CHAPTER 4 The Shape of the American-Way Program Goals and Ideals As his fame peaked in 1939, Russel Wright envisaged and worked to develop American-Way. The major project combined the significant components of his own design work, namely hand-made and machine-made products for the American middle-class domestic interior, and well-designed objects at affordable prices, all as an expression of what he saw as innate American-ness. American-Way was the ideological synthesis of all of Wright?s design beliefs, and in the same way that he managed to tap into the American zeitgeist in much of his own design work, in this high-minded marketing project he connected with important American matters of the time. Early in the development of the American-Way project, Russel and Mary Wright created a fourteen-page prospectus in which they articulated the purposes of the project: ?to develop a planned program of valid American design in home furnishings?[to] prove that our own contribution can be both excellent and American?[to] show that design tailored to our own way of living will ultimately suit us best?. In a 1940 speech in connection with the opening of the project, Wright also noted that ?the development of pride and respect for the American home [is] as important as anything else culturally to our country.? Wright?s vision for American-Way was part marketing, part design scheme, and part social engineering. With a profound belief in the power of objects to effect social change, and a deliberate focus on those for the American home, Wright believed that the right objects in Americans? homes would make them nothing less than better people with better lives. Developing ideas he had been trying to express in his own design work for over a decade, Wright conceived of a conglomerate of industrial designers, craftspeople, merchants, and manufacturers who, together, would bring to Americans the objects they needed and should have. In so doing, they?and he?would be undertaking a patriotic service to the entire country. Wright attached a great deal of social freight to this project, which he often called ?a cause.? One of the most pressing aspects of the ?cause? was also very timely; the idea of developing a distinct American design aesthetic had elements of idealism, but it was also undeniably a reflection of the world?s politics in the late 1930s. Wright was adamant that Americans needed to overcome what he termed their ?design inferiority complex? as related to Europe. He argued that Americans had always relied too much on European models and ideas, and this was not only a design problem but also a social one. Finding a native design expression was for Wright endemic to developing American character and self-awareness appropriate to the country?s stature in the world. In describing the timeliness of American-Way to prospective partners in the enterprise, Wright defined the need to turn from European sources in terms of resources: Behind America?s growing tendencies toward self-reliance in every field, is the war with its critical curtailment of European sources, both manufacturing and creative, prompting the recognition of our own resources?. National pride has permeated the country. Under this stimulus, ?American-Way? has been formed?. Americans? design inferiority complex did not pertain only to the persistent sense that most good design ideas came from across the Atlantic; Wright was also concerned about a cultural aesthetic timidity. In one of the many public talks he gave in promoting his own designs, Wright instructed an audience of women on how to select accessories for the modern home, telling them they could ?invent [their] own rules for breaking the rules? because ?superimposed decoration of any kind is the most difficult to incorporate into a sound whole. Far safer is the releasing of your instinctive taste?.? In encouraging Americans to find and use their own ideas about design, Wright was not only declaring creative independence from Europe, but also subtly forwarding an agenda that he and his fellow industrial designers felt essential: replacing the role of the interior decorator. The Wrights specified in their 1941 American-Way prospectus that the program ?offers [Americans] the opportunities we have always wanted?the chance to create, with these designs, and without the aid of a decorator, our own modern interiors at prices we can afford.? The decorator, the Wrights asserted, gave Americans exactly the ?mongrel? mixtures of past styles and overly precious interiors that they were trying to eliminate. If Americans would, as Wright and others coached, trust their own instincts, their homes would be better in every way. To achieve their goal, the Wrights conceived American-Way as a group of furnishings that were coordinated such that ?single items and related pieces, such as suites of furniture, though lending themselves to ensembled presentation and use in model room settings, tend[ed] nevertheless to preserve an identity of their own?thereby creating maximum possibilities of flexibility both within the group and