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- [00:01]
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Dr. Christina Gessler
All?
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- [01:11]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Got it on Wayfair.
- [01:12]
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- [01:31]
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Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:35]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Hello everyone and welcome to Academic Life. This is a podcast for your academic journey and beyond. I'm the producer and your host, Dr. Christina Gessler. And today I am so pleased to be joined by Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison, who is the author of Artisans and Designers American Fashion through Elizabeth and William Phelps. Welcome to the show, Dr. Matheson.
- [01:59]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Hello. Thank you, Christina, for having me.
- [02:02]
Dr. Christina Gessler
I am so glad that you're here and that we get to talk about this book. I am always excited to learn new pieces of women's history. But before we do that, will you please tell us a bit about yourself?
- [02:13]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Sure. So I have an undergrad in English literature and then I went to law school. So I actually do have a law degree and I am a licensed attorney in the state of Texas. Though I do not practice, I have never practiced. I'm in active status, so, you know, I can't offer anybody any legal advice. But I knew as soon as I went to law school that that really was not what I wanted to do. And I knew I wanted to do something to do with clothing, with maybe theater costume at first. So I did an internship with Houston Ballet in their wardrobe department. I took some undergrad classes in textiles while I was in law school. I kind of double booked myself sometimes when I was supposed to be in two classes at once. And then it really wasn't until I ended up living in Australia when I was first married and I wasn't working as a lawyer. I would have had to have gone back and done a couple of years of practice in order to do that. So. So I started volunteering at the Powerhouse Museum. And that's when I realized for the first time that you could really have a job in the history of historic clothing, that fashion history was even a thing academically. And that's when it all sort of came together for me. So I had a wonderful time volunteering there. And then when I moved to New York a couple years later, I went and got a master's at the Fashion Institute of Technology in their program in fashion and textile studies, museum practice, which is where I teach now. And then later I had a chance to go back and get my PhD at the Bard Graduate center, also in New York. And that was really the foundation of this book. The book comes from my PhD dissertation, and that's really sort of where it started.
- [04:30]
Dr. Christina Gessler
I'm curious about what drove such a strong interest, though. Was there something in little Rebecca that was fascinated with costumes or design or clothing or shopping or. Is there any through line for you?
- [04:43]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
I think, you know, the biggest through lines one. I did go to a lot of antique stores with my mother, and I was really drawn to antique hats and purses. So I had a little, very inexpensive collection of pretty much everyday type hats and purses that I found in small antique stores in rural East Texas, which is where I grew up. I also collected buttons. I would buy button jars. So I definitely had an interest in, you know, that kind of historic clothing accessories and other types of objects like that. Also, you know, I have an interest in just, you know, making in general. I learned to sew with my grandmother, hand sewing, and also she had an old treadle sewing machine, so you had to pump it with your foot. So I learned to do machine sewing on the kind where you pump it with the foot to make it go. So I had some, you know, hand skills as well, though certainly not to the extent that many of my colleagues do. But I had you know, some basic, basic sewing skills. The other one that was interesting is not long ago, I was reading through some of my journals from when I was a teenager. I was thinking about it, actually for some fiction piece I was writing for fun. And I came across something that said, when I am grown up, I will be an author. And that was when I was 14. So I guess the interest in writing has always been there, too. So that's also, you know, a through line.
- [06:25]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And this isn't your first book, but this is the one that you built off of your dissertation. And you tell us a bit about that in the back, in the acknowledgments. And. And it seems that you stumbled across Elizabeth Phelps when you were studying something else and you became fascinated in her and took a deep dive into her.
