Series consists primarily of McCausland's professional and, to a lesser extent, personal correspondence, which includes general, artist, and some family correspondence. Correspondence typically consists of letters to and copies of letters from McCausland, along with enclosures (such as clippings and other printed material; contracts, agreements, and other business and financial papers; and proposals and manuscripts) and related material (such as notes, illustrations, and writings). Correspondents include artists, art organizations, museums, curators, editors, publishers, scholars, research institutions, her agent (Mary Squire Abbot), friends, and her mother, Belle Noble McCausland. Correspondence largely documents McCausland's various professional activities as an art critic, art historian, and freelance writer, and her relationships with various figures of the art and publishing worlds before, during, and immediately after the Second World War.
General correspondence relates to articles and reviews that McCausland wrote for the Springfield Republican; to freelance articles she wrote over the years for various publications, including ones for Parnassus, The New Republic, and Magazine of Art, as well as yearly articles for various encyclopedias (such as Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Americana, and Collier Encyclopedia); and to various book projects, including Changing New York (1939), Careers in the Arts (1950), and ones on the artists E. L. Henry, George Inness, and Alfred H. Maurer. General correspondence also relates to her teaching job at Sarah Lawrence College and other courses taught; to various editing projects, including photo-editing Carl Sandburg's Poems of the Midwest and the planned book Art and Advertising; her work as a research consultant on the American Processional exhibition and book, and on other exhibitions; and her involvement in various art and social organization, as well as her participation in various conferences. General correspondence largely documents McCausland's tireless efforts to drum up work, and to fund (through various grants and fellowships) and carry out her many research and writing projects.
Correspondence from particular artists, including Arthur Dove, Louis Eilshemius, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz, was maintained by McCausland in files separate from general correspondence. Artist correspondence documents her relationships with these artists - particularly well-documented are her relationships with Dove and Stieglitz - and the artists' reactions to her reviews of their shows. Files of artist correspondence also include some of McCausland's own notes on her feelings about or relationship with particular artists.
Family correspondence consists almost entirely of letters and copies of letters from McCausland to her mother, Belle Noble McCausland. These seem to have originated from the scrapbook kept by McCausland's mother which can be found amongst personal papers.
See Appendix for a list of notable correspondents from Series 2
Arrangement note:
General correspondence is arranged in rough chronological order. Within individual yearly files, McCausland often grouped together letters to and from a particular correspondent; this existing organization has for the most part been maintained. Selected artist correspondence and family correspondence are arranged in files at the end of the series. Correspondence can also be found amongst research and writing files.
Appendix: Notable Correspondents from Series 2:
List represents only a selection of correspondents from general correspondence.
A. A. Wynn Inc.: 1951
ACA Gallery: 1941, 1943, 1945, 1946, 1947
Abbot, Mary Squire (McIntosh and Otis Company): 1941, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1958
Abbott, Berenice: 1934
Adams, Charles: 1938, 1939, 1940, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952
Adams, Harriet Dyer: 1946
Adelphi College: 1953
Adlow, Dorothy ( -- Christian Science Monitor -- ): 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954
Albany Institute of History and Art: 1946, 1947
Aldrich, Adolf: 1945
American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 1946, 1947
American Artist Magazine -- : 1952
American Artists Congress: 1938, 1939, 1942
