I am organizing a panel for Ethnohistory focusing on the history of American Indian arts and crafts cooperatives, guilds and handicraft projects. Several of these programs were started in the 1930s and 1940s under the auspices of Indian New Deal and WPA programs; others have been more recent (some short lived, others still in operation). However (and with some exceptions, most notably Schrader’s history of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board) there has been scant attention devoted to the history of specific arts and crafts programs, their structure and their impact on various levels within the host Native communities. Also little understood is how communities and artists themselves regarded, responded to, benefited, participated in, resisted, or otherwise influenced these programs.

I invite anyone interested in this topic or who has come across such programs from archival and oral history record to please contact me at greenad@msu.edu. Please respond by May 30. You don’t need to have a formal abstract ready yet (those are due June 15), but send me enough information about what you would like to present. Thanks.