The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-19
REAL


 gestion to Josephine Wright Chap
 A man. She is much more like the sturdy oak. She is the most successful woman in commercial life in America, ana yet she says her life has been un- successful Money does not satisfy her. She has ideals and has always had them Most women would have been content with a portion of what Miss Chapman has achieved. But then most women are not like Miss Chapman.
 She Is a good evidence of the fact that wealth and influence play little part in the making of a successful woman. It depends upon the woman, and the wom- an solely, whether she succeeds or fails. Miss Chapman comes of family of wealth and influence and well established social position. She could have passed her life in ease, comfort and luxury if she had so desired. She did not want luxury with ease. She wanted to he a bread winner. and not only bread win ner. but a person of consequence in the world
 She had no particular training for business, no education for any profess sional line, but had a fancy for architec- ture, so she determined to become an architect. Twenty years ago she entered the office of a concern in Boston as an ap- prentice. She could not start any lower down. First she traced the drawings of others. Then she learned how to draft plans herself. She worked all day and for several hours at night. What she picked up each day was the practical side. What she studied at night was the technical, the engineering, the mathema- tical end of her business. Her tutor was Q graduate of the famous Beaux Arts in Paris, man of fine artistic sense, an artist.
 The average apprentice is inclined to ~xt,t t<-Ir e1...x. I'M shirking or skimming or skipping about this young woman She was ambitious earnest, faithful. She was determined to be an Independent being, to make a name for herself and a position for her self She determined to be handicapped in no sense by reason of her sex. She never has been. She felt then, and all ways has felt that architecture Is a pro- fession in which the work counts for itself. It does not matter in the least whether a woman does it or man.
 She had been an apprentice six months when somebody in the office had small job that he could not attend to or that was of such minor importance that he did not care to attend to 1t. He turned 1t over to Miss Chapman. There was no architectural distinction about the par ticular structure, but there have not been many little houses in New England that have received more attention in planning l the beginning of the woman's life work. Even then she had a thorough grasp of every detail of her work. The person ( who got that house got an excellent job.
 It was not long after that before those around her began to discover that she had great natural ability in her chosen field-that her ideas were right and that she had fine appreciation of the prac- tical and of the artistic. More business came to her. The more she got the-more. she seemed to be able to accomplish.
 One year after she entered the archi- tectural field she attained such a posi- ton that she got the order to build one of the dormitories of Harvard university This was the first structure that she built. The structure cost s75000 or ESQ., 0n0 As a result of her success with this commission lot of orders came pouring in. One was for a church that cost $50.- tuo ..sounel was for an apartment hotel that represented several hundred thou- sand dollars: another was an office structure in Boston. to cost ss5o,00o. After that followed a club house in Worcester costing $90,000, and another in Lynn cost ing about the same. In one of these E clubhousese was a big auditorium capa-l ble of accommodating nearly 1000 people. Within the first two years after she started in business her orders aggregated / nearly s750000. This brought an income to her of nearly $20,00O year gross. The first big office building she put up was so satisfactory that the field was open to her for a lot of other work in this particular line.
 At first she was delighted with the profits that came from this branch of construction work. But this did not sat .isfy her for long. While 1t was an un- heard of thing before Miss Chapnnans advent into this work for woman to buhi steel office structures she found it monotonous to plan honeycombs based entirely upon mathematical calculations. The structures were big boxes There was no art, no special beauty. no charm of line in their design. It was merely a matter of figuring I Miss Chapman did not want money alone. She wanted exercise for her ere ative faculties. So she determined to build no more steel framed office struc- lures That is one of the reasons she calls herself unsuccessful. She could have lad big fortune as a builder of sky scrapers, but she does not like sky scrapers, architecturally or otherwise.
 It used to make her tired. and it still makes her tired, to have one say, "Oh. did you do that? How wonderful-for ......s.ssssss,sssssssssss