- [06:44]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Yeah. So my MA thesis was about sunbonnets. And that became my first book. And that one really was very reflective of my own experience and sort of examining my own experience. After my time living in Australia, I became more aware of what might be unique and in my lived experience, growing up in East Texas and knowing a lot of older people who had grown up there. And then my second book came from some work I had done. I also worked at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum. And some of the things that I got to see there led me to my second book on Emily Wilkins, who did teenage fashions for girls in the 1940s. So I was spending a lot of time in the 1940s. I was doing a lot of research in magazines and newspapers of that time, and even in ephemera. Like, I would pick up, say, a fashion show program. And I kept seeing this name, Phelps, Phelps Associates. They were always doing the accessories for these fashion shows. And their. Their bags and their belts were being photographed not just in fashion magazines, but in sort of general interest magazines like Life. And I was really curious why I hadn't heard more about them. They seemed to be so widely covered in the media in the 1940s. And their bags and belts were just really interesting to me. And I thought this could be another good project. So I was sort of thinking about them and thinking about maybe doing something about them, even as I was wrapping up my book on Emily Wilkins, which I was, you know, enjoying a lot at the time.
- [08:42]
Dr. Christina Gessler
As we go through the book, we start to get a sense of why maybe they do disappear from the historical record, why there hasn't been more about them. Because as you undertook this study and you started digging into their work. Yes. You could find pieces in museums yes, you could find them covered in everything from, you know, Fortune magazine to, to Vogue. But as far as learning about them as people and finding their personal records and figuring out what made them tick, that was really hard to find.
- [09:11]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Yes, that's definitely one of the pieces that I think I've had to just piece together little bits and pieces, kind of like stitching together a crazy quilt to try to find some sense of who they were as people. There's small things, you know, One of the biggest helps in terms of some insight are some oral histories that were done at Joanna Furness in Pennsylvania, which was the site of their second major workshop location. And in the 1980s, the Hay Creek Valley Historical association did some oral histories with people who had worked for the Phelps and who had known William and Elizabeth Phelps personally. And so the stories are really about their growing up. But it was very helpful to me just hearing them talk about, you know, Elizabeth Phelps always bringing back treats when she went into the city. She'd bring back art supplies for, for the kids or how she would, you know, play in the snow or something. And about William Phelps being much more formal in his, you know, presentation. And, you know, I'm sure there's also, you know, something to do with, you know, the age difference, you know, because William Phelps was much older, he was middle aged by the time they were starting their business and certainly by the time they were in, in Pennsylvania in the late 40s, you know, somebody who's, you know, 40s, 50s, doesn't have the same, necessarily the same drive to, to play in the snow as they might have had when their 20s, which I certainly, being in that age bracket myself, certainly feel. So I think, you know, part of it is that. But, you know, we got little glimpses here and there. Another little glimpse was something that I saw much later, just a letter that Elizabeth Felt wrote to Jimmy Virginia Booth, who was a buyer for Lord and Taylor. And it talks about how they were walking along the seashore in Florida. This is much later in their careers in the 1960s, and just seeing the beauty of the landscape, the beauty of the ocean life, and how she and William started talking about the colors together and how they might incorporate that in their work. So that was really something that came much later in my research process, but gave me another little insight into how much they did work together, how much they did sort of play off each other's interests, how much there was kind of a. A common vision for a lot of what they did. But it was little bits like that, because unlike, unlike Some designers, there's not a huge archive deposited in special collections somewhere. So I was really having to dig in and try to find the small bits and pieces that would reveal little bits of who they were from my audience, while at the same time, you know, it's not just, you know, biographical. This is really looking at their work from a design perspective, too. So it was kind of trying to pull together a book that would tell a little bit about who they were, a lot about what they did, and a lot about the objects themselves.
- [12:49]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And there are through lines between that. Just as when you were sharing about learning to sew with your grandmother and going antiquing with your mom, we see your own personal connection to fashion history. In going through what you were able to put together of both of them as people, we get a sense of why their design sensibility shaped the way it was and why they made a lot of the professional decisions that they made. They were really about sustainability and slow fashion. Those are words that we throw around today, but they're often associated with greenwashing. Industries will say, oh, you know, we really care about this or that. But when a reporter digs into what's really going on in their company, you know, maybe there's a small commitment to that. But what we see with the Phelps is that while they may not have used the same terminology that we use today, they put it in practice. Their walk was more important than their talk. As far as what was sustainability, what was their commitment to the work environment that they created, how did they feel about craftsmanship versus design, and how all this was influenced by where they both came from in life. So we'll dig a little bit into their personal biographies before we go a little further into their profession and what they built for William. You bring us into him. He had gone to Yale for a few years, and then his dad dies in around his junior year, and so he has to leave and go home. And then World War II happens, and he goes into service. At some point in there, he meets his first wife in Scotland. He also ends up with a job working for General Motors. And he learns that he truly hates everything to do with mass production. The depression hits, and he ends up basically living in his mom's attic, it sounds like taking up woodworking. And that's really where we see the development of him as a person who has a real artisanal view of craft and product.
