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Guide to the Cassidy Family Papers, [ca. 1897-1965]
BANC MSS 67/1 p
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Table of contents
Collection Title: Cassidy Family Papers,
Date (inclusive): [ca. 1897-1965]
Collection Number: BANC MSS 67/1 p
Extent:
Number of containers: 16 boxes, 18 cartons, 2 oversize folders, and 1 oversize volume
Repository: The
Bancroft Library.
Berkeley, California 94720-6000
Physical Location: For current information on the location of these materials, please consult the Library's online catalog.
Abstract: Include papers of artist Gerald Cassidy and his wife, writer Ina Sizer Cassidy.
Letters written to them by friends, associates, professional organizations, etc.; copies of letters written by them; biographical materials; personalia; diaries, date books and journals kept by Mrs. Cassidy; some financial records, including two volumes of his painting accounts; MSS of her writings; subject files, notebooks, scrapbooks and clippings relating to the following: Gerald Cassidy's paintings and exhibitions; Mary Austin and other writers of the Southwest; Indians of the Southwest; arts, crafts and folklore of the Southwest; New Mexico Federal Writers Project; Santa Fe; woman suffrage; etc.
Letters written to them by friends, associates, professional organizations, etc.; copies of letters written by them; biographical materials; personalia; diaries, date books and journals kept by Mrs. Cassidy; some financial records, including two volumes of his painting accounts; MSS of her writings; subject files, notebooks, scrapbooks and clippings relating to the following: Gerald Cassidy's paintings and exhibitions; Mary Austin and other writers of the Southwest; Indians of the Southwest; arts, crafts and folklore of the Southwest; New Mexico Federal Writers Project; Santa Fe; woman suffrage; etc.
Languages Represented:
English
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Head of Public Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft
Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which
must also be obtained by the reader.
[Identification of item], Cassidy Family Papers, BANC MSS 67/1 p, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
- Photographs and most portraits have been removed and indexed separately in the Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library.
- Original works of art have been transferred to the Pictorial Collections of The Bancroft Library.
- Tape recordings and motion pictures have been transferred to the Microforms Collelctions of The Bancroft Library.
The collection of papers was given to The Bancroft Library in August 1963 and March 1965 by Mrs. Cassidy, with additions in
June 1966 from the Cassidy Estate. Spanning the years 1897-1965 they include letters addressed to the Cassidys from friends
and colleagues; copies of letters written by them; biographical material; personalia; diaries, date books and journals kept
by Mrs. Cassidy; some financial records, including two volumes of Gerald Cassidy's painting accounts; MSS of Mrs. Cassidy's
writings; subject files, notebooks, scrapbooks and clippings on the following: Gerald Cassidy's paintings and exhibitions,
Mary Austin and other writers, Indians of the Southwest, arts and crafts and folklore of the Southwest, New Mexico Federal
Writers Project, Santa Fe, woman suffrage etc. Gerald Cassidy's original oil paintings, watercolors, lithographs, sketches
and working drawings, and the photographs, including portraits and photographic reproductions of his works, have been transferred
to the Library's pictorial collections. Two tape recordings and 25 motion pictures were also removed and transferred to the
Microforms Division, cataloged as Phonotapes 786-7 and Motion Pictures 283: 1-25. Several lithograph plates and proofs were
transferred by agreement in 1966 to the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque.
The Cassidy family papers consist of the papers of artist Ira D. Cassidy, better known as Gerald Cassidy, and writer Ina Sizer
Cassidy, both of them long time residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico. They were married in Denver, Colorado on January 10, 1912,
and thereafter their professional lives were inextricably tied to the Southwest.
Gerald Cassidy was born in Covington, Kentucky on November 10, 1879 and was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, where be studied at
the Cincinnati Art Institute and, later, under Frank Duvenick. Although self-taught to a great extent, he also studied for
a brief period at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy of Design. His early artistic accomplishments
were as a draftsman and commercial poster artist with a firm of lithographers in New York and later in Denver. In January
1912, failing health attracted him to Santa Fe where he built his home and settled for the rest of his life. In an effort
to divorce his former commercial work from his new creative painting career, he began using the name Gerald Cassidy, as opposed
to his earlier work as Ira Cassidy. At Santa Fe he excelled in painting portraits, desert scenes, Indian life and historic
subjects. His prizes, awards and special commissions were numerous, and he exhibited regularly in New York, Boston, Chicago
and throughout the West. A tour through Europe and North Africa in 1926-27 inspired additional paintings, and his works were
purchased for inclusion in major public and private collections throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He died on
February 12, 1934 while working on a large mural for the U.S. Federal Building in Santa Fe.
Ina Cassidy was born Perlina Sizer, in a log cabin on a cattle ranch near Las Animas, Colorado, on March 4, 1869. An early
crusader for women's rights she was active in the Alliance of Unitarian Women as an organizer and lecturer for women suffrage
in Washington, D.C. and in the Rocky Mountain states. She became an avid writer, too, and many of her short stories, articles,
and poems were published in national literary journals and anthologies. In 1931, she began writing a monthly column, "Art
and Artists of New Mexico," which regularly appeared
New Mexico Magazine for over twenty years and was a major influence in promoting and encouraging young artists of the Southwest. She served as
state director of the WPA New Mexico Writers Project during the late 1930s and as president of the New Mexico Folklore Society
in 1948.
New Mexico Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary, written in collaboration with longtime friend Thomas M. Pearce, was published after her death which occurred at Santa Fe on
September 9, 1965.