American Artists Group: 1939, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1950
American Association of University Women: 1951
American Federation of Arts: 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1956
American Museum of Natural History: 1944
American Newspaper Guild: 1942
American Philosophical Society: 1947
Anderson, Mrs. Sherwood (Eleanor): 1949
Antiques -- : 1955
Arden, Elizabeth: 1937
Arnason, H. Harvard (Walker Art Center): 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954
Art Digest -- : 1951
Art in America -- (see also Jean Lipman): 1957
Art Institute of Chicago: 1945, 1947
Art of this Century: 1944
Artists for Victory: 1944
Artists Equity Association: 1956
Artists League of America: 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945
Artists Society for National Defense: 1941
Associated American Artists: 1940
Baltimore Museum of Art: 1953
Bard College: 1953
Barnes, Djuna: 1951
Barr, Alfred H.: 1939, 1944, 1947, 1951
Barr, Norman: 1941, 1942, 1943, 1945
Baumann, Gustave: 1946
Baur, John I. H.: 1939, 1942, 1946
Beam, Lura: 1945, 1958
Beard, Mary: 1938, 1939, 1944
Benn, Ben: 1951
Bennington School of the Arts: 1940
Berkshire Museum: 1939, 1940
Biddle, George: 1947
The Bobbs-Merrill Company: 1944
Bourke-White, Margaret (letter to Berenice Abbott): 1940
Brewster, William F.: 1954, 1955
The Brooklyn Museum: 1943, 1945, 1948, 1954
Brown, Milton: 1945
Buchholz Gallery: 1941, 1943
Butler, Joseph (Butler Institute of Art): 1954, 1955
Cahill, Holger: 1937, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1950
Carter, Clarence H.: 1945, 1946
Cinema -- : 1947
Clarke, Bert: 1950
Constantine, Mildred: 1939, 1941, 1942
Cook, Waldo Leland: 1949
Cooper Union: 1949, 1952
Cooper Union Art School: 1947, 1948
Corcoran Gallery of Art: 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951
Cowdrey, Mary Bartlett (Smith College Museum of Art): 1943, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954
Crawley, Lawrence: 1950
Crehan, Hubert ( -- Art Digest -- ): 1953
Crichlow, Ernest: 1941
Curran, Charles: 1942
D'Harnoncourt, Rene: 1947
Daura, Pierre: 1949, 1951, 1954
Detroit Institute of Arts: 1945
Devree, Howard: 1949
Diamond (Rotkin), Adele: 1941
Donato, Louis: 1939
Dows, Olin: 1942
Eames, Charles: 1950, 1951
Estler, William C.: 1944
Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors: 1946
Fitch, George: 1955
Fitch, James: 1940
Fortune Magazine -- : 1946
Francis, Robert: 1940, 1942, 1943
Frick Art Reference Library: 1944, 1948, 1950, 1951, 1953, 1958
Friedman, William: 1939
Fuerstenberg, Eugenia Maurer: 1950, 1951
Fulton, W. Joseph (University of Chicago): 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959
G. P. Putnam's Sons: 1937
Genauer, Emily: 1947
George Walter Vincent Art Museum (Cordelia Sargent Pond): 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948
Gibran, Khalil: 1928
Gilbert, Dorothy: 1950
Godsoe, Robert Ulrich: 1951
Golden, Samuel (see also American Artists Group): 1946
Goodrich, Lloyd: 1942, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1952
Goodwin, Phillip L.: 1943
Gottlieb, Harry: 1944
Griffin, Maude: 1953
Graham, Martha: 1934, 1942
Grossman, Sid: 1938
Gwathmey, Robert: 1945
Harcourt, Brace and Company: 1947, 1949
Harper and Brothers: 1951
Hayes, Bartlett (Addison Gallery of Art): 1942, 1945, 1947
Hess, Thomas ( -- Art News -- ): 1950
Hope, Henry (University of Indiana): 1949, 1950
International Fine Arts Council: 1950
Irvine, Rosalind: 1952
J. B. Lippincott Company: 1951, 1952
Jacques Seligmann and Company: 1938
James, Rebecca Salsbury: 1951
Javitz, Romana: 1946, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955
Jewell, Edward Alden: 1946, 1947
John Day Company: 1950, 1951, 1955
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation: 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1952, 1953
Jones, Howard Mumford (Harvard University): 1947
Kauffer, E. McKnight: 1946
Kent, Rockwell: 1945, 1946
Kirstein, Lincoln: 1941, 1943, 1944, 1946, 1947
Kish, Maurice: 1945
Kistler, Aline: 1941
Knight Publishers Inc.: 1938
Kuniyoshi, Yasuo: 1945
Landon, Edward: 1939
Lange, Dorothea: 1945
Larkin, Oliver: 1943, 1944, 1949
Leeper, John and Blanche (see also Corcoran Gallery of Art): 1950, 1951, 1954
Leighton, George: 1945
Lerner, Abe (see also World Publishing Company): 1950, 1951
Lipman, Jean: 1945, 1946, 1947, 1952
