Julia Morgan, (born January 20, 1872, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died February 2, 1957, San Francisco), one of the most prolific and important woman architects ever to work in the United States.

Morgan was born into a prosperous family. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in engineering in 1894 and then studied architecture privately under the local architect Bernard Maybeck, who encouraged her aspirations. Morgan went to Paris in 1896 and in 1898 became the first woman to be enrolled in the architecture section of the École des Beaux-Arts, from which she graduated in 1902. Returning to California, she became the first woman in the state to be granted an architect’s license.