Draft:Annie Raeburn Cobb

Annie (Raeburn) Cobb (1830-1911) was a self taught American Architect who helped create a style of suburban home in the Boston suburb of Newton, MA. She designed and supervised the construction of at least 20 houses in South Boston and in Newton, many of which are still standing, despite having no formal training, no mentor, and no office. Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation

Ann M Raeburn Cobb

1830.Augustana Cobb.Sewell Cobb married.Ann Margaretta Cobb

while Annie Cobb remained in Boston. (1851-1911),Anne Raeburn Cobb

Fair.World's Columbian Exposition

Early Life

Annie Raeburn was born in 1830 in Warren Maine. Her father was Dr. Thomas Raeburn, a Scottish Physician who was born in 1796 and died in 1834 when Annie was 3 years old. Her born in 1800 and died in 1886. Cobb was raised by her mother alongside her three half brothers under considerable financial hardship.Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation

Annie Raeburn married a neighbor, Sewell Chapman Cobb, who was born in 1829and in 1850 they moved to Boston- to South Boston. Sewell Chapman Cobb died in 1902.

Her first house was in 1852, at 50 Telegraph Street which she worked on with her husband but her first solo house was in 1875, which is 10 years after the first school of architecture opened in the United States (MIT- 1965) and 4 years before the first woman graduated from architecture school in 1879 (University of Illinois).

In the early 1860s she and her husband built four more houses in South Boston on East 7th Street. As a couple, they were involved in social clubs and reading clubs.

They had one daughter, Margaretta Cobb, who was born in the 1850s.

During their time in South Boston, her husband’s business was growing. His company shipped ice to the southern United States, and fish back North, but he was also involved in railroads and lumber. He was ambitious and wanted to make money and he supported Annie taking over the building business while he pursued his shipping business.

In 1872 there was the Great Fire in Boston,Great Boston Fire of 1872 which prompted them to buy their first property in Newton.Newton And in 1875 Annie moved with her mother but without her husband who had gone to Florida to work more in building his business to a house she designed and built.

Life and Projects in Newton, MA

Cobb, her mother and her daughter lived at 27 Chester Street which she designed to be similar to the first ones she and her husband built in South Boston. This style was considered ItalianateItalianate,also referred to Victorian,Victorian and was very popular at this time. It is much more simple than the Italianate but has the verticality and box like simple forms of the Victorian era.

61 Forest was her second house that she built for her daughter and her daughter’s husband William Taylor Logan. Also Italianate style.

Third house, 24 Chester Street, she built in 1877 and this was the emergence of the Stick Style in her designs.

Cobb became the director of the Woman's Educational Club in Newton where she had access to pattern books and journals with designs. At the time the Stick Style Stick Stylemovement was very popular from 1860- 1890.

Stick Style had a wide range of influences from English Cottage, Gothic Revival, Swiss Chalet to German Manner. Categorized by flat board banding, applied ornamentation in geometric patterns, asymmetrical floor plans, steeply pitched roofs, and mostly wood although have a great example in Brick- house of Mark Twain House. It’s the first example of modern living where there was some thought put into how a house should function for a family and not for just show or to be managed by servants or purely built up out of necessity.

Her fourth house was her next risky commercial venture but again she was on top of the times because of how Newton was developing. 45-47 Forest Street. These houses she built strictly for rental purposes.

Starting in 1868 Boston pressured the surrounding areas to annex and Roxbury, Charlestown, Brighton, Dorchester and Hyde Park all chose to. Newton and Brookline decided not to.

Invention of the Commuter Suburb As Boston was growing, and through a combination of the invention of the railroad and more importantly in 1840 the invention of the Commutation Ticket, the small city of Newton became a popular location for people to buy homes. Commutation in this case, means the exchange of one thing for another, and in this case it was the exchange of multiple tickets for one single ticket at a reduced price. Commutation TicketThe holder of such a ticket was called a “commuter.”

Additional Works

45-47 Forest Street was design and built in 1880. The house was designed in the Queen Anne Style, and also used as a rental. It had some exceptional detail and costly interior design including wedgewood tiles. Queen Anne Style came back into Vogue in the 1880s and is characterized by asymetical floor plans, dominant front gables, porches and balconies, pediments, different shingles and brickwork, columns, spindles and arched passageways.

Eventually, her daughter moved into the house and then later Cobb moved in with her mother. She and her mother both died there.

But she doesn’t stick with Queen Anne too long and moved quickly to Shingle Style. She moves onto the Shingle Style which brought some of the Colonial Influence back to construction and was a backlash against European Styles right at the time of the Centennial in 1876.

Cobb only designed in the Queen Anne style for a short period. She designed 16 Chester, 1886 which has since been demolished in the Shingle Style. Shingle Style- very much an HH Richardson style, it fought off the ornamentation of the Queen Anne but kept the complex massing and play with materials on the exterior. It did focus on the interior and brought true planning to the asymmetry of the previous style by creating flow. There was considerable thought to all spaces, including how a stair could create a place in the family’s life. Piano, sitting area, place for books.

Other houses include 10 Chester, Built 1887, and 5 Chester, built 1890.

Three well known men of American Architecture:

Annie Cobb was working right at the same time as Henry Hobson Richardson (HH Richardson) 1838-1886, Louis Sullivan 1856-1924, Frank Lloyd Wright 1867-1959 inventing her own version of the American Domestic Style of Architecture.

The World's Columbian Exposition

Cobb design and built 4 Chester Street H.C. Robinson, an attorney in 1889 for a client, H.C. Robinson, an attorney, and this was the house that was exhibited in the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago of 1893 and was published in Scientific American Architects and Builders Edition Volume XV of February 1893. This house cost $6500 to build. That was a lot of money at the time. She was in the “Constructive Architecture” Women’s Pavilion and she was the only one there showing actual built work in addition to drawings. The other women there were all 30 years younger (She is 63 at this time) and are recent graduates.

Later Works Her later projects were all built for around $3,000 and were for either rental or sale. 55 Hillside built 1891 as rental 49 Hillside built 1895 as rental 43 Hillside built 1895 as rental 37 Hillside, 1896 for sale 27 Hillside for sale 2 Raeburn Terrace, 1896, as rental 25 Hillside built in 1903 was her last house.

Death Cobb moved into 45-47 Chester and she died in 1911 at age of 81.