Emily Williams and Lillian Palmer

Two notable women in San Francisco who are able to maintain successful professional careers and live independently are architect Emily Williams and her partner, metal artist Lillian Palmer. Emily Williams began as a teacher, but after meeting journalist Lillian Palmer in 1898 she was inspired to pursue architecture. In 1901, Williams and Palmer moved to San Francisco where Williams studied drafting at the California School of Mechanical Arts. Williams was unable to find work in the male-dominated architecture field, so she struck out on her own. Her first project was a vacation home for herself and Palmer in Pacific Grove, which she designed and constructed by hand, with Palmer’s help, in 1904. Williams’ sister, impressed by the cottage, commissioned three more cottages on adjacent lots. These projects led to many other residential buildings in Pacific Grove, Carmel, San Jose, and San Francisco, including homes for Dr. Anna Lukens, one of the first female physicians in the country, and Mrs. Jessie Jordan, wife of Stanford University President David Starr Jordan. The *San Jose Mercury and Herald* commented on Williams’ work in 1906: “Miss Williams’ houses have won her an enviable reputation. . . . They are not only beautiful and artistic, but convenient, livable and planned to save steps and with places to put things.”

In 1908, Williams and Palmer travelled to Europe where Williams studied classical architecture and Palmer practiced metal work. When they returned to San Francisco, Williams and Palmer shared a house with Palmer’s parents at 1476 Willard Street until Williams designed a home for the two of them at 1037-39 Broadway, completed in 1913. Williams and Palmer live together in the Broadway house still; the 1920 census sheet lists Williams as “head” and Palmer as “boarder”. The women also shared a Williams-designed vacation home in the Santa Cruz Mountains called “Wake Robin”.

Lillian Palmer was an equally successful businesswoman. After returning from Europe, she opened The Palmer Shop at 1345 Sutter, where she manufactured and sold metal art, becoming known as San Francisco’s “woman blacksmith” and one of the most well-regarded metal artists in the west. In 1915, Palmer and Williams received a commission from the women-owned Garnet Mining & Manufacturing Company of Minnesota to design an exhibition booth for the Panama�Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco; Palmer designed the light fixtures for the exhibit. The *San Francisco Chronicle* praised Palmer’s work in 1917: “Miss Palmer leads one of the most successful electric fixtures organizations in this vicinity … Its substantial and widespread success is indicated by the fact that its electric fixtures are sought for and shipped to New York, Alaska and Mexico. Palmer was active in the suffrage movement and was an ardent advocate for women in business. In 1916, she co-founded and was the first president of the Business and Professional Women’s Club of San Francisco, originally headquartered at 54 Kearny Street but moved to 575 Market Street last year. Palmer was quoted as saying, “Women in business must play the game as men have established it.”