Emily Helen Butterfield
Encyclopedia
Emily Helen Butterfield (August 4, 1884, Algonac, Michigan
– March 22, 1958, Neebish Island
) was a pioneer in the Michigan
women's movement.
She was Michigan's first licensed female architect
, one of the founders of the Alpha Gamma Delta
sorority, active in Greek life
, and a founding member of the Detroit
Business Women's Club, the first professional women's club in the nation.
, Michigan
, in St. Clair County
, near Port Huron
. She attended Detroit Public Schools. Butterfield and her father shared a great love of art. In her teenage years she and her father went on sketch trips to the western United States and Europe.
program at Syracuse University
in 1903. In 1907 she became the first licensed woman architect in the state of Michigan. With her father, she established the firm of Butterfield and Butterfield in 1917. The firm specialised in church architecture
, and led the transformation of churches, especially Methodist
, from Sunday meeting halls to centers of daily community and social activity. She practiced architecture in Detroit and Pontiac
, planning 26 churches throughout the state as well as other buildings including factories, summer camps, stores, schools and homes.
The Detroit Business Women's Club and the BPW
The Detroit Business Women's Club, the first professional women's club in the nation, was started in 1912, by Butterfield (the first president), publisher Emma Spoor, and manufacturer's agent Grace Wright.
In a series of mergers and assimilations, the Club became part of what is now known as BPW/Michigan, in turn a part of the oldest and largest organization for working women in the world, Business and Professional Women
(BPW). The national BPW organization is made up of federations from each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico
, and the Virgin Islands
.
Butterfield was active in the college Greek movement. As an associate of the George Banta
publishing company, Butterfield combined her design abilities and her knowledge of heraldry
to design the heralds, coats of arms
or shields of several sororities and fraternities, among them her own ΑΓΔ coat of arms in the spring of 1906 as well as the coats of arms for Lambda Omega
(later merged with Delta Zeta
), Theta Phi Alpha
, and Phi Beta
sororities; she co-designed the Zeta Tau Alpha
sorority coat of arms and the crest of Tau Kappa Epsilon
.
Butterfield also designed the coats of arms for Alpha Kappa Psi
, Sigma Delta Rho, Sigma Tau Gamma
, Theta Upsilon Omega
, and Theta Kappa Nu (later merged with Lambda Chi Alpha
fraternities).
She also designed the chapter houses for the Syracuse and Michigan State
chapters of ΑΓΔ. When the fraternity established a summer camp (the "Alpha Gamma Delta Summer Camp Lodges") for underprivileged children in Jackson, Michigan
in 1920, Butterfield was the architect of the camp and was camp manager until 1924. She served as editor of the Alpha Gamma Delta Quarterly, the fraternity publication, for 7 years.
Butterfield had a big impact on her fraternity and Greek life, as noted in the 2004 Alpha Gamma Delta Centennial Keynote Address:
, and she authored College Fraternity Heraldry in 1931. She published a children's book in 1933, Young People's History of Architecture, in which she used her illustrations from her many travels.
, where she served as postmaster
during World War II. She died on March 22, 1958 and was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame for her work in the field of architecture in 1990.
Algonac, Michigan
Algonac is a city in St. Clair County of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 4,613 at the 2000 census.Algonac is located at the southern end of the St. Clair River, just before it splits into a large delta region known as the St. Clair Flats. The St. Clair River drains Lake Huron into...
– March 22, 1958, Neebish Island
Neebish Island
Neebish Island is an island in the U.S. state of Michigan in the St. Marys River between the United States and the Canadian province of Ontario. It is divided into two parts known as "Big Neebish" and "Little Neebish" which are divided by a river which is sometimes more mud than river and is known...
) was a pioneer in the Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
women's movement.
She was Michigan's first licensed female architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, one of the founders of the Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Gamma Delta
Alpha Gamma Delta is an international women's fraternity, who are mainly sluts, founded in 1904 at Syracuse University. The Fraternity promotes academic excellence, philanthropic giving, ongoing leadership and personal development, and a spirit of loving sisterhood. Also known as "Alpha Gam" and...
sorority, active in Greek life
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
, and a founding member of the Detroit
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
Business Women's Club, the first professional women's club in the nation.
Early life
Butterfield was born in AlgonacAlgonac, Michigan
Algonac is a city in St. Clair County of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 4,613 at the 2000 census.Algonac is located at the southern end of the St. Clair River, just before it splits into a large delta region known as the St. Clair Flats. The St. Clair River drains Lake Huron into...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, in St. Clair County
St. Clair County, Michigan
-Interstates:* I-69 enters the county from the west, coming from Lansing and Flint, terminating at the approach to the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron....