independently of the group.? In this way, Wright wanted to give the buying public increased agency. Just as he had done earlier with his own furniture and ceramics designs, Wright insisted that the line be sold ?open stock,? meaning that consumers were able to assemble their own rooms, an act of design independence. In one of the taglines from the American-Way prospectus, Wright explained the concept: ?unity with freedom?the American Way!? Of course, it cannot be ignored that the entire group had been pre-selected. American-Way offered choice within a prescribed set, where the coordinators of the program had chosen particular goods to achieve ?basic unity through a general feeling for harmonious and basic design relationships and color combinations?.? Choice, but not unlimited choice. Americans had a design inferiority complex, but they also still needed a great deal of tutoring in what constituted ?good design.? The American-Way program was, in fact, intended by Wright to be just such a tutorial. The decorator had been replaced in the role of guide and selector of objects by the industrial designer. It went without saying that, for the Wrights, the latter would be the better mentor in ?good design.? If the American-Way program was going to help Americans overcome their design inferiority, it needed to point to native instead of foreign design. As articulated by the Wrights, American-Way was developed to ?prove that our own contribution can be both excellent and American? The Wrights did not specifically delineate what they meant by ?American design,? nor ?American designers? for that matter; it is only in examining the objects and names of designers that one can sense what they had in mind. The list of industrial designers who created for the program was largely comprised of American-born figures, but it also included a few recent immigrants, such as the Finnish Marianne Strengell and Austrian Lily Berndt. In any case, ?native? design for the Wrights was more of an ideology than a pedigree. In this area of the project, Russel and Mary walked a thin line between chauvinistic nationalism and simple identity-seeking. Some historians have seen the American-Way project as a jingoistic rejection of the ?other,? another voice joining in a strain of anti-immigrant, anti-diversity commentary that was gaining strength in the late 1930s. While Wright could not have been immune to such rhetoric, his consistent call across a career of over thirty years for Americans to be proud of their heritage was more about identity than rejection. Regardless of how recently they had emigrated, designers were expected to provide ?American design for Americans,? one of the central concepts of the American-Way program, to ?show that design tailored to our own way of living will ultimately suit us best?? In all of his work, Russel Wright asked Americans to examine their home lives and determine whether the furniture and furnishings they had were consistent with ?our own way of living.? Were they trying to live ?the Dear Old Dream? of European-derived elegance and formality, he and Mary asked in their Guide to Easier Living? Americans, they argued, needed to accept and celebrate that the new American home will be a much simpler one to live in. Its size and furnishings will be determined by the family?s needs, not by the arbitrary dictates of fashion. [?] A new way of living, informal, relaxed, and actually more gracious than any strained imitation of another day could be is in fact growing up?. The American-Way program was to be of social service by providing goods that were made specifically for American life: In the design of ?American-Way? products, great attention is focused upon service, use and practical innovation based on research concerning American living habits. INSOFAR AS IT IS TRUE THAT DESIGN FOLLOWS FUNCTION, THE ESSENTIAL SPRINGBOARD FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MORE INHERENTLY AMERICAN DESIGN EXPRESSION IS TO BE FOUND IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF DESIGN AS A COMPLIANT OUTGROWTH OF AMERICAN NEEDS. [emphasis theirs] Designs based on that very ?research,? (actually more careful observation) about American modes of living had been and would continue to be Wright?s life?s work. And what would these products look like? The aesthetics would grow out of what was already present in American design: ?a continuation and gradual improvement of what we already have in this country, rather than upon, [sic] either a forced adherence to past periods, or the abrupt introduction [of] unprecedented ideas...simple, livable, good-looking 20th century American design, with little of the cold sophistication of European inspired modern, nor the triteness of ?Modernistic? modern. The visual vocabulary of the project was defined less in terms of what it was than what it was not, which is the essence of the search for the ?middle way? for those who were perplexed by the design choices of the 1930s. An important goal of the American-Way program for the Wrights was to create a group of products unified under the