Her work graces museums, galleries, and private collections all over the world. She has published 10 books on the technique of art quilting: stitching together layers of cloth into a kind of painting made of fabric. And while she was at MIT, Ruth Beckley McDowell pieced together the Institute’s first varsity sport for women.
McDowell had aimed to be an architect, and that narrowed her college choices. “If you wanted to stay in New England, there was MIT and Yale, and Yale didn’t take women,” she recalls. Plus, her father, Lawrence Beckley ’42, was an executive officer at MIT’s Center for Space Research. However, during McDowell’s undergrad years, the Institute changed the architecture course from a five-year bachelor’s degree to a six-year bachelor’s and master’s program. “I decided four years was enough,” McDowell admits. Having completed the core courses, she changed her major to art and design.
Outside of class, McDowell was drawn to the river. “That was one of those wonderful things about the Institute—you could go across the street and go sailing any time you wanted to, April to November,” she says. She helped organize a women’s sailing team that raced against Radcliffe, Brown, Tufts, and BU. “We did quite well, and we requested varsity status. There was some opposition,” she says. But they persevered and earned the support of the school.
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