Citation

Blossom NH, Turpin JC. J. Inter. Des. 2008; 34(1): 1-13.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Interior Design Educators Council, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1939-1668.2008.00003.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper explores the idea of “risk” by examining the role of three women in interior design in the twentieth century (Elsie de Wolfe, 1865–1950; Dorothy Draper, 1888–1969; and Sister Parish, 1929–1994). Women’s roles as arbiters of taste were consistent with the social construction of the female gender at the turn of the century; that these roles involved risk—the perception of possible loss or injury—is, for the most part, overlooked by social historians.