- [15:02]
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- [15:25]
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- [15:40]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Yeah, so that's right. So I think one interesting kind of point that you're bringing out, too is that some of his craft practice was also influenced by time he spent in Europe, because he was in World War I and he was in Europe for that. And then during his job at General Motors, he was also the European foreign manager, so he was traveling in Europe a lot. And he was also really inspired by some of the small craft studios that he saw. So even while he was in the midst of working for this mass production style business and assembly line and efficiency and all of that, that was so important, he was also looking around and trying to find places where he could sort of see small craft at work. So it was definitely on his mind, I guess, more as a hobby at that stage. But I think sometimes it takes, you know, a major life crisis to kind of shake us out of where we are. And I think he's a great example of someone who takes something that could be just a crushing blow. You know, he loses this, you know, corporate job in the middle of a huge depression where, you know, a lot of people are just struggling to get, you know, food on the table. And in the midst of that, he actually manages to make a positive change in his career and actually do something that he really loves. And so there's something really, you know, kind of inspiring about what he does with that. Just in terms of his personal history.
- [17:27]
Dr. Christina Gessler
He doesn't come across as a risk taker. He comes across as a pretty businesslike person. But again, you point out in the book that you're getting a sense of him professionally through press releases and press coverage. So it's difficult to know if he did have a playful side or if he, if he was a. A bit of a dreamer, because we do see what you pointed out. He's had a number of things that for many people would feel like major setbacks, getting into an Ivy League. And then Leaving without a degree is for many people, crushing. Many, many veterans went through a long period after service where it was difficult for them to reintegrate and figure out how to go forward because war trauma is a very real thing. He lost his father young. The depression had a massive effect on people's well being through, across all, all metrics. But one of the things we find that for men, particularly if they saw themselves as a professional, as a breadwinner, losing their job could be catastrophic for them. And so we do see him as a person who kind of takes life by the season. Like, what am I going to do now? I will go do it. In the midst of this, we also see a failed marriage. At the time that he meets Elizabeth, he has two very young children and a wife. They kind of fade out of the story. We don't know if on one of his business trips his family decided just to stay back in Scotland. We don't, we don't really know from the book at least how they fade out of the picture when he, when he meets Elizabeth, as you pointed out, there's a great age difference at the point that they get married. He's, I think in his mid-40s and she's 25.
- [19:06]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Yeah, he's 40. He's 40 and she's 25. When they actually, according to their marriage certificate, which again, I will just say is another one of the advantages we have these days in trying to, to pin down some facts, some biographical facts about people. As hard as it still is, we do have this incredible access to primary source documents now because through things like familysearch and ancestry, we can actually kind of find, you know, his World War I, you know, draft card. We can find their marriage certificate. We can find, you know, the census documents showing where they were and the fact that they said that their job was being an artist. We can find all that a lot more easily these days than we can even, you know, 20 years ago.
- [19:58]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And as you're digging through the records and putting together really even how this creative partnership between the two of them happened, we're at this point sort of seeing them in New York City. She's attending art school, he teaches at nyu. And they're at the beginning of figuring out what their creative partnership will be. Can you take us back to that?