rubric of avoiding aesthetic excesses, of making modern not only palatable, but also desirable for Americans to bring home. American-Way was not only about aesthetic and social ideals. It was a business proposition, a marketing scheme, a way of ?coordinating and accelerating the art-in-industry movement in this country.? The American-Way program was intended to make a profit for its investors, its designers, manufacturers, retail outlets, and craftspeople, and presumably for the Wrights themselves. To do that, its innovation?and perhaps also its downfall--was in the comprehensive nature of its vision: incorporating designers, craftspeople, manufacturers, and retail outlets all in coordination around a central concept. Correcting ?the haphazard, uneven methods of the past decade,? the program would provide ?skillful and intelligent handling? which would be ?more powerful, more efficient, more attention-commanding than scattered individual product, single ?line? presentations.? Coordinated marketing, sales, shipping, and warehousing could not help but be of benefit to all concerned, but the Wrights saw the program profiting the designer and craftsman, giving an enlarged audience and national exposure to their work. For craftspeople in particular, who, according to the Wrights, ?in their undirected struggle to produce salable goods, are in danger of producing wares which lose those qualities constituting their very reason for being,? qualities of ?personal expression and indigenous integrity,? the program was intended to be of great advantage. Promoting ?good? native design, giving Americans modern goods that worked for their lifestyles, and providing sales outlets for American designers and craftspeople: these were the stated goals of the American-Way program. Russel and Mary Wright invested a great deal of their time and money in the program; their zeal for its ideals translated into financial risk with the hope of fiscal and philosophical compensations. Crafts Program The crafts part of the American-Way program was not an afterthought or accessorizing add-on; it was one of the vital premises on which the program was built. That does not mean that Russel Wright had from the beginning of his career promoted the synergy between craft and machine; in fact, it would seem that, like many of his generation of industrial designers, he initially saw the two as mutually exclusive. In 1935, for example, before his own work had gained him a national reputation, Wright wrote in Arts and Decoration magazine, in an article titled ?A Guide For Buying Modern? that the principle inherent in modern design is a scientific one based on the necessities of the machine age. Every alert age produces its original design forms. The forms which we are producing today are the product of the machine which is giving us new tools, and of science, which is giving us new materials. Although he had already begun to concern himself with the intersection of hand and machine in his spun aluminum products and his 1935 Oceana line, Wright?s was the shiny machine-age rhetoric of most industrial designers and tastemakers of the mid-1930s. While it is unclear what exactly brought Wright, only four years later, to the point of seeing craft and machine as complementary forces in American design, it is clear that in this, too, he was of his time. By the end of the 1930s, as craft was beginning to be seen as an economic and social force, Russel and Mary Wright traveled across the country, where they began to see that force at work. They doubtless had also seen it in New York, as American handcraft was being sold in retail establishments and published in national magazines. The rising visibility of American craft surely impacted the developing concept of American-Way. By mid-1940, the Wrights considered craft to be integral to the concept of the project, as they made the case for the inclusion of craft in the American-Way project: Of certain social and economic significance is the plan for directing toward actual sales, the great craft skills known to exist in this country. For those who consider the crafts anachronistic, justification lies in the fostering, through the crafts and by the crafts, of vital American skill. Unflagging public interest in the works of mastercraftsmen?attest[s] to the fact that all the cog wheels in the world will not halt the inherent human desire to produce and possess objects made by hand [emphasis theirs]. It was probably the 1939 auto trip that gave the Wrights the concept of organizing the crafts of the American-Way project into groups by the region of their origin. This method relied on distinguishing unique characteristics of sections of the country, highlighting regional flavor within a nationalistic construct. Crafts were inherently regional in nature, connected with cultural folkways. The revival of craft in the mid-twentieth century emerged having geographic associations with particular materials, methods, and iconography. Pottery with traditional Native American motifs from the Southwest; glass from the New Jersey region