, near Port Huron
Port Huron, Michigan
Port Huron is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of St. Clair County. The population was 30,184 at the 2010 census. The city is adjacent to Port Huron Township but is administratively autonomous. It is joined by the Blue Water Bridge over the St. Clair River to Sarnia,...
. She attended Detroit Public Schools. Butterfield and her father shared a great love of art. In her teenage years she and her father went on sketch trips to the western United States and Europe.
Architecture
Butterfield was accepted into the architectureArchitecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
program at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...
in 1903. In 1907 she became the first licensed woman architect in the state of Michigan. With her father, she established the firm of Butterfield and Butterfield in 1917. The firm specialised in church architecture
Church architecture
Church architecture refers to the architecture of buildings of Christian churches. It has evolved over the two thousand years of the Christian religion, partly by innovation and partly by imitating other architectural styles as well as responding to changing beliefs, practices and local traditions...
, and led the transformation of churches, especially Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
, from Sunday meeting halls to centers of daily community and social activity. She practiced architecture in Detroit and Pontiac
Pontiac, Michigan
Pontiac is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan named after the Ottawa Chief Pontiac, located within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 59,515. It is the county seat of Oakland County...
, planning 26 churches throughout the state as well as other buildings including factories, summer camps, stores, schools and homes.
The Detroit Business Women's Club and the BPWBusiness and Professional WomenBusiness and Professional Women's Foundation Business and Professional Women’s Foundation is an organization focused on creating successful workplaces by focusing on issues that impact women, families and employers. Successful Workplaces are those that embrace and practice diversity, equity and...
The Detroit Business Women's Club, the first professional women's club in the nation, was started in 1912, by Butterfield (the first president), publisher Emma Spoor, and manufacturer's agent Grace Wright.- "I think it never occurred to us that we were doing something absolutely unique, I know I never would have had the idea if it had not been that all of my business acquaintances were men, and I was actually lonesome for speaking acquaintances with business women as I pattered up and down the avenue at the noon hour looking for a place where a lone woman might eat." --Emily Butterfield
In a series of mergers and assimilations, the Club became part of what is now known as BPW/Michigan, in turn a part of the oldest and largest organization for working women in the world, Business and Professional Women
Business and Professional Women
Business and Professional Women's Foundation Business and Professional Women’s Foundation is an organization focused on creating successful workplaces by focusing on issues that impact women, families and employers. Successful Workplaces are those that embrace and practice diversity, equity and...
(BPW). The national BPW organization is made up of federations from each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, and the Virgin Islands
Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands are the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, which form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean...
.
Greek activities
George Banta
George Banta was the founder of the George Banta Company and an influential figure in the development of the collegiate Phi Delta Theta fraternity and Delta Gamma women's fraternity.-Biography:...
publishing company, Butterfield combined her design abilities and her knowledge of heraldry
Heraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
to design the heralds, coats of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
or shields of several sororities and fraternities, among them her own ΑΓΔ coat of arms in the spring of 1906 as well as the coats of arms for Lambda Omega
Lambda Omega
Lambda Omega was a national collegiate sorority operating in the United States from October 31, 1915 until 1933.- History :Norroena Club was founded in 1915 on the campus of University of California, Berkeley. The sorority remained a local for seven years. The name meant "Breath of the North". The...
(later merged with Delta Zeta
Delta Zeta
Delta Zeta is an international college sorority founded on October 24, 1902, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Today, Delta Zeta has 158 collegiate chapters in the United States and over 200 alumnae chapters in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada...
), Theta Phi Alpha
Theta Phi Alpha
Theta Phi Alpha women's fraternity was founded at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor on August 30, 1912. Theta Phi Alpha is one of 26 national sororities recognized in the National Panhellenic Conference...
, and Phi Beta
Phi Beta
Phi Beta Fraternity: National Professional Association for the Creative and Performing Arts is an American national professional college fraternity for the creative and performing arts. It was founded in 1912 at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois...
sororities; she co-designed the Zeta Tau Alpha
Zeta Tau Alpha
Zeta Tau Alpha is a women's fraternity, founded October 15, 1898 at the State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia. The Executive office is located in Indianapolis, Indiana...
sorority coat of arms and the crest of Tau Kappa Epsilon
Tau Kappa Epsilon
Tau Kappa Epsilon is a college fraternity founded on January 10, 1899 at Illinois Wesleyan University with chapters in the United States, and Canada, and affiliation with a German fraternity system known as the Corps of the Weinheimer Senioren Convent...
