Minding Her Business

Women have influenced the development of modern architecture and design through a wide variety of entrepreneurial activities. This book highlights their contributions to the construction industry, editorial production, and real estate development, as well as the cultivation of social spaces and delivery of philanthropic interventions. With a global focus, the contributors provide case studies ranging from eighteenth-century Britain and early twentieth-century Istanbul to postwar Finland, mid-century America, and post-independence Kenya, demonstrating the breadth of roles women have created for themselves, whether by challenging patriarchal systems and the capitalist marketplace or by working effectively within them. Recognition of these roles supplements the increasing attention being paid to women architects and enables us to understand the full scope of the impact that women have long had in shaping the built world around us.