where it historically had been made; North Carolina weaving and red-clay pottery; wood-carving from New England tree species: each displayed a distinct flavor which the Wrights intended to highlight in the marketing of American-Way. Connections with their own cross-country travel were expressed in their 1941 prospectus: ?As exciting as a trip through America is the American-Way? handcraft program, from seven regions of this country! A veritable travelogue of crafts?.? Perhaps because of his own experience in designing, making, and marketing hand-crafted objects, Russel Wright had at once a respect for the work of craft and also an unsentimental view of its place in a modern economy. For Wright, the crafted products were as important and as subject to standards of design and production as those made by machine. Designer and educator Arthur Pulos reflected on the relationship of craft to industry in this period, noting that Wright took exception ?to the activities of the American Craftsmen?s Cooperative Council, founded in 1938, [because] he did not like the direction that craftsmen were taking away from attention to industry and public service toward ?making handicrafts a kind of second-grade fine art? as he put it.? His methodology for the American-Way crafts program was practical, businesslike, and expedient, as he believed that craft in America had to be integrated with industry in order to be viable, and the marketability of the products had to prevail. In the synthesis of handcrafted and machine-made products that was at the heart of the American-Way program, Wright was seeking what he also sought in the context of aesthetics: a widely-appealing middle ground. The Magazine of Art, in November, 1940, noted that American-Way?s concept of combining machine- and hand-made products ?turns out to be a middle way between the ultra-sophisticated and the truly rural.? Questions of authenticity and purity of process did not concern Wright. Who, precisely, designed the object, who executed its components, who reproduced it, were not as significant as the fact that all of those elements were working together. In discussing craft, Russel Wright never turned his attention to the ?joy of the worker? or other socialist reformer ideals; for him, it was the design of the object that mattered, and its effect on its buyer, not the wellbeing of the maker. His was a capitalist view of craft through and through. And because it was a product to be sold in the marketplace, Wright looked for the most effective and economically viable methods to produce craft. In describing the craft program of American-Way, Wright called it ?DIRECTED? and ?selective,? involving ?handicrafts of high design caliber?suited to modern conditions of use and marketing.? This was not an open forum for craftspeople to market their wares; the plan was for the Wrights to guide, often even dictate, the work of the craftspeople. In some cases, it was merely the technical skills of the makers that were to be employed, and in those cases, ?craftsmen have been supplied with suitable designs in terms of their own expression, to be produced in sufficient quantities for national distribution.? It is unclear exactly which products had the imprint of outside designers and how much influence the Wrights themselves had on particular designs. Some craftspeople seem to have been left to contribute their own designs, but there is no record of who these were. As a marketing tool, the Wrights played on the American association of craft with traditional tropes to generate the desired public perception of the crafts program. In sales materials, they emphasized the relationship of craft with American identity and development of national self-appreciation: The desire for American crafts is springing up as the result of growing interest and curiosity concerning our own country. At last, we are beginning to appreciate and evaluate our own outstanding native craft skills, in the realization that they are a living commentary on American modes of life?from Indian times, through the period of our Pilgrim fathers and earliest known Spanish settlers, right up to present day existence.  Although they were ?outstanding? and a ?living commentary,? craftspeople nevertheless must have needed the behind-the-scenes direction of a cosmopolite who knew what ?the market? wanted. In the American-Way project, the Wrights set themselves up as the arbiters of quality, good design, and what the ?outside world? wanted to buy. They believed that the program would at once better the lot of craftspeople by showing them how to sell their products, while giving retailers something fresh to draw in customers. In marketing the wares, the Wrights wrote sometimes-lengthy descriptions of individual artists? backgrounds and prior acclaim in their catalogs. Where frequently in the past crafts had been identified with a school or group, the American-Way approach was more individualistic, in an effort to give credibility and even cachet to the objects presented, thus improving overall salability. The principles behind the crafts