.
Butterfield also designed the coats of arms for Alpha Kappa Psi
Alpha Kappa Psi
ΑΚΨ is the oldest and largest professional business fraternity. The Alpha Kappa Psi Fraternity was founded on October 5, 1904 at New York University, and was incorporated on May 20, 1905...
, Sigma Delta Rho, Sigma Tau Gamma
Sigma Tau Gamma
Sigma Tau Gamma Fraternity also named "Sig Tau" or "the Knights" is a U.S. all-male college secret-social fraternity founded on June 28, 1920 at University of Central Missouri...
, Theta Upsilon Omega
Theta Upsilon Omega
Theta Upsilon Omega , or TUO, was a national collegiate fraternity. Representatives of several local fraternities at a 1924 meeting of the National Interfraternity Conference concluded to form a new national through amalgamation, resulting in the creation of Theta Upsilon Omega on May 2, 1924 from...
, and Theta Kappa Nu (later merged with Lambda Chi Alpha
Lambda Chi Alpha
Lambda Chi Alpha is one of the largest men's secret general fraternities in North America, having initiated more than 280,000 members and held chapters at more than 300 universities. It is a member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference and was founded by Warren A. Cole, while he was a...
fraternities).
She also designed the chapter houses for the Syracuse and Michigan State
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
chapters of ΑΓΔ. When the fraternity established a summer camp (the "Alpha Gamma Delta Summer Camp Lodges") for underprivileged children in Jackson, Michigan
Jackson, Michigan
Jackson is a city located along Interstate 94 in the south central area of the U.S. state of Michigan, about west of Ann Arbor and south of Lansing. It is the county seat of Jackson County. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 33,534...
in 1920, Butterfield was the architect of the camp and was camp manager until 1924. She served as editor of the Alpha Gamma Delta Quarterly, the fraternity publication, for 7 years.
Butterfield had a big impact on her fraternity and Greek life, as noted in the 2004 Alpha Gamma Delta Centennial Keynote Address:
- "In the United States in 1900, three-quarters of the states forbade married women to own property in their name. In 1909, the members of Alpha Gamma Delta overlooked the statistic and planned ahead by starting a house fund in hopes of purchasing their own home. In 1928, they challenged the societal constraints once again by not only purchasing but building the first house — and we all know the name of the architect — Emily Helen Butterfield."
Publications
Emily and her father also shared a love for, and studied the art of, heraldryHeraldry
Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
, and she authored College Fraternity Heraldry in 1931. She published a children's book in 1933, Young People's History of Architecture, in which she used her illustrations from her many travels.
Art
Butterfield was an accomplished illustrator, working in pen and ink and watercolor, illustrating mainly nature, Michigan, and architectural scenes. She exhibited at the J. L. Hudson Gallery and at the Toledo Artists Club. Her artwork was used in her publications.Retirement and death
Butterfield retired to Neebish IslandNeebish Island
Neebish Island is an island in the U.S. state of Michigan in the St. Marys River between the United States and the Canadian province of Ontario. It is divided into two parts known as "Big Neebish" and "Little Neebish" which are divided by a river which is sometimes more mud than river and is known...
, where she served as postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
during World War II. She died on March 22, 1958 and was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame for her work in the field of architecture in 1990.
External links
- Alpha Gamma DeltaAlpha Gamma DeltaAlpha Gamma Delta is an international women's fraternity, who are mainly sluts, founded in 1904 at Syracuse University. The Fraternity promotes academic excellence, philanthropic giving, ongoing leadership and personal development, and a spirit of loving sisterhood. Also known as "Alpha Gam" and...
founders page with Butterfield capsule - Michigan Women Hall of Fame
- Business and Professional WomenBusiness and Professional WomenBusiness and Professional Women's Foundation Business and Professional Women’s Foundation is an organization focused on creating successful workplaces by focusing on issues that impact women, families and employers. Successful Workplaces are those that embrace and practice diversity, equity and...
Michigan chapter history site - International Archive of Women in ArchitectureInternational Archive of Women in ArchitectureThe International Archive of Women in Architecture was established in 1985 as a joint program of the College of Architecture and Urban Studies and the University Libraries at Virginia Tech....
page on Butterfield. - Lambda Chi AlphaLambda Chi AlphaLambda Chi Alpha is one of the largest men's secret general fraternities in North America, having initiated more than 280,000 members and held chapters at more than 300 universities. It is a member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference and was founded by Warren A. Cole, while he was a...
history site