Florence Luscomb

Florence Luscomb
Florence Luscomb selling The Woman's Journal, 1911.
Born	Florence Hope Luscomb (1887-02-06)February 6, 1887 Lowell, Massachusetts
Died	October 13, 1985(1985-10-13) (aged 98) Emerson Convalescent Home in Watertown, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Occupation	Architect, Activist for Woman Suffrage
Known for	1909, 1910 MIT degrees in architecture

Florence Hope Luscomb (1887–1985) was an American architect and women's suffrage activist in Massachusetts. She was one of the first ten women to graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with her degrees in architecture. Luscomb became a partner in an early woman-owned architecture firm before work in the field became scarce during World War I. She then dedicated herself fully to activism in the women's suffrage movement, becoming a prominent leader of Massachusetts suffragists.

Luscomb was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Otis and Hannah Skinner (Knox) Luscomb. He father was an unsuccessful artist. Her mother was a dedicated suffragist and women's right activist. At her age one and a half, her parents separated and she moved with her mother to Boston, while her older brother Otis Kerro Luscomb lived with their father. As a child in Boston, she went with her mother to women's suffrage events, at one point seeing Susan B. Anthony speak. She became an ardent suffragist, starting by selling a pro-suffrage newspaper on the street.

Luscomb was among the first ten women to earn a degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Women still experienced significant challenges during her tenure there. For example, Luscomb had to inquire at twelve firms before one of them would hire her for an internship after her second year. Following her graduation, she was hired by Ida Annah Ryan, sixth woman to earn an architecture degree from M.I.T. She would later become a partner in Ryan's firm. Ryan and Luscomb shared an interest in women's suffrage, and Ryan gave Luscomb a degree of flexibility at work that allowed her to be active in the women's suffrage movement. During this time, Luscomb helped organized various events for the suffrage movement, and during a debate on adding a suffrage amendment to the state constitution gave more than 200 speeches in 14 weeks.

She later continued her education in architecture at the newly opened Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in 1916, and began working with local architect Henry Atherton Frost and landscape architect Bremer Whidden Pond in addition to her work with Ryan. Her career was put on hiatus when new construction slumped due to the entrance of the United States into World War I in 1917.