Candace Wheeler, designer and reformer

Between the close of the Civil War and the Panic of 1873 thousands of women who had been financially dependent on husbands, brothers, or fathers suddenly found themselves without any means of support. These needy women became the catalyst for reformers and charitable institutions determined to place women m the workforce. Among the reformers was Candace Wheeler, who spent her long life pursuing ways to better the lives of women in the United States. In addition, through her own creative accomplishments and in partnership with others, she designed beautiful textiles and shaped the profession of interior design. An exhibition that examines the multifaceted career of this strong and independent woman is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City from October 10 through January 6,2002. The show is entitled Candace Wheeler: The Art and Enterprise of American Design, 1875-1900 and features 105 works, including textiles, wallpapers, drawings, photographs of interiors, paintings, and furniture.

Candace Thurber was the daughter of a farmer and a cap-maker of Delhi, New York, where she was born 1827. In 1843 she met Thomas Mason Wheeler in New York City and they were married the following year. By 1854 they had two children, necessitating a move to larger quarters, which they found in a house they built in Jamaica, Queens, which they called Nestledown. In the early 1860s Wheeler took art lessons from the Pre-Raphaelite painter George Henry Hall. The Wheelers traveled extensively in Europe between 1865 and 1867, and it is possible that Candace Wheeler enrolled in art classes in Dresden. Another trip to Europe between 1871 and 1873 incorporated almost a year in Paris with its spectacular art museums. Back in New York in 1874, Wheeler headed the "domestic department" of a trade publication entitled American Grocer, of which her husband was publisher.

A visit to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 proved to be a pivotal moment in Wheeler's life, for there she saw an exhibit mounted by the Royal School of Art Needlework in London, which had been founded as a way to employ women in need, particularly middle-class women. The following year Wheeler founded a similar organization, calling it the Society of Decorative Art of New York. Its mission was to exhibit and sell women's work (and at one point objects made by men as well) and to promote training in various craft techniques. Although not terribly successful at the outset, the organization took root by mounting a special exhibition endorsed by some of New York's leading society figures, and by the end of the first year there were related societies in Chicago, Saint Louis, Hartford, Charleston, South Carolina, and Troy New York. The society published Art Interchange, which was devoted to art, design, and household decoration and was overseen by Wheeler. She founded the New York Exchange for Wo man's Work the following year Since it was perforce in competition with the Society of Decorative Art, its mission was confined to taking consignments only from women in need.

In 1879 Louis Comfort Tiffany, whom Wheeler had met through their work for these benevolent institutions, invited her to participate in a new interior decorating business he was founding. First named Tiffany and Wheeler in 1880, the firm underwent several name changes. It drew on the talents and expertise of the painter Samuel Colman and the designer Lockwood de Forest, who traveled to India to look into the manufacturing of woodwork. Tiffany created the overall design concept and Wheeler initially directed the workshop and later designed the textiles and walipapers. In l88l the firm became Louis C. Tiffany and Company Associated Artists. It prospered and enjoyed large commissions from some of the country's most elite families, among them the Kemps, Vanderbilts, Palmers, Fishes, and Goelets. The splendid Veteran's Room of the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue in New York City is one of the rare survivals of the imaginative work of this decorating team.

In 1883 Louis C. Tiffany and Company Associated Artists, was dissolved, and Wheeler struck out on her own, taking the name Associated Artists as the name of her firm. Her sumptuous silks were manufactured by Cheney Brothers in South Manchester, Connecticut, as they had been for the firm Tiffany ran. Wheeler also designed printed cotton denims for use in country cottages. Woven and printed silks and printed cotton velveteens comprised the middle range of her offerings. The top of the line was exquisite embroideries and tapestries designed and executed by Associated Artists In time, Wheelers fabrics could be found in London and San Francisco. Many of the designs were created by Wheeler's daughter Dora, and by 1885 the firm employed about sixty people.

In 1888, while her firm was still enjoying much success, Wheeler decided with her brother Francis to found an artist's colony m the Catskill Mountains at Onteora, New York, where she had had a house since 1883. Her son Dunham was responsible for the architecture of the various rustic style buildings. Such well-known figures as Mark Twain, John White Alexander, John F. Weir, and J. Carroll Beckwith were visitors.