Elizabeth McCausland papers
name: label: Creator
content: McCausland, Elizabeth, 1899-1965
label: Names
content: American Art Research Council
label: Names
content: Barnard College -- Faculty
label: Names
content: Federal Art Project (U.S.)
label: Names
content: United States. Farm Security Administration
label: Names
content: Abbott, Berenice, 1898-1991
label: Names
content: Dove, Arthur Garfield, 1880-1946
label: Names
content: Hartley, Marsden, 1877-1943
label: Names
content: Hawthorne, Charles Webster, 1872-1930
label: Names
content: Henri, Robert, 1865-1929
label: Names
content: Henry, Edward Lamson, 1841-1919
label: Names
content: Hine, Lewis Wickes, 1874-1940
label: Names
content: Inness, George, 1825-1894
label: Names
content: Kleinholz, Frank, 1901-
label: Names
content: Lawrence, Jacob, 1917-2000
label: Names
content: Maurer, Alfred Henry, 1868-1932
label: Names
content: Morgan, Barbara Brooks, 1900-1992
label: Names
content: Stieglitz, Alfred, 1864-1946
label: Names
content: Weegee, 1899-1968
label: Names
content: Weston, Edward, 1886-1958
place: label: Place
content: New York N.Y. -- Pictorial works -- Photographs
title: label: Topic
content: Springfield Republican
topic: label: Occupation
content: Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Occupation
content: Art critics -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Occupation
content: Women art critics
label: Topic
content: Federal aid to the arts
label: Topic
content: Art -- History -- Study and teaching
label: Topic
content: Modernism (Art)
label: Topic
content: Women art historians
label: Topic
content: Women authors
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Elizabeth McCausland donated the bulk of her papers in several installments from 1956 to 1961. An unknown donor, perhaps her literary executor, donated additional papers sometime after her death in 1965. It appears that McCausland originally donated her research files on Marsden Hartley, measuring 10 linear feet, to the Whitney Museum, who then lent them to the Archives for microfilming in 1966, and donated them sometime thereafter. McCausland originally donated files of newspaper clippings and offprints of her articles to the The New York Public Library, who gave them to the Archives in 1968.  Additional McCausland material from the estate of Berenice Abbott was donated to the Archives in 2009.
creator: label: Creator
content: McCausland, Elizabeth, 1899-1965
setName: label: See more items in
content: Elizabeth McCausland papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: The papers of art critic, writer, and historian Elizabeth McCausland measure 45 linear feet and date from 1838 to 1995, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920 to 1960. The collection provides a vast accumulation of research data on various artists and aspects of American art, especially the early American modernists and the Federal Arts Projects. Papers include McCausland's extensive research and writing files, particularly on Marsden Hartley, E. L. Henry, Lewis Hine, George Inness, and Alfred H. Maurer. McCausland's correspondence with artists includes a substantial amount with Arthur Dove and Alfred Stieglitz. Her collaborative work with Berenice Abbott on the Changing New York book and series of photographs is well-documented within the collection. Also found are general writings, subject files, files relating to exhibitions, teaching, and committees, photographs, art work, personal papers, and printed material.  Additional McCausland material donated later from the estate of Berenice Abbott include biographical materials, project files, writings, and printed materials.
bioghist: label: Biographical Note
content: Elizabeth McCausland, the art critic and writer, was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1899. She attended Smith College, receiving her Bachelor's degree in 1920 and her Master's in 1922. Beginning in 1923, she worked as a general reporter for The Springfield Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts). After several years, she began to review art exhibitions and soon became an established art critic. In the course of her work, she began to develop friendships with artists, such as Alfred Stieglitz and Arthur Dove. During these early years, she also wrote poetry and designed and printed limited edition publications on her private press.

McCausland moved to New York in 1935, but continued to contribute a weekly art column to The Springfield Republican until it suspended publication in 1946. From the mid-1930s on, she worked primarily as a freelance writer and art critic, contributing articles to publications such as Parnassas, The New Republic, and Magazine of Art. In the latter part of her career, her writings focused more on art history and special studies on artists.

In the late-1930s, McCausland collaborated with the photographer Berenice Abbott on the Federal Art Project book, Changing New York, for which she provided the text to Abbott's now-famous photographs of New York City neighborhoods, architecture, and street scenes. She studied and wrote about photography, including numerous articles on the photographer Lewis Hine (of whose work she organized a retrospective exhibition at the Riverside Museum in 1939), and was appointed to the Advisory Committee of the Museum of Modern Art's Department of Photography in 1944.

McCausland went on to organize other exhibitions, including a show of contemporary work, "The World of Today" (Berkshire Museum, 1939), shows of silk screen prints (Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, March 1940 and New York State Museum, Summer 1940), and a photography show, "Photography Today" (A.C.A. Gallery, 1944). In the late 1930s, she embarked upon a study of "the status of the artist in America from colonial times to the present, with especial attention to the relation between art and patronage," which continued over twenty years (and was never completed) and for which she received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1943.

