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porticoAmaza Lee Meredith was born in 1895 in Lynchburg, Virginia, and went on to establish the arts department at Virginia State University (an historic Black college/university in Peterburg) and build the only "international style" home in virginia. i first learned about her from the new angle voices podcast, and as a queer virginian and house architecture enthusiast was immediately desperate to know more. so i read Amaza Lee Meredith Imagines Herself Modern: Architecture and the Black American Middle Class by Jacqueline Taylor.
this was taylor's first book, and it's based ( i believe) on her dissertation, although she also contributed a chapter about meredith to a book called Suffragette City about women's contributions to the built environment. i'll be interested to read that piece, because although meredith left her archives to VSU, which includes letters and plans, she left behind absolutely no writing (aside from scrapbooks and sketches) about her home or the homes she planned/built in Sag Harbor, NY. this resulted in a book that is very strong in its chapters about meredith's growing up and schooling years (of which there were many, as she went to college for a teaching certificate, then later a BA and, subsequently, an MA in arts education) and the state of education theory and opportunities available to upwardly mobile black people in the early 20th century. this was fascinating and extremely well-researched. unfortunately, i was much more in it for the houses.
it's obviously not taylor's fault what meredith chose to leave behind, and focusing the book primarily on meredith's role and experience as an educator was a great decision. not only was meredith well-educated and invested in creating new educational opportunities for the black students coming up behind her, but her lifelong partner was Edna Meade Colson, who had a PhD and headed up the education department at VSU. i also wish the book had given us more information about meredith and colson's shared life together. taylor quotes from their correspondence some, but mostly during their early years and as it related to education. there may simply not be much in their archives about their relationship once they settled together in the house in Petersburg, but i suspect it might also have been in response to familial request.
Jessica Lynne noted in an article in Southern Cultures in part about meredith and colson: "There is one box included in the Meredith papers that is not publicly available, although it seems this material was once made available to researchers. Taylor cites several letters between Meredith and Colson that are sourced to this no-longer-public box... I am curious about the current obscurity of these exchanges and will continue to ask more questions about their present-day locations and the institutional decisions that prevent me from accessing them. As a researcher, I cannot think of Meredith’s archive as complete but rather as one in an elastic state. Who has said “no” and “not anymore”?"
all told, although this wasn't the book about amaza lee meredith i was hoping to read, it was still a very strong book and included a huge number of reproduced photographs, plans, and scrapbook pages. it felt to me like an opening sally of research into this woman and her work, and i'm hoping that the scholarship about her only continues to increase.
this was taylor's first book, and it's based ( i believe) on her dissertation, although she also contributed a chapter about meredith to a book called Suffragette City about women's contributions to the built environment. i'll be interested to read that piece, because although meredith left her archives to VSU, which includes letters and plans, she left behind absolutely no writing (aside from scrapbooks and sketches) about her home or the homes she planned/built in Sag Harbor, NY. this resulted in a book that is very strong in its chapters about meredith's growing up and schooling years (of which there were many, as she went to college for a teaching certificate, then later a BA and, subsequently, an MA in arts education) and the state of education theory and opportunities available to upwardly mobile black people in the early 20th century. this was fascinating and extremely well-researched. unfortunately, i was much more in it for the houses.
it's obviously not taylor's fault what meredith chose to leave behind, and focusing the book primarily on meredith's role and experience as an educator was a great decision. not only was meredith well-educated and invested in creating new educational opportunities for the black students coming up behind her, but her lifelong partner was Edna Meade Colson, who had a PhD and headed up the education department at VSU. i also wish the book had given us more information about meredith and colson's shared life together. taylor quotes from their correspondence some, but mostly during their early years and as it related to education. there may simply not be much in their archives about their relationship once they settled together in the house in Petersburg, but i suspect it might also have been in response to familial request.
Jessica Lynne noted in an article in Southern Cultures in part about meredith and colson: "There is one box included in the Meredith papers that is not publicly available, although it seems this material was once made available to researchers. Taylor cites several letters between Meredith and Colson that are sourced to this no-longer-public box... I am curious about the current obscurity of these exchanges and will continue to ask more questions about their present-day locations and the institutional decisions that prevent me from accessing them. As a researcher, I cannot think of Meredith’s archive as complete but rather as one in an elastic state. Who has said “no” and “not anymore”?"
all told, although this wasn't the book about amaza lee meredith i was hoping to read, it was still a very strong book and included a huge number of reproduced photographs, plans, and scrapbook pages. it felt to me like an opening sally of research into this woman and her work, and i'm hoping that the scholarship about her only continues to increase.