program were irrelevant, the Wrights felt, if the products would not sell. Of course, placing themselves between maker and public as design intermediary made the Wrights? own design sensibility paramount. This caused an inevitable conflict between the task of seeking out specialized and unique craft objects, and their standardization for a national middle-class audience. Structure of the Program To move their idea forward, the Wrights formed a company named ?American-Way, Inc.? and recruited a distinguished Board of Directors, including Edwin I. Marks, Vice President of Macy?s; Howard Meyers, the editor of Architectural Forum; Holger Cahill, director of the Federal Arts Project; Louise Bonney Leicester, the Director of the ?America at Home? exhibit at the World?s Fair (for which Russel had contributed designs); and architects John W. Root, Jr., and Edward Durell Stone. A Board of Patrons was also planned, but whether it actually developed is unclear. By the time the 1941 prospectus for American-Way was written, neither supervisory group was mentioned. In 1940, the plan was to form the company as an ?expansion? of Wright Accessories, Inc., incorporated with $75,000. In 1940, Wright said that $40,000 would come from the Wrights themselves and the remainder of the stock was to be sold to ?patrons and executives?; however, later he indicated that he and Mary actually invested $60,000?their entire savings?and the other investors totaled only $15,000. The company acted as a promotional body, a general partner creating the ?line? and arranging for its manufacture, but apparently not purchasing inventory. Sales were to be made to retail establishments, with orders passed through American-Way, Inc., which would earn a commission. Russel Wright was to be the Art Director of the company, with responsibilities to select designs and designers for merchandise, ?develop store backgrounds, counter displays, etc., [and] coordinate with the activities of the sales and promotion departments.? Wright described himself as suited to this role by being ?known internationally as one of America?s six leading industrial designers [while] in the field of small ware he is undoubtedly the best known designer in this country.? Mary Wright was to be the Promotion Director, overseeing the various means of marketing and in general creating ?such an excellent and popular reputation for consumer service in the field of design, usefulness, value, and suitability to American living, that the label of the Company will attain something of the value that the Good Housekeeping label has in the field of quality.? Two other positions, Merchandising Director and Sales Manager, were described in April 1940 as in the process of being filled. The process of recruiting the necessary participants for the American-Way was described later by Wright as consisting of ?traveling around the country enlist[ing] the cooperation of seventy manufacturers and more than seventy designers. ?[getting] the manufacturers to tool up for the work of these various designers. ?[interesting] twenty department stores in carrying and promoting the package called American-Way.? In terms of designers, the goal was to enlist a nucleus of ?the names that make news? like industrial designer Gilbert Rohde, although the ?lesser and unknown,? such as architect Walter Baerman, were also to be included. The company was to select ?inherently American? designers whose work would ?attract and hold the attention of the consumer because of its originality, high quality, and practical suitability to present-day American life.? Wright commented that his own design success gave him ?great prestige? with the designers he recruited. How many he approached and the nature of their responses is not known, but the various lists of contributing designers (and there were several versions) had their share of the big names he sought, such as Raymond Loewy, best known for his appliance and locomotive designs; Gilbert Rohde, significant furniture designer for Herman Miller; designer Robert Heller; textile designer Dorothy Liebes; and of course Russel and Mary Wright. Some other names, such as Grant Wood, appeared in the spring 1940 prospectus but no record of their designs remains. Designers listed on the same prospectus who were to have merchandise ready for spring 1941 include industrial designers Egmont Arens, Norman Bel Geddes, Henry Dreyfuss, and Donald Desky, along with architects William Lescaze and Eliel Saarinen; their actual contributions, if any, are not now known. The contractual arrangements of designers with the American-Way program were planned to consist of royalties based on sales; in some cases the originators did not seem to retain rights to their ideas, as manufacturers of some of the products continued to make them even after the program folded. The main benefit the Wrights saw for designers was in the exposure that American-Way would give them and their designs, resulting from the coordinated and integrated marketing schemes they planned. In many places, the Wrights emphasized the innovative