In addition to her other writing, during the 1940s, McCausland carried out studies on the artists, E. L. Henry and George Inness, which resulted in exhibitions at the New York State Museum in 1942 and the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum in 1946, respectively and publications (a report on Henry and a book on Inness). From 1948 to 1949, she carried out an extensive study of the painter, Alfred H. Maurer, organizing an exhibition, "A. H. Maurer: 1868-1932," which showed at the Walker Art Center and the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1949, and publishing the biography, A. H. Maurer, in 1951. In 1950, she worked as a special consultant on the American Processional exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery and as editor of the accompanying book. Shortly thereafter, she began a study of Marsden Hartley for a monograph, which was published in 1952, and she helped organize the Hartley exhibition at the University of Minnesota that same year. She continued the Hartley study on larger scale for a planned biography and catalogue raisonne; although she continued to work on it off and on for the next decade, the project was never completed.

McCausland published other books, including Careers in the Arts (1951), and undertook other research and consulting projects, such as photo-editing Carl Sandburg's Poems of the Midwest (1946), conducting surveys of art and advertising for an article in Magazine of Art and of art education for Cooper Union Art School, and contributing yearly articles on art to various encyclopedias. At different times throughout her career, she supplemented her income by taking teaching positions. She taught courses on art history at Sarah Lawrence College from 1942 to 1944 and at Barnard College in 1956, as well as courses at the Design Laboratory (1939) and the New School for Social Research (1946). She also gave numerous lectures and speeches on various art topics, and regularly participated in conferences and symposiums. Towards the end of her career, she was publishing less, but was still involved in many projects, most notably the Hartley study.

McCausland was a tireless promoter of the arts, and often an advocate for artists. Even though her work was well-known among certain art circles, she never received the recognition as a writer that she deserved. Nor was she ever able to free herself from the pressure of writing for a living. Continually suffering from poor health, she died on May 14, 1965.
function: label: Function
content: Arts organizations
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 45 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1838-1995
label: Date
content: bulk 1920-1960
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.mccaeliz
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Scrapbooks
label: Type
content: Drawings
label: Type
content: Photographs
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged as 15 series:

Series 1: Personal Papers, 1838, 1920-1951 (Boxes 1-2, 34; 1.5 linear feet)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1923-1960 (Boxes 2-5; 2.9 linear feet)

Series 3: General Writings, circa 1930-1954 (Boxes 5-6; 0.9 linear feet)

Series 4: Alfred H. Maurer, 1851-1951, bulk 1948-1950 (Boxes 6-9; 3.7 linear feet)

Series 5: American Processional, 1949-1951 (Boxes 10-11; 1.8 linear feet)

Series 6: Marsden Hartley, 1900-1964, bulk 1944-1964 (Boxes 11-21, OV 37; 10 linear feet)

Series 7: Other Research and Writing Files, 1896, 1926-1958 (Boxes 21-25, 31; 4.6 linear feet)

Series 8: Subject Files, 1927-1954 (Boxes 25-26; 1.0 linear feet)

Series 9: Other Exhibition Files, 1939-1941, 1944 (Box 26; 0.1 linear feet)

Series 10: Teaching Files, 1939-1965 (Box 27; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 11: Committee Files, 1936-1960 (Box 27; 0.5 linear feet)

Series 12: Printed Material, 1923-1953 (Boxes 28-32, 34, OV 38, BV 44-47; 4.6 linear feet)

Series 13: Photographs, circa 1905-1950 (Boxes 32-36, OV 37; 1.4 linear feet)

Series 14: Art Work, 1887-1942 (Boxes 33-34, OV 39-43; 0.7 linear feet)

Series 15: Elizabeth McCausland Material from the Estate of Berenice Abbott, 1920-1995 (Boxes 48-53; 5.4 linear feet)
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Portions of the collection received a preliminary level of processing at some point after donation. Most of the material was initially microfilmed in the order it was accessioned on reels D368-D384H, 1256, D24, 3134, and D319, and some material was never microfilmed at all.  The microfilm reels have been superceded by the digitized collections.  Photographs by Berenice Abbott, Barbara Morgan, and Edward Weston received conservation treatment at the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts between 1985-1991. Previously microfilmed and unmicrofilmed portions were merged, arranged, and described in accordance with archival standards; and the collection was fully processed by Jennifer Meehan in 2006 and digitized in 2008 as part of the Terra Foundation for American Art Digitization Grant.  Additional material received in 2009 was processed and described by Judy Ng in 2014 and scanned in 2015 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
altformavail: label: Alternative Forms Available
content: The bulk of this collection was digitized in 2008 and 2015 and is available on the Archives of American Art's website.

