Ida Annah Ryan - Architectural Practice in Waltham, Massachusetts

Architectural Practice in Waltham, Massachusetts

Ryan launched the first women's architectural practice in the United States in Waltham, showing a particular concern for the design of modest housing. In 1909, Ryan added fellow MIT graduate and women’s rights activist Florence Luscomb to her practice, making this one of the first all-women’s architectural practices in the United States. In February 1913, Miss Ryan was appointed superintendent of buildings and grounds and buildings inspector for the city of Waltham, by Mayor Duane.

Typical of her work during this time is the house that Ryan designed for her nephew as a wedding present in 1914, located at 19 Boynton Street, Waltham. The 2 1⁄₂-storey smooth stucco residence turns its gable-end to the street. A small, 1-storey covered porch at the entrance is distinguished by an arched roof reminiscent of the work of George Washington Maher in the Chicago suburbs. Windows are placed singly, in pairs, or, as in the gable, in threes, while sill heights vary according to the interior needs. Ryan would continue the use of many of these distinctive elements in her work in Florida. During her Waltham practice Ryan also designed the spacious, well-appointed home of industrialist B. C. Ames (1917). Many of the most attractive Waltham homes of that era were said to have been designed by Ryan. Also of note is the apartment building at 19 Hammond Street, Waltham; a Ryan remodeling of a barn once owned by David Smith. Her address was, for a time, at this building.

While associated with fellow MIT graduate Harriet F. Locke (1870–1919), Ryan was responsible for the design of Memorial Hospital, Nashua, New Hampshire, circa 1915, a 3-storey stuccoed symmetrical building with recessed porches, of a simplified Grecian design, closely anticipating the Amherst Apartments in Orlando. The intertwined "cross and x" used for the porch railings would appear later in the Veteran's Memorial Library windows and ventilation grills. The hospital featured a roof parapet that prefigures Ryan and Roberts' work in Florida, as well.

Ryan was active in the women's suffrage movement, a member of the Waltham Equal Suffrage League and the Political Equality Association of Massachusetts. Her recreational activities included camping and traveling. When the United States entered World War I, Ryan gave her services without charge in designing and decorating the Army and Navy Canteen on Boston Common. Ryan offered her services to the government in Washington, D.C., and was the first woman employed in the War Department (in the gun carriage section).

Ryan began an association with the Central Florida area while still in practice in Massachusetts, designing there the Atlantic Coast Line railroad depot in St. Cloud (1917) and the Unity Chapel of Orlando (built in 1913, remodeled by Ryan and Roberts circa 1920). Throughout this time, Ryan’s many attempts to join the Massachusetts chapter of the American Institute of Architects were rebuffed solely because she was a woman.