- [20:20]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Sure. So from what I've been able to find in the 30s, they were really involved in a lot of aspects of this kind of movement to find an American design identity through craft. There's something called the Index of American Design, which was A government sponsored project that documented objects that had been made in the United States from the period of US nationhood to the 1930s. But mostly it was 19th century material. And the idea was to have artists go out and sketch these, and they did this in color usually, and create a record that could then be used as inspiration for contemporary design. So that's, you know, one aspect of what was going on, and this interest in craft generally. And they were also involved in some of the things he taught. He taught craft also in New York through some of the Civilian Conservation Corps projects. So teaching people that might not have hand skills, teaching them craft here in New York, I believe it was maybe on Governor's Island. I'm not positive, the location. But there was a big push to teach people skills, to give people employment. All of that, that was the sponsorship of art and design by the government that was happening in the 1930s. They were kind of, you know, involved in that movement. So when they came together as a couple, they were originally doing different things. So she was working as a mural painter. She had been studying painting at the Art Students League, which incidentally is a place where a lot of designers, fashion designers, ended up studying. Nancy Deal, in her work, has mentioned the fact that quite a few women, particularly fashion designers, studied at the Art Students League. So Elizabeth is kind of more involved in painting at that point. And William Phelps sort of moves from his woodworking, making these big chests to getting an interest in leather working. And that is where the magic happens, if you will, when they actually start working together.
- [22:54]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And we'll just take a moment and we'll. We'll go a little bit back through Elizabeth's biography. She's a bit mysterious. You've tried to trace her through different interviews with her, what the press has said about her, and she was pretty quiet about that. She was born in Germany. It looks like she came to the United States when she was still a child. Her. Her mother remarried. You're not sure what happened to the biological father, but the mom and the stepmother end up in the United States. She ends up with a couple of half siblings. The father is part of the US Military. But in later years, when she's interviewed, she says almost nothing about her childhood. And even when she's interviewed about how she got together with her husband and what date they got married, she kind of fudges the timeline a little bit there. So she was really private about that. But this is also a time period when there's still a great distrust of people of German heritage. So when she Came as a child, maybe not so much, but at the time period when they're getting a lot of press, the period just after World War II, the Cold War is going on. And so I can see why privately she really tried to move on in the story. So what we have really, is the starting point of their fashion design career together is she wants a belt. And so you take us to a part of New York that probably most people right now have not heard of, the Swamp, and he's going to pick out just the right piece of letter.
- [24:26]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Yeah. So thanks for hitting on all the kind of mysterious points about Elizabeth Phelps. And, you know, I think this is, this is one of the things about research is, you know, I'm very cautious about what I ever want to assert about someone, so I'm willing to let things kind of be a mystery when I can't come up with concrete facts. And, you know, as you said, she was very private. And I definitely think, you know, the fact that she was of German heritage, especially in the middle of World War II, and, you know, during the Cold War afterwards, you know, it wasn't really something that you want to be trumpeting, you know, like, especially when the US Is at war with Germany, it was not something that she was especially going to be talking about. They'd much rather talk about William Phelps's ancestors who were in colonial Massachusetts and making, you know, metalwork back in that period, and they didn't really want to talk about her family. And in fact, it's really sort of poignant. When I was reading, even in just interviews, you know, artists often talk about some point in their childhood that might point something to their interest in, in adulthood. And she talked about lacing and unlacing a shoe in terms of, like, handcraft and, and what she played with. So, you know, that's, that's a little different. That's, that's, that's not exactly pointing to a super privileged childhood, but we don't know. It just. I don't have that information. It's out there perhaps, but I have not found it yet. But then we do have another point that you kind of mentioned, which is the fact that when they got together, he was still married. So they claimed later that they were married a couple of years before they actually were, probably because it looks like they were living together and traveling together. And that was not something that she probably or he either really wanted broadcast as part of their public image, but by the time they start their business, they've been married for, you know, about, you know, at least five or six years. And then, like you said, they go to this neighborhood in New York called the Swamp. And you know, a lot of lower Manhattan early on was very swampy. And it was, you know, there's a lot of reclaimed land and they drained this area called the Swamp. But long ago, that swampy area meant there was a lot of water, which was good for making leather. And so there was