Materials generally not scanned include some newsclippings and publications that were either too fragile or not relevant, although some publications that appeared to be of interest to her were scanned. Other items that typically were not scanned include McCausland's student records, auction catalogs, proofs and multiple drafts of published articles, copy prints and negatives of photographs made by the Archives, photographs of works of art (except for those in the catalogue raisonne files of the Marsden Hartley series), duplicate material, and any published material that is widely available elsewhere. In some cases, only the cover and title pages for publications were scanned.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Scrapbooks
label: Genre/Form
content: Drawings
label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
scopecontent: label: Scope and Content Note
content: The papers of art critic, writer, and historian Elizabeth McCausland measure approximately 45 linear feet and date from 1838 to 1995, with the bulk of the material dating from 1920 to 1995. The collection provides a vast accumulation of data on various artists and aspects of American art, especially the early American modernists and the Federal Arts Projects. Papers include McCausland's extensive research and writing files, particularly on Marsden Hartley, E. L. Henry, Lewis Hine, George Inness, and Alfred H. Maurer. McCausland's correspondence with artists includes a substantial amount with Arthur Dove and Alfred Stieglitz. Her collaborative work with Berenice Abbott on the Changing New York book and series of photographs is well-documented within the collection. Also found are general writings, subject files, files relating to exhibitions, teaching, and committees, photographs, art work, personal papers, and printed material.  Additional McCausland material from the estate of Berenice Abbott include biographical materials, project files, writings, and printed materials.

McCausland's personal papers consist of appointment books and engagement calendars, scrapbooks, student papers, works printed on her private press, financial records, biographical material, and scattered memorabilia, which together document other aspects of her life apart from her work. Correspondence includes incoming and outgoing letters along with enclosures, dating from McCausland's time as a journalist for The Springfield Republican in the 1920s and 1930s to her time as a freelance writer, art critic, and historian (1940s-1960s) and mostly concerning professional matters. Also included is a substantial amount of correspondence with artists, particularly Arthur Dove and Alfred Stieglitz, and some personal correspondence with her mother. General writings consists primarily of copies of McCausland's speeches and lectures on various art topics in addition to her early poems (dating from the 1930s) and scattered essays and articles.

The most extensive part of the collection is comprised of McCausland's research and writing files pertaining to large research and curatorial projects, such as ones on the artists Alfred H. Maurer and Marsden Hartley (which was begun by the American Art Research Council and subsequently taken over by McCausland), and one for the American Processional exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery in 1950. A wide variety of smaller projects are also well-documented in the series Other Research and Writing Files, including ones on E. L. Henry, Lewis Hine, George Inness, her collaborative work with Berenice Abbott on the Changing New York book and series of photographs. Numerous other artists and art topics are covered as well, such as Arthur Dove, Robert Henri, Jacob Lawrence, Charles Hawthorne, film, and photography. Files for her book Careers in Art (1950), her many speaking and lecture engagements, and editing work are also found in this series. Files consist primarily of correspondence, notes, research material, manuscripts, bibliographies, photographs of works of art, completed research forms for works of art, card index files, and printed material.

Also found are subject files containing printed material, scattered notes and correspondence, and photographs, which may have been used for reference and/or collected in the course of McCausland's research activities; files relating to various exhibitions organized by McCausland from 1939 to 1944, including ones of silk screen prints and modern photography; files relating to courses on art history taught by McCausland, especially the one she taught at Barnard College in 1956; and files stemming from her participation in various art organizations and committees, especially during the time period just before and during the Second World War.

Printed material consists primarily of clippings and tear sheets of McCausland's newspaper articles and columns, which document her contributions to The Springfield Republican from 1923 to 1946, in addition to scattered exhibition catalogs, announcements, books, and miscellaneous publications. Photographs include ones of various artists and works of art, ones from the Farm Security Administration, and ones by photographers, such as Berenice Abbott (including ones from the Federal Art Project book, Changing New York), Barbara Morgan, Weegee, and Edward Weston, among others. Photographs, sometimes annotated or including notes, are scattered throughout her research files. Also included are photographs of McCausland, dating from her childhood. Art work found in the collection includes drawings, prints, and watercolors that were either given to McCausland by the artist or collected by her in the course of her work as an art critic and historian.

Additional material belonging to Elizabeth McCausland and donated by the estate of Berenice Abbott includes biographical material; business and personal correspondence; professional project files and writings, including drafts and research materials related to the book projects Art in America, Conversations with March, and Frank Kleinholz; and printed materials, including reprints of critical essays and articles by McCausland.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Material
content: Related material found in the Archives includes a sound recording from a symposium on Marsden Hartley, of which McCausland was a participant, held at the Portland Museum of Art in 1961. The Frank Kleinholz papers contain a recorded interview of McCausland done in 1944-1945 for radio station WNYC. Some of McCausland's correspondence is found in the G. Alan Chidsey papers; Chidsey served as a trustee of the Marsden Hartley estate.
separatedmaterial: label: Separated Material
content: Material separated from the collection includes some issues of Camera Work (Vol. 30, 47, 49/50), which were combined with other issues in an artificial collection created by the Archives at some earlier point. Also included is one conserved copy of Photo Secession: A Collection of American Pictorial photographs as arranged by the Photo-Secession and Exhibited Under the Auspices of the Camera Club of Pittsburg, at the Art Galleries of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, February 1904.