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About Me

Willa Granger is a built environment historian of modern and contemporary U.S. cultural landscapes. Her work uses “everyday” architecture to tell larger social stories, often seeking the voices of those beyond the ken of traditional building production. Willa’s dissertation and first book project, Constructing Old Age: Race, Ethnicity, Religion and the Architecture of Homes for the Aged, 1870-1965, unearths the architectural and social history of the contemporary nursing home. This research relies upon the built environment to consider the ethics of aging, ageism, and age segregation: what does American society owe its oldest citizens, and to whom does this responsibility fall in material practice? Granger completed her doctoral degree at the University of Texas at Austin in May of 2021. She is presently a Fellow-in-Residence at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, where she will begin a project examining the implications of COVID-19 on the future of eldercare design.

Recent Publications

Peer-reviewed Articles

2020 [Accepted MS] “Eldercare at the Margins: Keeping Up to Code at Philadelphia’s Stephen Smith Home, 1949-1966,” special edition to PMHB The Built Environment in Pennsylvania History, guest-editing by Randall Mason and Lily Milroy

2019  “’Order, Convenience, and Beauty:’ The Style, Space, and Multiple Narratives of San Felipe Courts,” in Buildings & Landscapes 26, no. 1 (Spring 2019): 32-47

* Winner of the Southeastern Society of Architectural Historian’s Best Article Award, 2019-2020

* Recently republished, with permission, through Cite Digital:

https://www.ricedesignalliance.org/sanfelipecourts

 

Book Chapters

2019  “The Kelmscott Press and the Modern Popular Book,” in The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America, Monica Penick and Christopher Long, ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, in association with the Harry Ransom Center, 2019).

2019  “Ordering Arts and Crafts: Leila Ross Wilburn’s Plan-Book Bungalows,” in The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America, Monica Penick and Christopher Long, ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, in association with the Harry Ransom Center, 2019).

 

Book Reviews

2021  Forthcoming: “Review: Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia,” in Arris (Winter 2021).

2017  “Review: The Modernist Architecture of Samuel G. And William B. Wiener,” in the Louisiana Historical Association 58, no. 4 (Winter 2017): 488-490.

 

Digital Work

2020   “The Texan City by Transit: Lone Star Seniors and the White House Community Forums on Aging,” Metropole, September 2020

2020  “Viewing, Watching, Observing: Aging and the Architecture of Liminal Space,” Platform, July 2020,

https://www.platformspace.net/home/viewing-watching-observing-aging-and-the-architecture-of-intermediate-space

2020  “Homebound: Learning from One Old Age Home,” in the Architectural League’s Urban Omnibus, June 2020, https://urbanomnibus.net/2020/06/homebound/

2019  “The Eyes of Texas are Upon You,” Platform, August 2019, https://www.platformspace.net/home/the-eyes-of-texas-are-upon-you

2017  “Blythe Intaglios”, [Blythe, California], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CA-01-065-9999. Last accessed: October 22, 2020.

“Crystal River Archaeological State Park”, [Crystal River, Florida], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/FL-01-017-9999. Last accessed: October 22, 2020.

“Devils Tower, Devils Tower National Monument”, [Devils Tower, Wyoming], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WY-01-011-9999. Last accessed: October 22, 2020.

“Gulf Coast Tribes”, [Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/essays/PF-01-ART001. Last accessed: October 22, 2020.

“Mount Royal”, [Crescent City, Florida], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/FL-01-107-9999. Last accessed: October 22, 2020

“Shiloh Indian Mounds”, [Shiloh, Tennessee], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TN-01-071-9999. Last accessed: October 22, 2020.

 

Editorial Experience

2018   Editorial Assistant to Dr. Christopher Long on The Rise of Everyday Design (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).

2016 Editorial Assistant to Dr. Anthony Alofsin on Wright in New York (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019)

Media Coverage

Social Media

Country Focus

United States

Expertise by Geography

North America, United States

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century, 21st century

Expertise by Topic

Art & Architectural History, Disability, Family, Local & Regional, Material Culture, Medicine, Migration & Immigration, Military, Politics, Public History, Slavery, Technology, Urban History