Index of American Design
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Cahill, Holger, 1887-1960
setName: label: See more items in
content: Holger Cahill papers
label: See more items in
content: Holger Cahill papers / Series 3: Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1936-1947
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.cahiholg, Subseries 3.9
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents note
content: The purpose of the Index of American Design was to compile a pictorial record of objects in the decorative, applied and folk arts, particularly objects of American origin. This subseries includes correspondence, memoranda, manuals, reports, typescripts, press releases, state reports primarily concerning Illinois projects, exhibition loan records, printed material and photographs of exhibitions and artwork, documenting that endeavor.

Articles and reports include documents and manuals describing the form and function of the Index, and outlining related procedures to be followed. They also include typescripts about the Index including Recording American Design, [ The Shaker Portfolio], The Derivation and History of Weathervanes, A Short History of the Weathervane, The Eagle in American Design, American Traditions for Young People, and Notes on American Carvers and Carving. Also found here are press releases, notes, a list of collectors, memoranda, Art Circular No. 3 and a reprint entitled American Popular Art as Recorded in the Index of American Design by Erwin O. Christensen.

Photographs include a bound portfolio of photographs of index plates representing artist renderings of Illinois objects, and a series of photographs depicting the process of making an index plate.