A Useful Art (2003)

Commentary

Ahearn, Barry. “Zukofsky, Marxism, and American Handicraft.” In Scroggins (1997): 94-111.

Nadel, Ira B. "'A Precision of Appeal': Louis Zukofsky and the Index of American Design." In Scroggins (1997): 112-26.

Sherwood, Kenneth. Introduction to A Useful Art: Essays and Radio Scripts on American Design. Wesleyan UP, 2003. 1-13.

Taggart, John. “Moving on to the Beginning.” Afterword to A Useful Art: Essays and Radio Scripts on American Design. Ed. Kenneth Sherwood. Wesleyan UP, 2003. 225-233.

This volume collects the materials LZ prepared as a writer for the Works Projects Administration (WPA), the government’s New Deal scheme to employ writers and artists during the Depression. LZ worked on various different projects between January 1934 and April 1942, and the surviving scripts were written for the Index of American Design (Jan. 1936-July 1939), “a survey of American decorative arts and crafts from earliest colonial days to the beginning of large-scale production” and for WNYC Radio (Sept. 1939-Jan. 1941) on similar topics. A selection of illustrations of crafts from the Index of American Design with descriptions can be found at the National Art Gallery website: www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/iad.htm.

In “A”-12.257, LZ mentions A History of American Design as one of his discarded or unfinished projects, which presumably refers to these materials, although may indicate that he planned his own related work on the subject. At “A”-8.96-97, LZ describes one of his research forays to interview a blacksmith in the Bronx.