Una Nixson Hopkins

(1869 - 1956)

Una Nixson Hopkins, born in Denison, Iowa, was a widowed and working single mother. She had studied art in Paris and was a leading writer and designer described in a 1910 Herald Tribune article as “one of the most successful women writers of the West.” Over many years Hopkins contributed short stories and articles on interior design and architecture to many magazines, notably The Ladies Home Journal, House Beautiful, The Craftsman, and Country Life in America. Hopkins was an anomaly within the community of male-dominated Art Direction. Between 1905 and 1929 a brief period existed when women participated at all levels of silent filmmaking. With the rise of the studio system art departments were reimagined as formal architectural workrooms staffed by trained “gentlemen” architects. I n 1915 Hopkins was hired to be the Supervising Art Director for the Oliver Morosco Photoplay Company, where she made many pictures. In the early 1920s she went on to supervise Reelart’s department and later Thomas H. Ince’s third and final studio in Culver City.