actually a small area where leather was actually made. And then later there was mostly leather manufacturing. But a lot of that got wiped out in the late 19th century when they built the Brooklyn Bridge. So the Brooklyn Bridge went straight through this whole neighborhood and basically just obliterated it. And so if you drive by the Brooklyn Bridge, which I did last night, and I was busily pointing out, underneath the bridge, there are these wooden, sorry, these wooden shutters that are kind of boarded up in the middle of a brick structure. But those windows, those boarded up wooden windows are openings to what once were bustling warehouses where things were sold. So that was kind of the city compromise. When they put in the Brooklyn Bridge and wiped out the swamp leather neighborhood, they said that they would have these brand new modern heated facilities where leather goods could still be sold, right, basically inside the bridge structure. And so that was, you know, they were brand new and modern in the late 19th century. By the 1930s, when the Phelpses go shopping there, they're probably not so modern anymore, but they were still in operation. So even in the late 30s, early 1940s, there was leather for sale inside the kind of pillar, brick pillar supports that are on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge. And so that is where they went. Which, you know, is also a whole fascinating topic in and of itself in terms of historic neighborhood. But it was one more way that the fashion media such as Vogue magazine, tied the Phelpses work to a sort of aspect of American history. They tied it to this historic leather working neighborhood called the Swamp.
- [29:29]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And the book is a good reminder of how many iterations and reinventions New York City itself has had. There are different parts of the city that are called by different names. And people may not think about what historically it relates to, for example, the meatpacking district. But as we go deeply through your explanation of leather, how leather is harvested, created the different animals that it can come from, how you take care of it. I was reminded that the meatpacking district was in fact, part of an animal processing center of, of. Of New York. And that even further back in in New York history, live animals roaming around New York was a thing. For example, pigs were a major part of keeping up with the garbage. And so but we're at a different part in, in, in New York's history where they want to start setting up their, their artisanal craft making workshop. And yet one of the things you point out in the book is that at the point that they're doing this, we see a lot of production work that had some historical roots in New York moving outside the city. So the leather work is not being done in the city very much anymore. Animal processing is not really doing, being done as much in the city. And a lot of manufacturing has moved to other places. And yet here they come with their determination to not only make things, but make them in a particular way. Earlier I referenced terms of sustainability and slow fashion. As we start to see them setting up their workshop and figure out what ways they're going to make their products and how they're going to source materials, can you tell us how they really exemplify some terms that we throw around today, but they actually, it was core baked into how they did their work?
- [31:24]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Well, I think one of the things that is a part of the slow fashion movement today is thinking about, you know, the long term. So that's one of the things that they definitely from the start had a goal of creating objects that would not be used and then go out of fashion next week and be tossed out.
- [31:50]
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- [32:20]
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- [32:49]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Their goal right from the beginning was to create things that would be. We often sort of throw around the word classic, but I think something that would be classic is definitely part of what they were trying to do. They wanted things that would be made by hand, the opposite of his assembly line past. They wanted to do things where a single artisan would make the thing from start to finish. So instead of being on an assembly line where all you do all day is, you know, put one little part on your object, they wanted to have someone really be invested in it. I mean, when you bought a Phelps bag, there was something about the person who had made it so clearly a part of it, just because that person worked on it from start to finish. And Elizabeth Phelps even said one time, I think a person is happier making a thing from start to finish, whether it's a whole stove lid or a whole handbag. And that's part of their interest, was making sure that the people that worked for them would be able to make things in a way that was more humanizing and more empowering. So that was really a concern of theirs right from the start. And you see that in their early Washington Square workshop. It was a small workshop. You kind of go down these basement stairs, and there. There you are in this space where they all were working together and then all having lunch together around, you know, a kind of communal table. And that was part of what the atmosphere that they wanted. Wanted to create in. So I think you see some of those things right from the beginning that they're. That is really their goal. They want to make things. But even as they try to expand later, they're always concerned with not expanding in a way that's going to take away from. From the things that matter to them. So they. They end up experimenting with a lot of different kinds of ways of making different business structures. But the. The key is that they want to try to do it in a way that is as helpful for the artisans.
