Maude Darling-Parlin’s Civic Buildings

Maude Frances Darling-Parlin (1885 – 1979) graduated from MIT’s architecture program in 1907. Her thesis project was the design of a community dining hall, which she said was a solution to “the present economic problems which confront housewives.” She continued her studies at the Pratt Institute in New York. Maude Darling and her brother George S. Darling were the third generation of architects in their family.

In 1910, Darling married Raymond W. Parlin, a fellow MIT graduate. They would have three children. In 1921, Darling-Parlin joined the family architecture firm in Fall River, Massachusetts, and a few years later, Darling-Parlin and her brother took over their father and grandfather’s firm and renamed it Darling and Parlin. Darling-Parlin’s husband died in 1924, leaving her the sole means of support for their children.

The Buffington Building in 1928, after the fire (Fall River Historical Society)

Business for the firm exploded after Fall River experienced a catastrophic fire in 1928. Over the course of her career, in addition to about a hundred homes, Darling-Parlin designed a number of civic buildings including the Buffington Building, the Durfee and other theaters, and religious meeting houses, banks, and schools.

Temple Beth-El, Fall River, MA (Kenneth C. Zirkel, 2017, CC 4.0I)

Although Darling and Parlin flourished during boom times, it was not immune from national events. During the 1930s, Darling-Parlin worked for the new Historic American Buildings Survey  (HABS) documenting existing conditions of historic buildings. This new program was created by the Works Progress Administration to provide jobs to unemployed architects and photographers during the Depression.  Darling-Parlin remained involved in historic preservation efforts, restoring and saving several architecturally significant homes in the New England.

During World War II, Darling-Parlin worked for the War Department in Newport, Rhode Island. Her work there included helping to design the officer’s club on the naval base there.

Darling-Parlin’s career spanned nearly 70 years. She retired in 1975 at age 91. She died in 1979. You can see some of her drawings and more photos of her work on the MIT Museum’s website.

To see other female designers’ ideas for reducing domestic drudgery, read about Alice Constance Austin’s City Plan that had one (fully staffed) kitchen per 1,000 residents, and Frances Gabe’s Self-Cleaning House.

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Sources:

Sarah Allaback, The First American Women Architects (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2008).

NPS, Maude Darling-Parlin Architecture in Fall River.

MIT, Maude Parlin Collection.