Scope and Content Note
The papers of Charles Eames and Ray Eames span the years 1850-1989, with the bulk of the material dating from 1950 to 1988. The collection documents the professional activities and associations of the Eameses who, although perhaps best known for their chair and furniture designs, were involved in a wide range of projects, including films, exhibits, games, toys, and books. The collection is arranged in two parts. Part I comprises material received shortly after Ray Eames's death and is concentrated in the period from 1965 to her death in 1988. Its five series include an Office File pertaining to the Eameses' clients and professional associations, a Research and Production File containing project files from many of their exhibits and films, an Administrative File documenting the Eames office's workflow and publicity, the Kaiser Family Papers comprising the papers of Ray Eames before her marriage to Charles Eames, and an Oversize series. Part II consists of a large addition to the collection and covers a broader span of time, documenting many aspects of their personal and professional lives from the late 1940s to Ray Eames's death. The arrangement of Part II, for the most part, parallels that of Part I with an expanded number of series to highlight its unique features. Its nine series include an Office File , Projects File , Speeches and Writings File , Administrative File , Packets , Subject File , Family Papers , Addendum , and Oversize .
Part I
The Office File in Part I documents the Eameses' professional associations and many aspects of their design work. Chronicled in the series are their associations with numerous museums and design programs, including the Cranbrook Academy of Art, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, University of California's Los Angeles School of Architecture and Urban Planning, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, as well as their participation on boards and committees, including Charles Eames's membership on the National Council on the Arts from 1970 to 1976. Speeches and lectures delivered by the Eameses at conferences and meetings are most often documented through notes and outlines. The limited number of complete texts reflects Charles Eames's habit of speaking from brief notes or outlines and often extemporaneously in conjunction with slide and film presentations. A separate file of transcripts of some of their speeches and writings can be found among the files of editor and researcher Jehane Burns in the Administrative File series.
The Eameses' relationship with their principal clients is highlighted in the Office File . The series includes correspondence and printed matter from the Herman Miller company which began marketing the Eameses' furniture designs in 1946. The bulk of this correspondence dates from the late 1960s and traces the Eameses' evolving relationship with the company. The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) hired Charles Eames as a design consultant in 1956, and this long relationship is well documented in both the Office File and Research and Production File series. The Eameses' work for two other corporate clients, Polaroid and Westinghouse, is also represented in the Office File series.
Other highlights of the Office File include material related to the Eameses' interest and involvement in the local designs of India. In 1958 the Indian government hired them to study indigenous Indian design, and their report became the basis for the creation of the National Design Institute in Ahmedabad. The Eameses also produced a number of exhibits, films, and other projects for the United States government. The Office File series contains correspondence with the Smithsonian Institution, the National Park Service, the United States Information Agency, and the Interior Department. Other files relate to major exhibits of the Eameses' work, correspondence with Eames staff members, various design projects such as the "House of Cards" card game, and subjects of general interest to the Eameses such as toys and circuses.
The Office File series is replete with correspondence from friends, architects, designers, artists, composers, and film directors. Among them are Bill Ballantine, Elmer Bernstein, R. Buckminster Fuller, Alexander Girard, Dorothy Jeakins, A. Quincy Jones, Bill Lacy, George Nelson, Eliot Noyes, Gio Ponti, Kevin Roche, Paul Schrader, Peter Smithson, Saul Steinberg, Harry Weese, and Billy Wilder.
The bulk of the Research and Production File series concerns the Eameses' exhibit and film projects, documenting many of them from inception to execution. Extensive research files demonstrate the staff's immersion in diverse subjects such as computer technology, aquatic life, astronomy, mathematics, and the American Revolution. Also evident is their collaboration with prominent scholars and outside consultants, including historians I. Bernard Cohen and Edmund S. Morgan, astronomer Owen Gingerich, physicist Philip Morrison, and mathematician Raymond M. Redheffer. Since the Eameses rarely conveyed information and concepts in only one format, many of their exhibits were accompanied by films, books, brochures, and activity handouts. Production material for these products is filed with the exhibit to which it relates.