nature of such an organized approach, as opposed to the ?unintelligent selling to the retailer and unintelligent presentations to the consumer? that they saw as the fate of ?better design? at the time. Locating craftspeople to participate in the program was more challenging, given their generally lower visibility. The Wrights sent out two designers (who themselves contributed designs to the American-Way program) to investigate and ?gather? craftspeople and groups to participate in the program. Architect Emrich Nicholson and artist Miles Aborn were dispatched in April, 1940 aided by guidance requested by Wright from Holger Cahill and Adrian Dornbush, both significant forces in WPA crafts projects. Cahill, a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, was overseeing the compilation of the Index of American Design in his capacity as director of the Federal Art Project, and was an important champion of American folk art and craft. The Index, a visual assemblage of American design, was enormously influential, including the perpetuation of the Colonial Revival, and the elevation of craft to the level of art. Cahill put Wright in touch with Adrian Dornbush, Associate Director of the WPA Art Program, in the spring of 1940. In their correspondence, Wright requested a copy of the country-wide survey of the crafts recently completed by the WPA; further, Wright received Dornbush?s permission to use his name in a planned meeting with Eleanor Roosevelt to try to interest her in the American-Way program. Dornbush further served American-Way by introducing its delegates to WPA crafts organizations as they traveled around the country. In addition to the WPA, the Wrights claimed to have the support and assistance of the Carnegie Foundation and the TVA in locating and enlisting craftspeople. The selection of craftspeople emphasized technique, the plan being to supply most of the designs, ?except in the rare cases where we can find something of good design already made by the craftsmen.? Craftspeople thus had to be willing to submit to review, oversight, and design authority on the part of the American-Way company. Over sixty individuals and groups agreed, and most were in fact given designs to produce, the plan being to ramp up to sufficient quantities to meet national demand. Industrial manufacturers seem to have been courted by Russel Wright himself, using his established experience in designing for industry. Further, he had the interest of ?several important Eastern retailers? in the products planned by American-Way and promised a carefully coordinated sales and marketing effort that would generate sales volume. Establishing which factories would make which products, Wright commented that because of ?the large scope of American-Way, Inc., the reputation of the designers and the interest of the retailers, it has not been difficult to interest a number of manufacturers in this method of working.? Although orders were to be taken by the American-Way offices, the sales manual makes clear that products would be shipped F.O.B. directly from the factory to the retailer. This method of wholesale distribution meant that the emphasis had to be on making sales to retail outlets. Although the 1940 prospectus promised that twenty department stores in cities around the country, from Filene?s in Boston to W & J Sloane in San Francisco, had been enlisted, by November 1940 the number appears to have been thirteen. Merchandise was to be carried initially by only one store per city, and subsequently offered to all. Representation at trade shows, a New York showroom, and direct sales by trained salespeople were to be the elements of selling the merchandise to retailers. Wright promoted the idea that the ensemble approach to marketing could be supplemented by selling the goods in all appropriate store departments, giving the retailer more sales potential. Based on their experience selling Russel?s own designs, the Wrights formulated a ?planned program? of marketing approaches for American-Way that was tied to the ideals of the project as a whole. Model rooms, which the Wrights described as ?flexible ensembling,? were related by design and color to be harmonious but not a ?forced and arbitrary matching.? It was a middle-market version of the concept of the ensemblier, the designer in control of every aspect of the environment, a practice that was by now standard among prominent industrial designers. A central marketing technique was keying merchandise to two moderate annual income levels: $2000 and $5000 (approximately $33,000 and $77,000 in today?s dollars). Groups of American-Way manufactured goods were designated as being directed to one of these two groups, presumably based on projected pricing. The ?middle range? pricing of the products was one of their most significant features, of great importance to the Wrights in their quest to bring good design to ?all.? Further, the pricing was calculated to generate sufficient volume to be of value both to manufacturers and retailers. The crafts did not have such income-level classifications, but