- [35:15]
Dr. Christina Gessler
As possible for listeners. The biographical information that we shared is gleaned from the chronology and from the opening parts of the book where we were talking about craft connections in their early careers. That's chapter one. And now we're situated more in chapter two, where we're talking about establishing that workshop in Washington Square. As we're looking at the rise of their career, we're also looking at something that seems fairly unique to the history of the fashion industry, which is there's been a decline in the influence coming out of Paris because of World War I and the interwar period in World War II. And so there's kind of a unique moment when an American designer can define for themselves what their brand is and what it will be about. They're not in conversation with high fashion out of Paris. They're not in conversation as much with the European influences. Even though so much of how he felt about artisanal work, as you say, was greatly influenced by what he saw when he served in World War I. Yeah.
- [36:26]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
So it is a unique moment in that, I think, for the Phelpses and for Phelps Associates as a brand, they were doing the right thing at the right time in the right place. So, you know, they were in a place where they made fashion connections with fashion journalists, fashion designers like Claire Potter. And they were doing something that was really more of a luxury good because it was handmade. And the US Fashion industry was. And the fashion media were really looking for some things to promote since they didn't have the high fashion from Paris. They were trying to think of really great, exciting things that were happening in American fashion at the time. And so part of that is sportswear. So that's one aspect that you see a lot of American design in the sportswear category during World War II. And then the other is things like the Phelpses in accessories. So you're not getting, you know, you're not getting things imported from Paris in terms of handbags and belts. And what a great time to discover someone like William and Elizabeth Phelps working in a basement downtown in Manhattan. So it was really kind of a perfect coming together of that. And the Phelpses were really good at sort of framing their things in terms of a long term investment as well. One of one of my favorite pieces is the insect belt. And there's also an insect bag. There's a set of them at the Costume Institute at the Met. And so there's a lot of different colors of leather that they were done in. But, you know, the one in the Met is just a brown. There's a red one that was shown in Vogue, but then there's these glittering brass what look like, you know, like cicadas or something. And Vogue said to wear it like a jewel, you know, and to sort of amortize it out as an investment by how many times you wore it. So that is not a new idea. Vogue was telling people to do it as far back as the 1940s, but the idea was that, you know, you were going to be buying this and wearing it a lot. And that was needed because during World War II, they did not want. They did not want people to just buy stuff and toss it. We had to really marshal all the material resources at the time. So again, the Phelps's idea about, you know, hanging onto things for a long term, getting good quality stuff that wasn't Going to wear out. That really was in tune with what was wanted by the fashion industry at the time.
- [39:23]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And as you trace them through different advertisements and different ways the press covered them, you saw some key themes that they were highlighting. It was a time of really talking up being American, which is awkward because we don't know if Elizabeth ever had American citizenship and something that we've highlighted that she really didn't dig into. And yet they're promoting this sort of idea of Americana, and they're talking about this ethos that. That fits the moment. So it's highlighting quality, utility, versatility, and you. You contrast that to what had been the model out of Paris, which was aspirational luxury. These are pieces that you're going to use, as you've said, that you're going to hang onto. But as we get into chapter three, which is called Shortages and Shapes, we start to have a real sense of all of this coming together. This is a lot of recycled pieces. As they face a shortage of one kind, they figure out a pivot, really. So you take us into how they, too, went to antique stores, and they found pieces of old handbags, of old hardware, so that they could keep making what they make despite the shortages. They found ways to use smaller pieces of leather remnants rather than place bespoke orders. They managed to keep going forward because they had this particular ethos baked into what they did in it. It's not just the PR that they did, but it's literally in the materials. You talk about pieces of horse harnesses, old military surplus insignias. So much of each piece shows a repurposing.
