Teapot c. 1936

Ralph Atkinson made this watercolor of a teapot, part of the Index of American Design, sometime between 1935 and 1942. This Index was a project of the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal agency charged with providing employment to artists during the Great Depression. Atkinson's watercolor presents a design for a mass-producible object, one intended for everyday use. The Index of American Design was an encyclopedic effort to record and celebrate the useful arts of the United States, objects made for practical purposes, but in a way that was also visually pleasing. What political function could such an archive serve? In the face of economic collapse, this Index reminded Americans of their cultural resources and creative heritage. As historians, we can look to archives like the Index of American Design to learn about how artists and government institutions together shaped cultural values during times of crisis.