The
The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Printed Ephemera
Henry Francis du Pont
5105 Kennett Pike,
302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883
OVERVIEW OF
THE COLLECTION
Creator: Byrdcliffe (Art colony)
Title: Records
Dates: ca. 1869-2000
Call No.:
Acc. No.: 92x39,
98x4, 00x162, 01x81, 02x170, 06x54-56, 06x1; 06x66, 06x67, 07x88; 10x3; 10x63,
11x13
Quantity: ca. 170 cu. ft.
Location: 41-42 A-E, map case A,
drawers 1 and 10, and map case C, dr. 3-5
BIOGRAPHICAL
STATEMENT
In 1901, Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead purchased about
1,000 acres of land near
Born in 1854 to Francis Frederick and Isabella
Dalglish Whitehead, Ralph grew up in Saddleworth,
In 1892, Whitehead married Jane Byrd McCall of
Names synonymous with the arts and crafts movement
peopled Byrdcliffe during its early years, and they produced furniture,
pottery, textiles, paintings, and artistic photographs. Jane Whitehead took particular interest in pottery and spent time in
Ultimately, Byrdcliffe failed as a community of
artists. Its founder, Ralph Radcliffe
Whitehead, experienced difficulty relating to his residents, and after a time
they left, never to return to his colony.
In addition, it was hard to transport the furniture produced there to
market. As time passed, Byrdcliffe
simply became a place for the Whiteheads to raise their two children and to
entertain family and friends, although the cottages built for craftspeople
continued to be rented during the summers.
In 1917, Jane wrote to her son, Ralph, Jr., “now let us realize that it
has had its day--its raison d'etre has passed by.” Even so, because Byrdcliffe had acted as a
magnet for arts and crafts practitioners,
Byrdcliffe remained in family hands for about
seventy-five years. Ralph Whitehead died
in 1929, only 25 years after Byrdcliffe had experienced its busiest times and
just a few months after his eldest son had died in a shipwreck. Jane died on
The Byrdcliffe archives includes family
correspondence, featuring letters to and from Jane and Ralph Whitehead
beginning in the 1890s; photographs, many of
which are dated and the people in them identified (twenty of which were taken
by Jesse Tarbox Beals); more than
600 original drawings and paintings,
including furniture designs by Edna Walker and Zulma Steele, and colored
designs for rugs created by Marie Little; approximately 575 issues of
magazines; scrapbooks; over 700 study prints
taken from large 19th century portfolios depicting ornaments from
Medieval, Renaissance, and pre-Raphaelite sources; manuscript records of
expenditures and income from items produced at the colony; Byrdcliffe’s
library card catalog, including both the cards and the physical square-shaped
catalog; the Byrdcliffe Guest Register; trade catalogues of products used at
Byrdcliffe; about 80 monographs, as well as publications written by Jane and
Ralph Whitehead; land surveys; and legal documents. In addition, there are drawings of furniture
available from the English firm of Morris and Company, and many unsigned
drawings and paintings, mostly landscapes, probably mostly executed by Jane
Whitehead.
The collection also includes letters from the sons
Peter and Ralph, Jr.; some genealogical information about the Whitehead and
McCall families; information about Woodstock, New York; a few poems, including
one written about Peter; Ralph Whitehead’s leather trunk; and a collection of
newspaper articles about the sinking of the ship Vestris, in which tragedy Ralph, Jr. lost his life. Other items of interest is a volume bound by
Cobden Sanderson and the guest register from the wedding of Jane McCall and
Ralph Whitehead, which is on a sheet of birch bark.
ORGANIZATION
The items that are in this series are housed in
thirteen boxes and four map case drawers, with one framed item hanging on the
wire wall. Included are furniture
designs from the woodworking shop at Byrdcliffe, many credited to Zulma Steele,
Edna M. Walker, Bolton C. Brown, and Dawson Watson; drawings of furniture
hardware, pottery, glassware, along with other odds and ends of design work;
architectural plans for buildings at Byrdcliffe and homes of the Whiteheads;
rug designs by Marie Little; and unsigned paintings and drawings, most of which
are assumed to have been done by Jane Whitehead. Since materials were first arranged by size,
not all the designs depicting an item, a piece of furniture for example, are
housed together; however, notes are included to refer the researcher to
locations of related materials.
Although a few colored items are included, this
series consists mostly of black and white photographic reproductions of art
work, the vast majority of which depict Italian Renaissance and Pre-Raphaelite
paintings. They were collected by the
Whiteheads because of their interest in these periods of art, and they may have
inspired some of the work at Byrdcliffe.
