Honoring Pathbreaking Architects Ida Annah Ryan and Isabel Roberts
Thursday, March 9, 2023, 8 – 10 a.m.
On March 9, the History Center presents its fourth annual Women’s History Month Breakfast, honoring pathbreaking Orlando architects Ida Annah Ryan and Isabel Roberts.
The program will feature the short 2022 documentary film, “Pavilion on the Water,” highlighting especially Roberts’ role in Ryan and Roberts’ design for the 1924 bandstand at Orlando’s Lake Eola Park. The film was produced in 2022 by the Grace Arts Center with support from a Florida Historical Resources Board grant and the Orlando Foundation for Architecture (OFA) and features Central Florida historians and architects.
The film and following panel discussion will highlight the achievements of these two remarkable women and the obstacles they faced as architects in a profession in which women continue to be in the minority.
Presented in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Orange County and the OFA, the 2023 breakfast continues a series of Women’s History Month Celebrations that have honored Mary McLeod Bethune, educator and civil rights activist, Mabel Norris Reese, the crusading Central Florida journalist who fought for justice in the Jim Crow South, and Mary Anne Carroll, who broke barriers through her art as the sole woman among the legendary Florida artists known as the Highwaymen.
Proceeds for the event help support the programs of the History Center, especially our paid HERstory: Women in History Internship.
Doors open at 8 a.m. with a breakfast buffet, coffee, and conversation, followed by a program at 9 a.m. Tickets are $35. Parking for History Center visitors is available at the Library Garage, 112 E. Central Blvd.
