WOMEN DESIGNERS IN THE USA 1900- 2000 * "DIVERSITY AND DIFFERENCE"

Published in conjunction with a landmark exhibition mounted at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts (Nov. 2000-Feb. 2001), this lavish volume, with 50 black-and-white and 300 color illustrations, is groundbreaking yet highly readable. There are 21 contributors, a valuable illustrated time line, and 17 fact-filled essays dealing with the general topics of women designers in the 20th century or more specifically contextualizing their work within each medium. Two pertinent essays are Eileen Boris's "Social Change and Changing Experience" and Leslie R. Close's "Women Landscape Designers." The reader will find seemingly unlimited details on the lives of these working women how 14-year-old Anna Wagner Keichline, for instance, announced her intention to become an interior designer and then in 1926-27 designed and patented the "K-Brick for hollow wall construction with predetermined fracture joints for custom fitting at the job." This essential book on the history of women designers belongs in any art or women's studies collection and on most reference shelves.