They’re not opposed to hiring men. Good men. Men who show up, do the work, understand the concept of sensitive deconstruction. But they better write a darn good cover letter, Mae Bowley, executive director of the currently all-female crew of Re:Purpose Savannah says, tongue in cheek.
They better love wood and believe in historic preservation. They better know that pound for pound old-growth wood is stronger than steel.
“See this?” Bowley says, pointing to the rings on a piece of framing her all-female crew salvaged from an old house. “This is from the late 18th-century. It’s a beautiful thing. I love old houses, but I really love old wood.”
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
That is exactly the kind of thing Bowley wants to keep out of the landfill. That is what she wants to see gently removed, properly processed, sold and reused.
That her crew of five working in the processing bay is all women is beside the point. Or maybe not. Aside from the stigma or the idea that construction is strictly a macho job only men can do, there’s nothing in the industry that is gender specific, that can’t be taught. But sometimes working with an all-male crew is detrimental to learning.
Men, said Bowley, tend to take over. They would rather do it themselves. They’re not so good at sharing information. It’s not in their ethos to ask for help.
“If something involves body strength and it takes six of us to remove something, to lift something, that’s what we’ll do,” Bowley said. Beyond that anyone can learn to use a circular saw to trim rotten wood, to manipulate a crow bar to remove nails.
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
The statistics in the industry are kind of ridiculous, Bawley said. Six percent of construction workers are women “and 1.5 of them are in the field.”
When Bowley, who is 35, grew up, her mother was the handy one in the household, the brawny one. She laughs when she says her dad “didn’t know one end of the hammer from the other. He would rather sit around in his slippers with a glass of wine.”
Katie Kitzhugh, 27, Bowley’s assistant director in charge of deconstruction, had the opposite experience. She grew up in Montana where her dad didn’t hesitate to teach her to use tools. They lived in an 1898 historic Queen Anne house that always needed repairs. With an MFA in historic preservation (and degrees in cultural anthropology and history, specifically colonial American studies), she wanted to make her hobby a career.
It confuses people to see only women on a job, Bowley said. If they drive by the site they stop their car to watch the crew. When they don’t see men on the job they stop and ask, “Hey, what’s going on here?”
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
Bowley started with academics. She got a master of art in education from the Art Institute of Chicago followed by degrees in graphic design and classical archeology from Florida State University.
In Savannah, she opened her own creative brand company but following her passion and looking for more hands-on experience she started taking classes in historic preservation and restoration at Savannah Technical College. Then, since most roads involving historic renovation lead to Scott Boylston, the mover and shaker behind the nonprofit Emergent Structures, her career trajectory changed again. She started volunteering with Boylston’s group. Three years ago, she became Re-Purpose’s executive director. That’s when the group started transitioning from theory to service provider.
“We are the only people doing this,” she said. “We tear it down, mill it and sell it.”
This is a woman who loves her job.
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
Credit: Jane Fishman / For Savannah Morning News
“And why not?” she said, gesturing to the 100 acres of expansive, pristine marsh that surrounds the yard where the women work. The business and the covered bay filled with wood waiting for attention and new beginnings sits at the end of E. Gwinnett St. It used to house tour buses and materials for Daniel Lumber.
“I love the idea of a 12-year-old girl seeing what we’re doing and thinking, ‘Hey, maybe I could do that.’”
Jane Fishman is a contributing lifestyles columnist for the Savannah Morning News. Contact her at gofish5@earthlink.net or call 912-484-3045. See more columns by Jane at SavannahNow.com/lifestyle/.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: The women of Re:Purpose Savannah are reclaiming wood and history without a man's help
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