Henrietta May Steinmesch was born in University City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a poultry and feed merchant.
[2] In her last year at university, she was one of four founding members of the Association of Women in Architecture (AWA).
[5] The national organization dissolved in 1964, with local chapters such as the one in Los Angeles remaining.
[1][3] Later she worked on residential projects for Arts and Crafts architect Henry Higby Gutterson (1884-1954), San Francisco's Redevelopment Agency, and established her own Pasadena office in 1953.
[7] Some of Steinmesch's papers are located in the "Association of Women in Architecture Papers, 1928-1992" held by the International Archive of Women in Architecture at the University libraries of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State College in Blacksburg, Virginia.