Marian Cruger Coffin

Marian Cruger Coffin was one of the first American women to work as a professional landscape architect, and became famous for designing numerous gardens for members of the East Coast elite to whom she had connections through her mothers side of the family. As a child, she received almost no formal education but was hometutored while living with her mothers relatives in upstate New York. Coffin was determined to embark on a career despite the social problems that it would cause for a woman of her class and enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she studied between 19014 as one of only four women in architecture and landscape design.

Coffin was born into a wealthy upperclass family in Scarborough, New York but grew up almost penniless, due to her fathers death from complications of malaria when Marian was seven. During her childhood years, Coffin and her mother lived with relatives in Geneva, New York. She found the beautiful scenery of the area, set in the Finger Lakes of upper New York state, an inspiration she later wrote, even as a small girl, I loved the country, not so much gardens and growing things, for I had no experience with these . . . but simply the great outdoor world.

Source: Wikipedia