Minerva Parker Nichols

Seth A. Doane, the grandfather of Nichols was an architect and went to Chicago when it was an outpost and trading settlement among the Native Americans.

Her father, John W. Doane, died in Murfreesborough, Tennessee, during the Civil War, being a member of an Illinois Volunteer Regiment.

[4] Nichols was the second (after Louise Blanchard Bethune) American female architect who established a very successful, although brief, business and recognition, and the first one who did so without partnership or assistance of a man.

Among some of her important commissions was one for the designing of the International Club House, known as the Queen Isabella Pavilion, at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, in 1893.

She was among the first women to enter the field of architecture and some of the homes in the suburbs of Philadelphia attest to her ability and talent in this line.