Editing Federal Art Project (section)

==Index of American Design==
{{main|Index of American Design}}
[[File:Index-of-American-Design-Illinois.jpg|left|thumb|220px|Federal Art Project Illinois poster for an exhibition of the Index of American Design]]
{{quotation|As we study the drawings of the Index of American Design we realize that the hands that made the first two hundred years of this country's material culture expressed something more than untutored creative instinct and the rude vigor of a frontier civilization. … The Index, in bringing together thousands of particulars from various sections of the country, tells the story of American hand skills and traces intelligible patterns within that story.|[[Holger Cahill]], national director of the Federal Art Project<ref name="Christensen"/>{{Rp|xv}}}}

The Index of American Design program of the Federal Art Project produced a pictorial survey of the crafts and decorative arts of the United States from the [[Colonial history of the United States|early colonial period]] to 1900. Artists working for the Index produced nearly 18,000 meticulously faithful watercolor drawings,<ref name="When Art Worked"/>{{Rp|226}} documenting material culture by largely anonymous artisans.<ref name="Christensen">{{cite book |last=Cahill |first=Holger |author-link=Holger Cahill |year=1950 |chapter=Introduction |editor1-last=Christensen |editor1-first=Erwin O. |title=The Index of American Design |url=https://archive.org/details/indexofamericand0000chri |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|The Macmillan Company]] |pages=ix–xvii |oclc=217678 }}</ref>{{Rp|ix}} Objects surveyed ranged from furniture, silver, glass, stoneware and textiles to tavern signs, ships's figureheads, cigar-store figures, carousel horses, toys, tools and weather vanes.<ref name="When Art Worked"/>{{Rp|224}}<ref name="Herzberg">{{cite news |last=Herzberg |first=Max |date=October 15, 1950 |title=American Craftsmanship Offers Beauty and Utility  |newspaper=[[Newark Evening News]]  }}</ref> Photography was used only to a limited degree since artists could more accurately and effectively present the form, character, color and texture of the objects. The best drawings approach the work of such 19th-century [[trompe-l'œil]] painters as [[William Harnett]]; lesser works represent the process of artists who were given employment and expert training.<ref name="Christensen"/>{{Rp|xiv}}

"It was not a nostalgic or antiquarian enterprise," wrote historian [[Roger G. Kennedy]]. "It was initiated by modernists dedicated to abstract design, hoping to influence industrial design — thus in many ways it parallelled the founding philosophy of the Museum of Modern Art in New York."<ref name="When Art Worked"/>{{Rp|224}}
[[File:Cahill-Harlem-Community-Art-Center-1938.jpg|right|thumb|220px|[[Holger Cahill]], national director of the Federal Art Project, speaking at the [[Harlem Community Art Center]] (October 24, 1938)]]
Like all WPA programs, the Index had the primary purpose of providing employment.<ref name="NYT Jones">{{cite news |last=Jones |first=Louis C. |date=October 22, 1950 |title=Only Yesterday It Was Wooden Indians and Whittled Toys |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1950/10/22/archives/only-yesterday-it-was-wooden-indians-and-whittled-toys.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2015-10-29 }}</ref> Its function was to identify and record material of historical significance that had not been studied and was in danger of being lost. Its aim was to gather together these pictorial records into a body of material that would form the basis for organic development of American design — a usable American past accessible to artists, designers, manufacturers, museums, libraries and schools. The United States had no single comprehensive collection of authenticated historical native design comparable to those available to scholars, artists and industrial designers in Europe.<ref name="NYT Jewell">{{cite news |last=Jewell |first=Edward Alden |date=March 19, 1939 |title=Saving Our Usable Past |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1939/03/19/archives/saving-our-usable-past-the-index-of-american-design-reviews-its.html |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2015-10-29 }}</ref>

"In one sense the Index is a kind of archaeology," wrote Holger Cahill. "It helps to correct a bias which has tended to relegate the work of the craftsman and the folk artist to the subconscious of our history where it can be recovered only by digging. In the past we have lost whole sequences out of their story, and have all but forgotten the unique contribution of hand skills in our culture."<ref name="Christensen"/>{{Rp|xv}}

The Index of American Design operated in 34 states and the District of Columbia from 1935 to 1942. It was founded by [[Romana Javitz]], head of the Picture Collection of the [[New York Public Library]], and textile designer [[Ruth Reeves]].<ref name="When Art Worked"/>{{Rp|224}} Reeves was appointed the first national coordinator; she was succeeded by C. Adolph Glassgold (1936) and Benjamin Knotts (1940). [[Constance Rourke]] was national editor.<ref name="Christensen"/>{{Rp|xii}} The work is in the collection of the [[National Gallery of Art]] in Washington, D.C.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nga.gov/collection/iad/history/overview.shtm |title=History |website=Index of American Design |publisher=[[National Gallery of Art]] |access-date=2015-10-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151223101058/http://www.nga.gov/collection/iad/history/overview.shtm |archive-date=2015-12-23 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Index employed an average of 300 artists during its six years in operation.<ref name="Christensen"/>{{Rp|xiv}} One artist was Magnus S. Fossum, a longtime farmer who was compelled by the Depression to move from the Midwest to Florida. After he lost his left hand in an accident in 1934, he produced watercolor renderings for the Index, using magnifiers and drafting instruments for accuracy and precision. Fossum eventually received an insurance settlement that made it possible for him to buy another farm and leave the Federal Art Project.<ref name="When Art Worked"/>{{Rp|228}}

In her essay,'Picturing a Usable Past,' Virginia Tuttle Clayton, curator of the 2002-2003 exhibition, ''Drawing on America's Past: Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design'', held at the National Gallery of Art noted that "the Index of American Design was the result of an ambitious and creative effort to furnish for the visual arts a usable past."<ref>''Drawing on America's Past: Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design'' by Virginia Tuttle Clayton, Elizabeth Stillinger, [[Erika Doss]], and Deborah Chotner. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2002.</ref>
<gallery mode="packed" heights="240px">
File:Panel from reredos, church of sanctuario at chimayo 1943.8.6818.jpg|Panel from reredos at the Church of Sanctuario at Chimayo 
File:Fly Catcher.jpg|Fly Catcher, 1937. Frank McEntee. National Gallery of Art
File:Magnus-Fossum-Index-of-American-Design-1940.jpg|Magnus Fossum copying the 1770 ''Boston Town Coverlet'' (February 1940)
File:Boston-Town-Coverlet-Magnus-Fossum-D12855.jpg|''Boston Town Coverlet''<br/>Magnus Fossum (1935–1942)
File:Poke Bonnet.jpg|Poke Bonnet,Irene Lawson. Index of American Design. National Gallery of Art
File:Daguerreotype case 1943.8.9185.jpg|Daguerreotype Case Index of American Design
File:Age of chivalry circus wagon 1943.8.7735.jpg|"Age of Chivalry" Circus Wagon, c. 1938
File:Noah's ark and animals 1943.8.7806.jpg|Noah's Ark with animals
</gallery>