ]Livadia Palace
Livadia Palace (russian: Ливадийский дворец, uk, Лівадійський палац) is a former summer retreat of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in Livadiya, Crimea. The Yalta Conference was held there i ...
.[ They were known for overseeing the actual building work themselves (except when an engineer was needed).][
In 1897, Mary Gannon married John Walp Doutrich and that same year the firm moved to a more upscale neighborhood, indicating that it had achieved a degree of success.][ However, there is little information about Gannon and Hands post-1900, which is around the time that Gannon moved with her husband and new son to ]Spokane, Washington
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...
.[ It is likely that the firm disbanded early in the new century.][
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Selected buildings
*Hotel for Women, 7th Ave. and 37th St., New York
*Women's Hotel, Broadway and 37th St., New York
*Student Apartment House, 20th St., New York
*Florence Hospital, San Francisco
Notes and references
External links
Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Mary Nevan Gannon
Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Alice J Hands
{{authority control
1894 establishments in New York (state)
American women architects
Defunct architecture firms based in New York City
New York School of Applied Design for Women alumni