Pioneer Information
Born in Chicago, Illinois, McAdams spent one year studying at the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) in 1899 before enrolling at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Division of Landscape Architecture (now Department of Landscape Architecture) in 1912. One of the first women admitted into the program, she earned a B.S. in Landscape Architecture four years later. She subsequently worked as a draftsman for landscape architect Warren H. Manning in North Billerica, Massachusetts, and as a landscape architect in Melbourne, Florida. In 1918 she accepted a teaching associate position at the University of Illinois, teaching courses on landscape design and plant identification. In 1927 McAdams collaborated on the book, Improving Small Home Grounds in Illinois with University of Illinois landscape architecture associates. She worked at the university until 1928, returning to Chicago the following year where she entered private practice.
In 1935 McAdams joined the Chicago Park District as a landscape architect where she designed several significant landscapes across the city, including the sunken Women鈥檚 Garden located at the convergence of Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance (1936, destroyed 2021). She also contributed to the design of the Japanese Garden on Jackson Park鈥檚 Wooded Island, the plantings surrounding the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, and a sunken garden at Northwestern University鈥檚 Settlement House (1930s). In 1947 McAdams returned to private practice, working out of Northbrook, Illinois, where she worked across the North Shore suburbs of Chicago and occasionally served as a subconsultant for landscape architect Gertrude Deimel Kuh until retiring in the early 1960s.
Throughout her career McAdams lectured at garden clubs, and in 1928 and 1932 she led groups of men and women on three-month tours through Italy, Switzerland, France, and England. She was a founding member of the Landscape Gardening Association for Professional Women and served as secretary for the Chicago Club of Landscape Architects. McAdams became a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1955. She passed away in Evanston, Illinois, at the age of 86.
