Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: E. Maria Roth Architectural Collection, Ms2007-009, Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va.

Acquisition Information

Parts of the E. Maria Roth Architectural Collection were donated to Special Collections in 2006, while the rest was received in 2010.

Processing Information

The processing, arrangement and description of the original E. Maria Roth Architectural Collection occurred in 2007. Items added to this collection were processed from June to July, 2010.

Biographical Information

E. Maria Roth lived in Germany throughout World War II and later immigrated to the United States at age fifteen. She attended Bulkeley High School in Hartford, CT, and became a United States citizen. After receiving a Certificate of Completion from the Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York City in 1956, Roth designed for Robert P. Moran Architects and Engineers in East Orange, New Jersey, until 1958.

From 1974 to 1976, Roth served as a substitute teacher while rewriting and updating the landscape portion of Hopewell Township, New Jersey's city ordinances; performing technical translation of German; and providing civil engineering and architectural work in New Jersey firms. Also in 1976, Roth earned a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture from Rutgers University. From 1976 to 1978, Roth worked for Van Note-Harvey Associates in Princeton, New Jersey, and Parsons Brinckerhoff in New York.

During the late 1970s to the mid nineties, she worked for the state of New Jersey in several departments: the Department of Transportation as an Assistant Landscape Architect, Transportation Planner, and Assistant Architect; the Department of Human Servicers as Senior Architectural Assistant; and the Department of Community Affairs as Construction Code Specialist.

Roth returned to a private architecture firm as a Marketing Associate, Morgan Architecture Inc, in Lawrenceville, NJ, from 1996 to 1997. In 2000, she received a Master of Science from Virginia Tech's department of Landscape Architecture. Roth continued her relation with Virginia Tech as a part time instructor of German in 2005.

Scope and Content

The E. Maria Roth Architectural Collection contains the personal, professional, and project records of an architect working primarily in New Jersey, New York, and Virginia. Documents date from the mid to late twentieth century to the early twenty-first century.

Roth's personal papers include artwork, educational documents, newspaper articles, various notes and sketches, and a resume of her work. The artwork within Roth's personal papers includes intricate paper cut-outs, prints done in linoleum paint, hand-painted cards, and several examples of calligraphy.

The included educational papers extend from Roth's early grammar school days through high school, to her time at Columbia University, Cooper Union, Rutgers University, and finally Virginia Tech. Particularly significant is Roth's grammar school notebook created during the Hitler era in Germany. This social studies/geography notebook, from 1940, mentions Hitler's fifty-first birthday as well as other contemporary political events.

Roth's professional papers include competition information, an application to a professional organization, newspapers from her time as editor of the "New River Free Press," logos Roth designed, and documents from her time at the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in the following series: personal papers, professional papers, and project records. Within these series, folders appear in alphabetical order