Description: This paper will consider the life of Julia Morgan, in a comparative framework with other 20th century female architects whose lives were marked by a passion for education. Julia Morgan practiced during the first half of the 20th century and designed some remarkable buildings that were envisaged to support women's education and social and economic development. Morgan was a remarkable woman whose own early educational experience had left her with a commitment to progressive educational ideas. There was no School of Architecture on the west coast during the 1890s so Morgan studied engineering at the College of Civil Engineering at the University of California. She was the first woman graduate and finished at the top of her "male" class. Her subsequent efforts to qualify as an architect took her to Europe, to the Ecole des Beaux Arts, which was at that time impenetrable to women. She graduated at 30 years of age and returned to the USA to practice. Before she left Paris she completed her first commission, a grand salon, for a woman, Harriet Fearing. This commitment to women continued for the entire length of her practice and the list of designs for Progressive women is enormous. Many of the women in the Progressive movement of the time were committed to early childhood education and many of the homes and schools Morgan designed were in keeping with this concern. One of the school buildings she designed for Mills College (a women's college in CA) has become The Julia Morgan School for Girls and continues to be a legacy to her life, her architecture, and her concern for women. Methodology: Archives held at the following institutions will be explored: Julia Morgan Manuscript Collection, Robert E. Kennedy Library, California Polytechnic State University, St. Luis Obispo, USA Avery Library at Columbia University, New York, USA Documents Collection, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley, USA Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, USA Conclusions: Julia Morgan was a pioneering woman in her profession. The paper will explore the relationship between her professional life and the ideas of progressive education supported through networks of individuals who were working for social justice and educational transformation. The relationships she forged with such individuals, and her design for buildings that might act as signs of progress and transformation in the lives of women, will be the focal point of the paper.