A new database is tracking the contributions of women to the architecture of Illinois thanks to a yearlong survey project by one of the state’s most important preservation authorities.

Landmark Illinois has just released its new Women Who Built Illinois database with an initial list of over 100 names that spans the years between 1879 and 1979 – a century whose physical lineage was shaped rather substantially by the hands of many prominent female architects and designers.

“This new database recognizes those who laid the path for women today and who continue to impact the built environment of Illinois and Chicago,” Landmarks Illinois Director of Advocacy Lisa DiChiera said in a statement. “We hope students and professionals in architecture, planning and public history will be inspired to study these women, their careers and built works.”

Architects like Nancy Abshire and Margaret Zirkel Young make up the list of women who paved the way for Jeanne Gang and others at a time when entry into the profession was even more limited than it is today. The database also lists trailblazers like Georgia Louise Harris Brown, the second Black woman to become a licensed architect in the U.S, Mary Ann Elizabeth Crawford, a renown draftsperson one of the first women to study architecture at MIT, and Gertrude Lempp Kerbis, the Chicago O’Hare rotunda designer who in 1967 founded her own practice after working for years in the offices of C.F. Murphy Associates and SOM.

“I never questioned being in a room with all men and no women,” Zirkel Young said. “I knew from the time of my first drafting class at Senn High School I wanted to be an architect. A favorite Goethe quote I would return to throughout my career was, ‘Boldness has genius.’”

Landmarks Illinois is now seeking the public’s help in identifying more women with ties to the state that have contributed to the field.  Research on existing entrants can also be forwarded to DiChiera, who spearheaded the project, at LDiChiera@Landmarks.org. The entire database can be accessed here.