Professional Interior Designers

When interior design actually became recognized as a profession is a subject for debate. Some scholars believe that interior design was not acknowledged as an independent profession in America until 1897,when Edith Wharton and
Ogden Codman, Jr., published The Decoration of Houses. The authors are considered the first to define the profession as it is viewed today, by clarifying the difference between interior decoration, which deals with surface treatments, and interior design,which encompasses the design of interior spaces.
Elsie de Wolfe, a contemporary of Mrs. Wharton’s and a disciple of her approach, is considered to be one of America’s first professional interior designers. Her expertise, however, was on the side of interior decoration, which she used with great skill in the creation of interiors for the industrialist Henry Clay Frick and other wealthy New York families. She also accepted commissions from the prominent Beaux Arts architect Stanford White.

Early twentieth-century women who are also considered among the first design professionals are Nancy McClelland, who brought design services to the general public through the decorating department she established atWanamaker’s department store in Manhattan; and Eleanor McMillen, whose McMillen, Inc. is considered to be America’s first interior decorating firm.