- [41:13]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Yes, that. That is one of the most interesting aspects of what they were doing, which, again, just made them so well positioned for World War II. Most of the manufacturers of handbags in the United states in the 1930s made things that relied on a metal frame for the shape. So you had to have this metal frame, and then you added onto it the leather, the fabric, or, you know, whatever the material was. But they were already making, because they were coming from a leathercraft standpoint, they were already making these soft bags or even harder bags that were made in, like, kind of an envelope shape that didn't require a metal frame. So there. There they were investing more in the leather working itself. And so they didn't need the metal frame to. For the structure. So already, even before this became an issue, they were making things that suited the. The. The sort of. Well, just the constraints of that period. And then on top of that, they did so much repurposing of metal work in the findings. The things that they really did have to have that were made of metal, they used, for example, these little. They're called D rings and they are shaped like a little leather D. Sorry, a little letter D. And they're made out of metal. And they would get them at, you know, army navy surplus stores so they could buy them in bulk. And they were from, you know, old harness, old military gear of various kinds. They bought out, I think, the contents of an old harness shop at one point so they could reuse all of that metalwork. But again, this idea of repurposing and reusing is just part of what they do, which made them so well suited for being able to continue during the war, because that was already what they were doing, already what they were interested in. And as you pointed out, the fashion media really did market the Americana type pieces. Those were the ones that they got the most attention for. But not everything was, you know, U.S. military, though. There were lots and lots of sort of American eagle motif. But there were also, you know, I've seen a bag that is a Prussian eagle. So they used all kinds of things. The two pieces that William Phelps himself, and presumably Elizabeth as well, but for whatever reason it's attributed to him, donated to the Costume Institute, have heraldic lion motifs on them. So that's another sort of old metal that they had found and, you know, incorporated into their work. So it's, you know, it's interesting the way it's marketed. Sometimes you would think that only Americana was what they were doing, but it was repurposing metalwork of all kinds, including some of those other motifs as well. So it's actually the, the work is actually even more interesting and broad ranging than what they were sort of winning the awards for. But they did consciously reference historic forms which were often from historic US military gear because they thought those were so practical things that left your, your hands free, for example, and they were able to go study some of those in museums here in New York. So they actually went in person and looked at historic cartridge cases from the American Revolution, for example. And those things that had allowed soldiers to keep their hands free were also pretty useful for allowing women in World War II to keep their hands free. So a lot of the stuff that became, you know, kind of a selling point were, as you said, just a part of a. Part of really the DNA of what they were doing as a business.
- [45:32]
Dr. Christina Gessler
You also take us into the financial aspects of sustainability. They did an interview with, with Fortune magazine in 1945 so we're at the very end of World War II, it has just ended, and society is figuring out what it, what it means to rebuild life globally. And they're continuing on with the business that they've managed to hang on to and build. And Fortune is reporting on what their financial model is. And it says that they have 12% of their cost for materials, 30% for labor costs, 18% for overhead and 40% for profit. And the article goes on to note that the couple are satisfied with a profit of about a thousand dollars a month on a total investment of $27,000. It says they are indeed among the most eloquent exponents of modesty with regard to profits. That's kind of staggering to think about given what business models are today, that they came in with the idea that they wanted a modest approach to profits and that it was built into their sustainability to budget so much for labor costs.