The series contains material relating to several exhibits designed for IBM including Mathematica, a Computer Perspective, and a series of six astronomical and scientific exhibits which included major shows on Nicolaus Copernicus and Isaac Newton. IBM also hired the Eames Office to design two permanent museum and exhibit spaces, first in Armonk, New York, and then at 590 Madison Avenue in New York City. Two major exhibit projects undertaken for the United States government are also documented. A large project file pertaining to the proposed National Fisheries Center and Aquarium in Washington, D.C., details the relationship between the Eames Office, the building's architects, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo, and the Interior Department. Project material relating to the World of Franklin and Jefferson, an American bicentennial exhibit, reveals the office's thorough research in numerous American and European research institutions. The Eameses' design philosophy is explored in planning files for their participation in the What Is Design? exhibit at the Musée des arts décoratifs in Paris in 1969.
The Research and Production series also contains production material from over a dozen of the Eameses' films. Some of their best known films are featured, including Glimpses of the U.S.A., a multiscreen presentation shown at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. Scripts, outlines, and camera logs suggest how the Eameses integrated over two thousand images into a coherent view of American life projected onto seven screens. Powers of Ten, a film that explored the relative size of the universe, is the most thoroughly documented film in the series.
The Administrative File traces the workflow in the Eames Office in Venice, California, and features publicity files about the Eameses and their work. Time sheets record the work of over 170 employees from 1956 to 1980. A large travel file consisting of detailed itineraries and notes from meetings is a useful source on the Eameses' professional activities and work with clients. Receipts, 1959 1964, contain information on Eames projects which predate the bulk of Part I. Address and Christmas card lists and the travel reference file provide a glimpse into the Eameses' extensive circle of friends and associates. The series also includes the files of Jehane Burns, an editor and researcher. An extensive publicity file and two publicity logs chronicle the Eameses' work from 1941 to 1988. The file consists of articles about the Eameses, reviews of their exhibits and films, and advertisements for their furniture designs as well as an eclectic assortment of comic strips, crossword puzzles, novels, and a record album containing references to the Eameses and their work. The series also includes biographies, chronologies, lists of films and projects, and transcripts of interviews. A large amount of biographical information is contained in the research files for the book Eames Design: The Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames by Ray Eames, John Neuhart, and Marilyn Neuhart.
The Kaiser Family Papers consist of the papers of Ray Eames prior to her marriage, as well as those of her parents, Alexander and Edna Burr Kaiser, and her brother, Maurice. The bulk of the series concerns Ray Eames's education at the Bennett School in Millbrook, New York, and her subsequent studies with abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann in New York and Massachusetts. The series contains her notes from Hofmann's lectures from 1933 to 1938 and printed matter from the American Abstract Artists, a group Ray Eames helped form in 1936. Correspondence is included from fellow Hofmann students including Lee Krasner. Letters written by Ray Eames to her family and friends and a large collection of art, theater, music, and dance programs reveal her exposure to the cultural milieu of New York in the 1930s.
Part II
Part II consists of a large 2013 addition to the collection. While much of it supplements the contents of Part I, it also greatly expands the amount of material from the early years of the Eameses' design work, especially from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Many of the arrangement decisions in Part II were intended to showcase its unique features. The Office File series in Part II, for example, contains additional and, in many cases, earlier material pertaining to people, organizations, and places covered in Part I. Unlike Part I, the series is arranged first by decade and thereafter alphabetically by name of person or organization. This hybrid chronological/alphabetical arrangement is intended to facilitate research within specific time periods as well as searches for individual correspondents. It allows researchers to explore more easily the Eameses' early correspondence that was largely absent from Part I.
The Office File series in Part II, as it does in Part I, documents the Eameses' relationships with friends, clients, architects, designers, artists, museums, galleries, universities, schools, professional organizations, government agencies, businesses, and publishers. Included are files relating to clients Herman Miller and the International Business Machines Corporation; to museums, galleries, and schools including the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and University of California; and to professional organizations, conferences, and magazines such as the American Institute of Architects, Architectural Forum, Domus, Films in Review, and the International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado. The Eameses' longstanding relationships with an array of friends and associates in the United States and abroad can be traced through the decades. Correspondents include Anni Albers, Josef Albers, Benjamin Baldwin, Bill Ballantine, Roberta Ballantine, Corita, Henry Dreyfuss, Emil Frei, Alexander Girard, Leland Hayward, John Houseman, Dorothy Jeakins, Josephine Johnson, Isamu Kenmochi, Alexander Knox, Mercedes Matter, George Nelson, Eliot Noyes, Gio Ponti, Lisa Ponti, Eero Saarinen, Alison Margaret Smithson, Peter Smithson, Hedda Sterne, Ezra Stoller, Deborah Sussman, Alexandre Trauner, Jørn Utzon, and Mary Wickes.
