Candace Wheeler

Candace Wheeler (1827–1923), often credited as the "mother" of interior design, was one of America's first woman interior and textile designers. She is famous for helping to open the field of interior design to women, supporting craftswomen, and for encouraging a new style of American design. She founded both the Society of Decorative Art in New York City (1877) and the New York Exchange for Women's Work (1878). She was associated with the Colonial Revival, Aesthetic Movement, and the Arts and Crafts Movement throughout her long career, Wheeler was considered a national authority on home decoration. Wheeler is also noted for designing the interior of the Women's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, IL.

Candace Wheeler was born Candace Thurber on March 24, 1827 in Delhi, New York west of the Catskill Mountains. Her parents were Abner and Lucy Thurber. Candace was the third born of eight siblings: Lydia Ann Thurber(1824-?), Charles Stewart Thurber (1826–1888), Horace Thurber (1828–1899), Lucy Thurber (1834–1893), Millicent Thurber (1837–1838), Abner Dunham Thurber (1839–1899), and Francis Beattie Thurber (1842–1907).

Wheeler led a happy a childhood, though she expressed annoyance at how their father raised them "a hundred years behind the time" (6, Peck and Irish). Her father was strictly Presbyterian but also a strict abolitionist. He ensured that the family never used any product made by slaves. So concerned was this endeavor of Abner, that the family used homemade maple sugar instead of cane sugar and linen woven from flax they grew on their farm instead of southern cotton. Looking back, Candace was convinced their farm had been a stop on the underground railroad.

Candace attended an "infant school" where at age six she stitched her first sampler. Around age 11 or 12, Candace began attending Delaware Academy in Delhi.

On a trip to New York City in 1843, Candace met Thomas Mason Wheeler (1818-1895). Within a year, they married. Eventually, the couple had four children.

In 1876, Wheeler visited the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. She was deeply impressed by the Royal School of Art Needlework's display. But it was not the artistry of the needlework that inspired Wheeler. She was interested in needlework as a woman-run business that benefited women.

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