were marketed based on their regional origins and characteristics, while included in the ensemble concept. The objects produced as part of the American-Way program were each to have a distinctive label, with a large, partially visible red star in a circular form, with the designer?s name printed within the star (Figure 4). The label was a method of tying together the disparate elements of the merchandise, creating consumer recognition, and, the Wrights predicted, ?automatic acceptance? because of the known standards of the program. As House Beautiful noted in October, 1940, ?the American-Way insignia is to stand as your guarantee that what you buy is the best it is possible to make.? Further, as the Wrights knew from their own use of designer signatures on each piece, to give ?positive recognition? to designers, the placing of their name so prominently was a boon to individual credentials. For the Wrights, the practice was calculated specifically to counteract what they saw as the ?past tendency to underestimate our own native talent as compared with that of Europe.? Marketing strategies were promised, including cooperation with unspecified leading museums, consumer organizations, and women?s clubs; personal appearances by designers; national advertising and media coverage. Indeed, a flurry of publicity accompanied the opening of the American-Way program on September 21, 1940 and in the following months. Not least among the reasons was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt?s appearance at the opening (Figure 5). She cut the ceremonial ribbon and made a short speech, in which she emphasized the benefits of giving skilled but artistically lacking craftspeople ?the supervision they need to make their work of greater value.? The choice of Mrs. Roosevelt to cut the ribbon on the American-Way program was astute, giving the merchandising of American handcraft alongside industrial products a national and populist seal of approval. In an interesting contrast to the theatricality and celebrity fanfare of the program?s opening, its paper marketing pieces were distinctly low-key and homemade. Representing the crafts products of the American-Way program, a simple typewritten catalog or sales manual demonstrates Mary Wright?s influence in its attention to retail ensembling and possible application in the consumer?s home. The catalog was arranged into seven states or regions: California, Middle West, New England, New York, Northwest, South, and Southwest. Each area?s defining characteristics were spelled out?California, ?not hide-bound? with Hollywood glamour in the brilliant sun; the ?unaffected? Middle West having ?simplicity and frankness?; the South featuring hospitality and a feeling of abundance and plenty; and so on. A magazine article commented that ?to make the group truly American, there has been a sectional approach? and that ?[i]n this was the true pulse of American design beats through the scheme.? A page for each craftsperson or group indicated the designer when it was not the same as the producer. An informal, almost chatty paragraph or two emphasized the curriculum vitae of the designer and occasionally the craftsperson or group, heavy with words like ?distinguished,? ?celebrated,? or ?famous.? For a group called ?Rudy Bears? the prose says that Charles Rudy is a famous sculptor. He carved the original models of these three bears for replicas made by Klise of Grand Rapids? The bear with his head in his paws, Mr. Rudy says, was inspired by a friend with a before-breakfast hangover? These bears are as interesting and amusing used as single pieces as in groups, [sic] of two and three. The products are described in some detail, including color explanations, with accompanying crude hand-drawn sketches and prices (often given in multiples like dozens). In some cases extra promotional strategies were provided, such as how to use a product: ?a modern substitute for the conventional floral centerpiece? or ?they ensemble well with many types of dinnerware? (Figure 6). A photograph (Figure 7) showing a partial view of American-Way products such as groups of pottery and wooden figures displayed on tables in regional groupings, features wall text prominently displayed in conjunction with the crafts objects: AMERICAN-WAY FOUNDED TO LEND CONSCIOUS DIRECTION TO THE CONTEMPORARY DESIGN MOVEMENT IN THIS COUNTRY TO DEVELOP A MORE INHERENTLY AMERICAN DESIGN EXPRESSION TO RELATE DESIGN IN HOME FURNISHINGS MORE DIRECTLY TO THE AMERICAN WAY OF MARKETING AND LIVING Marketing and living: this was the practical reality of the American-Way program. The ideals of American design expression and direction were, in the end, subject to the exigencies of the consumer market, and the program was envisaged in that context. The form and appearance of the objects that came from the American-Way scheme must be viewed in the light of the realities conditioned by the sometimes uneasy alliance between idealism, design, industry, craft, and retailing. CHAPTER 4 FIGURES      ?Announcing ?American-Way?? prospectus, circa 1940, 4.  Kerr, 273.  