Some of the earliest material in the Office File series consists of papers from the Evans Products Company. During World War II, the Eameses produced leg splints and aircraft parts on contract as well as some of their earliest furniture designs as the company's Molded Plywood Division beginning in 1943. The files include a small amount of correspondence, employment applications, notes by Charles Eames, and printed ephemera. Drawings of aircraft parts, leg splints, and chairs found with this material have been transferred to the Library's Prints and Photographs Division. Other early files include correspondence, itineraries, and notes from Charles Eames's participation in a German cultural exchange program in 1954 and a file of requests, 1951-1961, for and about the Eameses' furniture and architectural designs, films, lectures, and photographs. Evidence of the public and professional reception of their work is found in the file. Also included in the series are personal papers left by photographer and graphic designer Herbert Matter when he worked with the Eameses.
The Projects File series in Part II contains working files from the Eameses' exhibits, films, books, courses, graphic designs, and toys, as well as some items relating to their furniture and architectural designs. The series supplements project files in the Research and Production File of Part I, including those relating to the astronomy and science exhibit series, Computer Glossaryfilm, Computer Perspectiveexhibit, IBM exhibit centers, Mathematicaexhibit, Powers of Ten film, What Is Design?exhibit, and the World of Franklin and Jeffersonexhibit. The series also contains material from many of the Eameses's pre 1965 projects which were either absent from or minimally documented in Part I. Among these early works are their films Day of the Dead, Parade, Toccata for Toy Trains, and Tops. The films they produced for several world's fairs are well documented through correspondence, scripts, storyboards, notes, publicity, and printed ephemera. These films include the Information Machine shown at the Expo world's fair in Brussels in 1958, House of Science film featured at the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle in 1962, and their films and exhibits created for the IBM pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1964-1965. Their multiscreen Glimpses of the U.S.A., produced for the American Exhibition in Moscow, is more thoroughly documented in Part II than in Part I. Also featured in Part II are files from their projects relating to India including the Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India film in 1955, their India Report in 1958, and their traveling Nehru exhibit that opened in New York in 1965.
Material from two university courses developed by Charles Eames is also included in the series. Correspondence, notes, and drafts record the development of "A Rough Sketch for a Sample Lesson for a Hypothetical Course," a multisensory, multidiscipline, experimental class created with George Nelson for the Fine Arts Department at the University of Georgia and later presented at the University of California at Los Angeles. The film A Communications Primer was closely related to this class and is documented through correspondence, notes, and drafts of the film's narration. Lectures and other course material are included from an undergraduate class in architecture taught by Charles Eames at the University of California in Berkeley during the 1953-1954 academic year.
A limited amount of material on the Eameses' architectural, furniture, and toy designs is included in the Projects File . Documents relating to the Eames house in Pacific Palisades, California, created as part of the Arts and Architecture magazine's Case Study House Program, include loan and insurance records and financial accounts with John Entenza, among other items. Files on the maintenance of the house beginning in the mid-1950s are located in the Administrative File series. Items regarding the Eameses' furniture designs include the Eames Contract Storage, Eames Storage Unit, Hang-It-All, Plywood Folding Screen, and Stephens Speakers. Cost summaries from some of these projects are available among financial records in the Administrative File . Researchers interested in Eames furniture design should also consult files relating to graphic and showroom designs for Herman Miller, Macy's, and the Good Design Exhibition Program at Chicago's Merchandise Mart. Toys designed by the Eameses and represented in the series include the Coloring Toy, House of Cards, Revell Toy House, and Toy and Little Toy. Ray Eames's draft suggestions for how to play with the Revell Toy House reflect her approach to design and color.
The Eameses examined their own design work in several projects in the early and mid-1950s. Their film House-After Five Years of Living projected the essence of their architectural design through still images set to a musical score by Elmer Bernstein. The series includes notes, sketches, lists of images, and timing charts, as well as a photocopy of the score. Two proposed television programs, one for CBS's Omnibus series and another for the San Francisco Museum of Art Discover series, focused on the Eameses's work. The Projects File contains storyboards, outlines, and notes for the programs.