- [46:54]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Yes, that is, you know, one of the things that really is pretty remarkable about their, their business is that they do, you know, from the start, plan that they, they don't want to just totally maximize their profit. And even with the profit they do make, they pour a lot back into the business itself. So yeah, it's very different from the kind of maximize market up as much as you possibly can, kind of thinking. So they're trying different things to still be able to remain afloat. And one of the things that they find is that, you know, it is also very expensive manufacturing in New York. And yet they're under like this a lot of pressure from some of the stores that sell their, sell their goods, especially a lot of the high end specialty stores, stores like Bonwit Teller and Lord and Taylor and Neiman Marcus and Dallas. These stores want more and more and more of the Phelps goods. But of course, if you are making things by hand and one person is making it from start to finish, there's only so much that one person can do at a time. So there's sort of a built in limit on how much they can make. So they do go into a different business model as well, in partnership with a whole group of the stores. About five different stores sort of sponsor this secondary project where they're going to make some of the simpler designs. They'll still have artisans making the same thing start to finish, but they won't make as many different models because you know, every time you make a different model you have to kind of adjust your thinking. So it's going to be just a few models and the simpler things and they're hoping that, you know, with this. This model and they put this little workshop in a separate place in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania. They were hoping they'd be able to make a few more, like, a little more speedily with this model. But they did keep it separate from the rest of their business, which is quite interesting. They did not let the stores take a stake in their business because they wanted to keep their independence. So they didn't let the stores actually take over. And I think that's one thing that often fashion brands run into trouble when they need financial backing and they let someone else take control. They end up having their creative choices well regulated by the investors. So they made a very clear choice to keep this. This model where they had the outside investors separate from their primary business and their primary custom business. So, you know, that model doesn't. Doesn't go on forever. It's just for a few years. But it was one way that they kind of experimented with trying to make more while still keeping their own priorities and continuing to make in their primary workshop the way they wanted to.
- [50:18]
Dr. Christina Gessler
And chapter five takes us into their move to Pennsylvania. Chapter six takes us into their production in North Carolina. We also learn about how she starts creating paper patterns, how she applies for a patent, and how when he passes away, she runs the business by herself. And then we see her move back into her work as a painter. Early on in the book, you tell us that one of the purposes of the book is to illuminate one woman's path as an artist and craftsperson as well as an entrepreneur. And we do see that in the book as well, more than we've had time to dive into here today. The book also has a number of photographs. You will see pieces that Rebecca has highlighted here on air. You can see them in detail, and they also tell you what museum they're in. There's an extensive bibliography, index, and notes for listeners who want to dive more into various pieces of this history. As we come to the close of our time together, I want to ask you, what do you hope this episode will spark for listeners?
- [51:30]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
Well, I think one thing that I hope it will spark is just the excitement. And when you look to history, you can see a lot of different approaches for doing things. I think we tend to sort of imagine that we have to, you know, change the entire industry before we can make any progress or make any changes whatsoever. And I think they give an example of someone who was able to actually experiment with different ways of making different ways of doing business. And we're able to still do that, even within. Within a larger structure. So I think that is really an interesting and. And hopeful aspect. And also I just, you know, I am really struck by how beautiful the things that they made are. And they were so beautiful that people tended to hang on to them, pass them down. You know, I spoke to people, I spoke to one person in particular who, you know, wore Phelps accessories growing up that had been handed down to her by her mother. And I think that is something that the Phelpses would have been so excited about because that's so what they wanted out of their. Their work. They wanted to have make things that had this long life and were appreciated for their beauty and quality, you know, long after the initial sale. And so I think that. That, I think is what they took as their measure of success. And I think that they actually, they actually achieved that just by interviewing and talking and examining objects themselves. I found the evidence that people did in fact, wear and use and repair and pass down the Phelps things that they had. And I think that is another really important way that we can. That we can take inspiration from someone who worked in this area of sustainability. Long before we used those words.
- [53:46]
Dr. Christina Gessler
I know it was difficult to get a deep sense of Elizabeth. She was very private. But how do you think she would like to be remembered?
- [53:54]
Dr. Rebecca Jumper Mathison
You know, I think number one is she'd like to be remembered as an artist. I think she certainly speaks to that, that conversation about is fashion art, which, you know, I would. I would wish that we didn't still have that conversation and that that could just definitely be accepted, that fashion is art. But I think for her, she was working as an artist, whether she was painting or whether she was cutting out a leather shoulder bag. And I think that is one of the things she would like to be remembered for most, is that she was an artist, whatever media she was working in.
- [54:35]
Dr. Christina Gessler
Thank you so much for being here with us today, Dr. Rebecca Jumper Matheson, and sharing from your book Artisans and Designers American Fashion through Elizabeth and. And William Phelps. You've been listening to the academic life. I'm Dr. Christina Gessler inviting you to please join us again.