Russel Wright, ?Home Furnishings at the Fair,? 28.  ?Announcing ?American-Way?? prospectus, circa 1940, 2.  Russel Wright, undated typed manuscript ?A Guide for Selecting Accessories for the Modern Home? from Syracuse University archive.  ?American-Way? prospectus, January, 1941, 2.  ?Announcing ?American-Way?? prospectus, circa 1940, 12.  Ibid.  Ibid.  Ibid.  As an example, Miles Orvell, in his assessment of American-Way in his cultural history The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940, says the program ?s name has ?a chauvinism that reflects its founding in 1940? (page 188).  Ibid.  ?Announcing ?American-Way?? prospectus, circa 1940, 4.  Guide to Easier Living, 5.  Ibid.  ?American-Way? prospectus, January 1941, 2.  Ibid.  Ibid.  Ibid.  Russel Wright, ?A Guide for Buying Modern,? Arts and Decoration, February, 1935: 27.  Ibid.  It is notable that the Wrights did not make mention in any public material of the ethnicity of the craftspeople. The ?Indian? pottery of the Santa Clara or Penobscot groups was described in terms of its traditional methodologies rather than as a reflection of any racial connection. The only mention of African-Americans involved in the program came in coverage by The New York Herald on September 1, 1940, which mentioned ?banjo-shaped baskets made of sea-grass by the Negroes of the Awenda Islands off Charleston.? (14)  ??American-Way? Sales Manual,? circa 1940, C1.  The American Craftsmen?s Cooperative Council was the new name given to the Handcraft Cooperative League of America in 1942. The organization had been founded in 1939 to develop urban craft outlets for rural craftspeople.  Arthur J. Pulos, manuscript ?Russel Wright and Industrial Design,? dated June 1983, courtesy Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center. .  Jane Watson, ?American-Way?, Magazine of Art, 30 (November 1940): 626.  ?Announcing ?American-Way?? prospectus, circa 1940, 9.  Ibid.  ?American-Way Sales Manual,?circa 1940, C1.  Janet Kardon and Rosemary Haag Bletter, Craft in the Machine Age, 1920-1945 (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1995), 130.  The Wrights were not alone in this dilemma, as Jane Becker commented in Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930-1940: ?Middle-class Americans were becoming more and more aware of the United States as a nation made up of local and unique communities with particular rituals, artistic forms, and ways of life that were very different from their own and that perhaps had much to offer a national culture. Yet the very forces that brought these individual cultures into wider contact with larger numbers of Americans also inevitably reshaped them to make them less different..? (12-13)  This was the makeup of the Board according to the prospectus from Spring/Summer 1940; in April, 1940 The New York Times gave a somewhat different list.  Russel Wright interview.  Ann Kerr, a recognized authority on collecting Russel Wright products, has stated that the program intended to buy products wholesale and warehouse them, although the source of this information is unclear. The Wrights mentioned in their 1940 prospectus that they planned to open showrooms and exhibit at trade shows, but this seems not to have involved a substantial warehousing of merchandise.  ?Prospectus for American-Way, Inc..,? April 1940, 4.  Ibid.  Ibid.  The address given for the program headquarters was 4 East 39th Street, near the Wrights? apartment on East 40th, although stationery used in May 1940 had the heading ?America Designs, Inc.? and the address of 130 East 40th Street. Orders were to be sent to the 39th Street building, and Wright also mentioned a ?showroom? at 10 East 40th Street and ?a large space in Chicago for the trade shows? in prospectuses. Exactly which facilities were used, and for what purposes, is not documented.  Russel Wright interview.  ?American-Way,? prospectus, January, 1941, 4.  ?Announcing American-Way? prospectus, circa 1940, 1.  Russel Wright interview.  ?Prospectus for American-Way,? April 1940, 2.  Ibid.  Letter from Russel Wright to Adrian Dornbush, March 15, 1940, National Archives WPA records, RG 69, Central File, 211.3/T-Z.  ?Prospectus for American-Way? April 1940, 3.  An advertisement for American-Way in House and Garden, November 1940, lists the following thirteen: Wm. Filene?s Sons Company, Boston, Mass.; G. Fox & Co., Hartford, Conn.; R.H. Macy & Co., New York City; The Whitehouse, San Francisco, Calif.; Joseph Horne Co., Pittsburgh, Pa.; Strawbridge & Clothier, Philadelphia, Pa.; J.L. Hudson Company, Detroit, Mich.; The Higbee Company, Cleveland, Ohio; Ginbel Brothers, Inc., Milwaukee, Wisc.; Bullock?s, Los Angeles, Calif.; J.N. Adam & Co., Buffalo, N.Y.; Meier & Frank Co. Inc., Portland, Oregon; W & J Sloane, San Francisco, Calif.  ?The American-Way,? House Beautiful, October, 1940: 111.  ?American-Way? prospectus, January 1941, 4.  Speech by Eleanor Roosevelt at the opening of American-Way at Macy?s, 2 p.m., Saturday, September 21, 1940; text in Syracuse University archive.  House Beautiful October 1940, 111.     53