The Speeches and Writings series includes original notes, outlines, and texts of speeches, lectures, and some articles written by Charles Eames and Ray Eames. The largest number date before 1960 and chronicle the evolution of their design philosophy. The process of working out those ideas is recorded in notes and outlines which outnumber completed texts. Some notes could not be linked to specific speaking engagements. Those dated before 1960 have been filed after the year 1959 while later unidentified notes are filed at the end of the series. Included in the series are transcripts of Charles Eameses' Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University in 1970-1971 and extensive notes, outlines, and some images from the development of slide shows that were shown as part of the presentations.
The Administrative File series documents many aspects of the Eameses's lives and the operations of the Eames Office. A biographical file begins with statements drafted by them relatively early in their careers and concludes with chronologies produced in the 1980s to document their work. Files on the deaths of Charles Eames and Ray Eames contain condolence letters, obituaries, and memorials that reflect on the significance of their designs. Additional publicity material augments the larger publicity file in Part I. Their wide circle of friends and associates is documented through address and telephone lists, a rolodex, Christmas lists, telephone logs and messages, lists of important dates for family and friends, and records of material sent and received. Most of their clients and many of their professional associations were located outside southern California and required extensive traveling. These travels are documented through calendars, appointment books, passports, and a large travel file of itineraries and trip ephemera. The office's work is chronicled in film records, equipment inventories, photography files, slide show instructions, project number lists and financial records, library catalogs and subscription lists, office procedures, to-do lists, "while you were gone" notes, and staff files that contain lists, notes, time sheets, and payroll accounts. The material dimensions of their lives can be gleaned through a variety of sources, including photographs, automobile files, receipts for clothing purchases, extensive storage and inventory records, and documents relating to the upkeep and layout of the Eames house and office. Drawings by Charles Eames and Ray Eames have been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division.
The Packets series spans the years 1944-1988 and houses the contents of envelopes, folders, bags, and small boxes that contained an array of lists, notes, drawings, and collected ephemera. The packets were largely created or assembled by Ray Eames. Some of the early packets also include notes, lists, and drawings by Charles Eames. The contents of the packets have been kept intact as virtual time capsules that record the varied interests and activities of their daily lives, particularly Ray Eames's. The notes and lists, many written on Benson & Hedges cigarette wrappers, record to-do items relating to friends, projects, associates, and clients; lists of books read, music listened to, and plays seen; inventories of objects; shopping lists for everyday purchases and special occasions; telephone calls received and made; and travel arrangements and schedules. The packets also include occasional drawings and sketches relating to projects, fashion, and other subjects. Collected ephemera saved for their aesthetic or information value include news clippings, programs, and brochures, as well as colorful papers, product labels, greeting cards, wrappings, postage stamps, decorative stickers, postcards, fabric samples, and ribbon.
The Subject File series consists largely of what had been loose and unfiled printed matter. Composed primarily of newspaper and magazine clippings, this material was subsequently arranged by topic during processing. The file suggests the diverse interests of the Eameses and their office and covers such subjects as architecture and design, circuses, education, folk art, history, India, science and technology, and toys. Art, dance, film, music, and theater files include programs and invitations from events and performances in addition to clippings. Four separate collections of clippings were found as sets and have been kept together to preserve a sense of the varied topics the Eameses found interesting or useful during specific time frames. The set of clippings from the late 1940s through the 1950s comprises the largest grouping. Other sets date from 1967 to 1968, 1970s, and 1980s.
The Family Papers series is composed of the papers of the Eames and Kaiser families. Much of the Eames family papers consists of correspondence from Charles Eames's daughter Lucia Eames and her children, his sister Adele Eames Franks, his parents, and a cousin. Photographs of Charles Eames and other family members are also included. The series also contains speeches and writings by his father Charles O. Eames, as well as a letter concerning his father's enlistment in the Union army in 1864. The Kaiser family papers supplement those located in Part I. Included is correspondence from Ray Eames's father Alexander Kaiser, her mother Edna Burr Kaiser, and her brother Maurice Kaiser and his children. Other correspondence includes letters from Hans Hofmann. An extensive collection of family photographs and photographs during the time Ray Eames studied with Hofmann has been transferred to the Prints and Photographs Division.
A small Addendum series includes an Ekakta camera handbook used by Ray Eames in the 1950s; exhibit and interpretive program planning documents for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri; Herman Miller financial accounts, 1955-1973, including those for showroom prop purchases; and newsletters, membership lists, meeting and conference notices, and other material from architectural and design organizations.