Lipton, Norman C. ( -- Good Photography -- ): 1941, 1942, 1943
Longman, Lester: 1940
MacMahon, Audrey (see also -- Parnassus -- ): 1936, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1942
The MacMillan Company: 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950
Magazine of Art -- : 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947
Magriel, Paul: 1954
Maurer, Alfred L.: 1951
Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1943, 1947, 1955
Miller, Dorothy: 1950, 1951
Milwaukee Art Institute: 1948
Minicam Photography -- : 1941, 1943, 1944
Modernage Furniture Corp.: 1945
More, Herman (Whitney Museum of American Art): 1954
Morton, Phillip: 1951, 1952
Mount Holyoke College: 1943
Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute: 1956
Museum of Modern Art: 1934, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945
Museum of the City of New York: 1958
N.W. Ayer and Son: 1945, 1946, 1950
The Nation -- : 1940, 1955
National Gallery of Art: 1944, 1945
National Maritime Union: 1945
Navas, Elizabeth: 1952, 1953, 1954
Neuberger, Roy: 1952
The New American Library -- : 1955, 1956
The New Republic -- : 1944, 1947
The New School for Social Research: 1945
The New York Herald Tribune -- : 1945, 1947
New York Historical Society: 1943
New York Public Library: 1943, 1955, 1956
New York State Museum: 1949
The New York Times -- : 1940
Newark Museum: 1944
Newhall, Beaumont: 1944
Newhall, Nancy: 1945
Norman, Dorothy: 1934, 1937, 1938, 1940
Old Print Shop: 1945
Olmsted, Anna Wetherill (Syracuse Museum of Art): 1950
Opportunity -- : 1943, 1944, 1945
Ossorio, Alfonso: 1953
P. F. Collier and Son Corp.: 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958
Pach, Walter: 1955
Parnassus -- : 1939
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art: 1951
Pepsi-Cola Company: 1944, 1945
Philadelphia Art Alliance: 1946
Pierre Matisse Gallery: 1938, 1939
Popular Photography -- : 1943
Portland Art Museum: 1940
Porter, Eliot: 1954
Printer's Ink (Carl Weiss): 1951
Railway Express Agency: 1949
Rivera, Diego: 1949
Rogers, John C.: 1941
Roosevelt, Eleanor: 1944
Rosenblum, Walter: 1944
Rothschild, Lincoln: 1937, 1942, 1945, 1946, 1949
Royce, William: 1933, 1934, 1935, 1942, 1958
Rukeyser, Muriel: 1941, 1950
San Francisco Chronicle -- : 1951, 1953
Sarah Lawrence College: 1942, 1943, 1944
Saturday Evening Post -- : 1946
Schlesinger, Arthur: 1943
School Art League of New York City: 1953, 1954
Schwimmer, Rosika: 1933, 1935, 1943
Sculpture's Guild: 1938, 1940, 1941
Segy, Ladislaw: 1943
Shelter -- : 1939
Sloan, John: 1951
Smith College Museum of Art: 1939, 1954
Soby, James Thrall: 1935, 1946, 1951
Social Science Research Council: 1948
Springfield Museum of Fine Art: 1938, 1940, 1941
Standard Oil: 1946
Stein, Gertrude: 1934
Sterling, Charles (Department of Painting, The Louvre): 1951
Strand, Paul: 1942
Survey Associates -- : 1938, 1939
Sweeney, James John: 1954, 1955, 1956
Thornton, Russell (see also Corcoran Gallery of Art): 1951, 1952, 1953
Time Magazine -- : 1945
Toklas, Alice B.: 1949
Traphagen School of Fashion: 1957
U.S. Camera -- : 1940
University of Chicago Library: 1951
University of Minnesota: 1951
University of Nebraska: 1953, 1954, 1956, 1957
Vanderbilt, Paul (Library of Congress): 1950
Vogue Magazine -- : 1953
Vose, Robert C.: 1945
Wade, Henry: 1954
Walker Art Center: 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951
Walker, Hudson: 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952
Ward, Lynd: 1942, 1945, 1947
Western Photography -- : 1946
Weston, Edward: 1943
Weyhe Gallery: 1940, 1951
Wheaton College: 1955
Wheeler, Monroe: 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945
Whitney Museum of American Art: 1946, 1947, 1951
Wichita Art Association: 1947
Williams, Hermann Warner (see also Corcoran Gallery of Art): 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954
Wilson, Sol: 1945
Worcester Art Museum: 1943, 1945
World Publishing Company: 1946, 1949, 1950, 1955
Yale University Art Gallery: 1949
Yale University Library: 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954
Young, Art: 1941
Young Artists Guild: 1948
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Collection Citation:
Elizabeth McCausland papers, 1838-1995, bulk 1920-1960. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art