Retired City of Philadelphia architect Marilyn Kagan, age 94, recently published her memoirs in Notes, the journal of the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association. We were eager to read the article, because Marilyn is a dear friend. We see her photograph every day on the fridge in CreativeFuture’s office kitchen!

Our CEO, Ruth Vitale, met Marilyn in April 2017, when they argued about a pending piece of copyright legislation over email. No one who knows either Ruth or Marilyn will be surprised to hear that their spirited debate soon turned into a warm friendship!

Our readers loved learning about Marilyn when we interviewed her in 2019, so we want to highlight her newly published reminiscences and share updates from recent years. In addition, Marilyn generously took a break from jewelry making – a retirement hobby she has enjoyed for over 30 years – to answer a few additional questions about her highly interesting and unconventional life.

Marilyn’s Newly Published Memoirs

Marilyn was born in 1930 to Ukrainian American Jewish parents in Providence, Rhode Island. Over nine decades, she has broken glass ceilings at her synagogue, university, and workplaces.

Marilyn participated in Jewish cultural organizations before Israel was a country, staged plays to raise funds for U.S. forces during World War II, helped Soviet Refuseniks make new lives in the U.S. or Israel, and served as the president of a Jewish women’s cultural organization. In 1976, at age 46, Marilyn became the first woman at her Conservative synagogue in Philadelphia to have a bat mitzvah.

Before training as an architect, Marilyn managed a post office branch and worked as a cartographer, first for the U.S. Army Map Service and later for Philadelphia’s Redevelopment Authority. She took night classes for nine years, and in 1972, she became the first woman to earn an architecture degree from Drexel University.

Marilyn interviewed with SEVEN firms before landing her first job as an architect. One manager, after reviewing her portfolio with great interest, explained, “We don’t hire women” (page 90).

As an architect and civil servant, Marilyn designed the sewers under the Philadelphia Zoo, worked on projects for Philadelphia’s St. Agnes Hospital, and made federal building bathrooms accessible for people with disabilities.

A true Renaissance woman, Marilyn has drawn maps of China, sketched the ruins in Athens, painted a portrait of renowned architect Louis Kahn (1901-1974) as well as her own self-portrait, and planned a public park.

Today, in retirement –  although her time and talents remain in high demand – Marilyn leads a book group for community members in Providence and crafts beautiful jewelry, earning her the moniker “The Busy Beader.”

Q&A with Marilyn

CreativeFuture: Marilyn, you have done so many interesting things in your life, and you’re still as busy and active as ever. How have you kept your energy level up all these years?

Marilyn Kagan: Centrum Silver. I’m serious. Also, keeping busy with obligations is important, with things one promises to do, and things that one likes to do.

CF: We’ve never actually told our readers how you and Ruth met and then became friends. Could you tell the story, from your point of view?

MK: I don’t remember! Maybe I saw something online that needed an answer and added my two cents. Ask Ruth! [Editor: As you already read above, we did! Ruth still has the email Marilyn sent her.]

From then on, we used to meet in Boston when she’d come in each December, and it was fun to get together. We email often, and sometimes Ruth calls me when she’s on the road, which makes me nervous.

CF: You overcame quite a lot of sexism in your lifetime, but you typically met it with grace and, frankly, smart strategy. I’m thinking, for instance, about how you pointedly left a slice of cake on your boss’ desk the day after he asked you, a professional architect, to make a coffee run for the whole office (pages 91-92). That quiet gesture solved the problem! Could you share some insights about responding to incidents like this one? How did you decide what to do?

MK: My responses to each surprise situation were always immediate. Sometimes they were snide. Politeness wasn’t called for, because the situations weren’t polite. 

Each architectural firm has several departments, and when I was paged by the design department, I thought that perhaps I would be transferred there. Instead, I was asked to bring coffee to that department. I said “OK, call me Max, the office boy!” My department’s supervisor, Ed Cross, the Swedenborgian, picked it up, and I was forever Max to him, even if he saw me on a bus. In return, I called him Red Cross.  At the Water Department a few years later, in the architectural design department, I was asked to serve the coffee, and I told the man that I didn’t study that in school – I studied architecture. Another time, I was asked to bake a cake, and I said that the only thing I bake is chicken. Did they want a chicken?

CF: You worked as a city architect for 20+ years, but you have experience with many artforms: song, dance, theater, portraiture, and more. Could you talk about why the arts have mattered so much in your life?

MK: I can’t imagine life without art. I even illustrated something for my synagogue that’s part of a slide show that’s presented annually, and someone bought and framed the original. When I was a child in school, I remember drawing trees in the blank spaces on my math papers.

CF: The title of your article is “More Than Nine Decades Behind Me!” What are your hopes for the next decade? Do you have any new goals to achieve, perhaps more glass ceilings to break?

I’m part of a 100th anniversary art show at present, with a necklace of 100 beads, and next month it will be part of a silent auction as a fund raiser.  If it doesn’t sell, I’ll wear it.

CF: Based on your experiences, what advice would you give to young artists today?

Before the pandemic, I used to return to my old neighborhood in Philadelphia for the Mother’s Day weekend craft show in a nearby little park. A neighbor, who at that time was the dean of the Drexel University architectural department, came to my craft table with the new class and told me to tell them something, that he was going to get coffee and would be right back. Since there was a long struggle ahead for them, at least 8 years at night, I advised them that, whatever happened, just keep going. Hang in there, and there would be a reward at the end. Later, I joked with the dean, telling him that I could have told them that they, too, could end up selling crafts in a public park! I did tell them to find a job during the day in a related field. Following one’s dream can be expensive, if you can’t finance it by earning a living.