Stella Blum Grant Report

Abstract

Phelps Associates, a business operated by the husband-and-wife design team of William Drown Phelps (1890–1962) and Elizabeth Heintges Phelps (1909–87) from 1940 until 1969, was critically acclaimed for creating accessories and sportswear that embodied American ideals from patriotism to practicality. The Phelpses’ accessories designs celebrated handcraft traditions in the making of leather goods, while both their accessories and sportswear designs emphasized long-term investment in quality goods. This research focused on the output of the Phelpses’ two postwar workshops located in Pennsylvania and North Carolina to consider how they expanded their small, critically acclaimed leather-goods workshop to produce ready-to-wear sportswear and how clients used their products. Phelpses’ designs, particularly those attributed to Elizabeth, served a consumer base of primarily middle- and upper-class white women in navigating gender roles during the exigencies of war and in the postwar period.