Some of the reproductions are labeled, and others were identified from
books about art history. For the rest,
often the subject is obvious (Madonna and Child for example), but if it is not,
there is a full description. Also
included in this group are photographs of landscapes, people, furniture, and
buildings, mostly taken in Italy, as well as some prints, wallpaper samples,
and posters advertising museums throughout Europe. These posters were probably collected because
of their artwork. Finally, Series II
contains a copy of the book Pictures and
Poems, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
These design books are mostly from
Series IV contains issues of periodicals collected
by the Whiteheads. Most relate to art or
ceramics, but other interests are also represented.
Ralph Whitehead’s interests in ceramics and in
weaving are clearly indicated by the quantity of works on these topics. Of special note are the sample books of
dyes. Also included are works by John
Ruskin, Whitehead’s professor at
This series is comprised mostly of miscellaneous
manuscripts. Included are inventories of
libraries at Byrdcliffe, lists of contents of several buildings at the colony,
pottery production notes, and observations about dyeing and weaving. Of particular interest is a scrapbook with
samples of fabric and thread, all probably hand-dyed, and attendant notes about
dyeing. As well, there is a book related
to the Ambrose Choral Society of Woodstock, a collection of writings by Ralph
Whitehead, and a scrapbook that Jane Whitehead kept when she was in
Photographs are mostly family pictures, including
some of Jane and Ralph as children and young adults. In addition, there are photographs taken at
Byrdcliffe in 1908 by Jesse Tarbox Beals, a couple of photos taken by Eva
Watson Schutze, photographs of the
Whiteheads’ various homes, and modern prints developed from glass plate
negatives. The same image may be found
in more than one location because, for example, one copy is in a photo album,
and another copy is loose, or because different copies of the same image are
separated because of size. Post cards
are from various family trips and from Ralph, Jr.’s World War I service in
Series VIII contains correspondence, mostly from
Ralph to Jane, but also letters to and from other members of the Whitehead
family and family friends. Letters from
Ralph, Jr., and Peter are also found.
These include letters written by Ralph, Jr., while he was stationed in
The calendars in this series belonged to Jane
Whitehead. The entries are brief and
record her schedule on various days.
The maps in this series mostly relate to real estate
owned by the Whiteheads in
Miscellaneous materials, mostly oversized, and
newspapers are in Series XI. There are
only a few newspapers; of especial note are copies of the
PROVENANCE
Almost all the papers were a gift to the Joseph
Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera beginning in 1991 from
Mark Willcox, the nephew of Ralph and Jane Whitehead.
Accession 06x1 gift of Robert Edwards.
Accession 07x88 gift of James J. Kopp.
LANGUAGE OF
MATERIALS
Most of the materials are in English. Some are in German, French, or Italian.
RESTRICTIONS
ON ACCESS AND USE
Collection is open to the public. Copyright restrictions may apply.
Many of the items, including photographs and
drawings, have been microfilmed on 2 reels (M3002 and M3015). Researchers are asked to use the microfilm
when possible to preserve original items in the collection. An index is found at the front of each
reel.
Prints have been made from the glass plate
negatives, and the prints must be used.
ACCESS POINTS
People
Whitehead, Ralph Radcliffe,
1854-1929
Whitehead, Jane Byrd McCall,
1861-1955
Whitehead, Ralph, Jr.,
1899-1928
Whitehead, Peter, 1901-1975
Beals, Jessie Tarbox
Steele, Zulma, 1881-1979
Walker, Edna M.
Little, Marie
Brown,
Moore, Anne Carroll,
1871-1961.
Topics
Ruskin
Co-operative Association.
Arts and crafts movement
Decoration and ornament
Pottery
Furniture design
Furniture making
Weaving
Cabinetwork –
Artists’ colonies—
World War, 1914-1918.
Marine accidents.
Engineers –
Photography
Drawings
Prints
Photoprints
Albums
Trade catalogs
Watercolors
Glass plate negatives
Correspondence
Letters
Deeds
Account books
Maps
Postcards
Artists
Craftsmen
RELATED
MATERIAL:
Byrdcliffe: An American Arts and Crafts Colony. Edited by Nancy Green.
Edwards, Robert.
“The Utopias of Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead,” The
Magazine Antiques, January 1985, pages 260-276.
Lock, Lisa L. The Byrdcliffe Colony and the Politics of
Arts and Crafts. M.A.Thesis.
Winterthur Program in Early American Culture,