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Play Reading: 'Sophia Hayden Deserves Better'

  • Jamaica Plain Historical Society PO Box 302924 Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 United States (map)

Join us on Zoom for a reading of the play Sophia Hayden Deserves Better by Stephanie Alison Walker. In 1891 a brilliant 23-year-old woman from Jamaica Plain won an architecture contest to design the Woman’s Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. What should have been the start to a flourishing career in architecture became career-ending. Throughout the two-year process of building The Woman’s Building, the architect quietly endured bullying, micromanaging and undermining until she finally spoke up. In a time when women were defined as physically and intellectually weaker than men, her concerns were not only not heard, but she was sent to a sanitarium. Diagnosed with melancholia due to overexertion. Silenced. After the fair, her building was destroyed and she never built another building again. Her name was Sophia Hayden and she deserves better.

Sophia Hayden was born in Santiago, Chile and at the age of 6 was sent to live with relatives in JP. She was the first woman to graduate with a degree in Architecture from the MIT.

Please register to attend via this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dROKhVg7SIG6J6gysgKqIw