About the Project

This research project began in 2011 as a master's thesis (M.S., Historic Preservation), which was published in 2012 as Specialization and Significance: Assessing the Career and Works of Minerva Parker Nichols (Master's thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 2012). My advisor, Aaron Wunsch of the University of Pennsylvania, was a tremendous help in thinking through Minerva’s work and importance.

As I have continued the project in the decade since—pulling on each thread in a growing network of people, buildings, and professional associations connected to Minerva Parker Nichols—I have benefited tremendously from the interest and expertise of many others, particularly Bill Whitaker and Heather Isbell Schumacher of the Architectural Archives at Penn, the Trainer family, and several property owners for Minerva-designed buildings. Most importantly, this project took on new life when I connected with Minerva Parker Nichols' own descendants—especially Carrie Baker, her great-granddaughter, who maintains much of the family’s surviving collection related to Minerva.

In recent years, I have benefited from a fellowship with the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation; with their support (and the creativity of several collaborators), I produced a podcast series and companion video shorts.

In 2020, the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage awarded a grant to the Architectural Archives at Penn to support an exhibit about Minerva’s life and work. The project is led by Bill Whitaker and Heather Isbell Schumacher; Elizabeth Felicella is the architectural photographer, and I am the lead historian for the exhibit and its associated book. As part of the exhibition prep, Bill Whitaker and others have conducted significant original research on Minerva’s portfolio; that research is reflected on the individual commission pages of this website.

This project to (re)discover Minerva is an ongoing one; the research continues (with contributions from several different researchers), and this website will evolve as we learn more about Minerva Parker Nichols' life and work. I am grateful to everyone involved for their shared passion for, and contributions to, this work.

About the Researcher

Margaret (Molly) Lester is the Associate Director of the Urban Heritage Project at the University of Pennsylvania's Stuart Weitzman School of Design. In addition to her role with the Urban Heritage Project, Molly was a 2019/20 Fellow for the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation based on her media project related to Minerva Parker Nichols. She is also a 2020 grantee of the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania.

Previously, she worked as a freelance architectural historian and preservation planner, an editorial assistant for the University of Pennsylvania’s Change Over Time journal, a national program director for Partners for Sacred Places, and an architectural historian/historic tax credit consultant for Heritage Consulting Group. She is an occasional contributor to the Hidden City Daily, an online publication covering design and preservation issues in Philadelphia, a former co-chair of the steering committee for the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance, and the founder of the InKind Baking Project.

She holds a Master of Science in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Architectural History from the University of Virginia.

Significant additional research has been conducted by William (Bill) Whitaker and Heather Isbell Schumacher of the Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania, and by Elizabeth Sexton of the University of Pennsylvania.