Mary L. Brandt home furnishings training course materials
Online Access
Available digital items: https://digital.archives.newschool.edu/index.php/Detail/collections/KA0101
Summary
Mary Largent Brandt was an interior decorator, author, lecturer, and merchandising expert. In the 1940s, she designed a training course for retail sales staff to improve the merchandising of home furnishings. Included in this collection are Home Furnishings Training Course: Handbook of Home Furnishings (1946) and a binder entitled, Home Furnishings Training Course: Summary of Visual Chart Materials for Home Study and Reference (undated).
Dates
- circa 1946 - 1953
Creator
- Brandt, Mary L. (Author, Person)
Extent
0.1 Cubic Feet (1 folder)
Language of Materials
English
Scope and Contents of Collection
Mary L. Brandt developed her eponymous training course materials during the 1940s as a method of educating retail sales staff about merchandising home furnishings. Department stores and interior design schools used the course materials extensively.
Materials in the collection consist of a spiral-bound book entitled, Home Furnishings Training Course: Handbook of Home Furnishings (1946) and a binder entitled, Home Furnishings Training Course: Summary of Visual Chart Materials for Home Study and Reference (undated), indicating it was prepared by the Retail Training Department of Spiegel, Inc., Chicago. Both are written in a breezy, informal style and anticipate a wave of consumer spending following the end of World War II. These publications are accompanied by a 1953 article Brandt wrote for college students about careers in merchandising.
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research use. Please contact archivist@newschool.edu for appointment.
Use Restrictions
To publish images of material from this collection, permission must be obtained in writing from the New School Archives. Please contact: archivist@newschool.edu.
Biographical note
Mary Largent Brandt was an interior decorator, stylist, and consultant. She specialized in educating retail sales personnel about residential furnishings to meet consumer demand.
A Stanford University graduate with architectural training, Brandt had an interior decoration practice based in San Francisco during the 1920s. She married in 1928 and moved to New York the following year. Beginning in 1936, Brandt was employed at Lord & Taylor in New York as a decorator. She also taught at the New York School of Interior Design and New York University and led decoration courses in her Gramercy Park home. Furniture designer Edward Wormley was among her more famous guest speakers.
Brandt published extensively throughout the 1950s. Book titles include: Teaching Fashion Trends in Home Furnishings (1947), Decorate Your Home for Better Living (1950), and Good Housekeeping Book of Home Design (1957).
Mary Largent Brandt died in New York in 1962. Shortly thereafter, friends established a memorial fund in her name at Parsons School of Design. Architect Eleanor Le Maire, textile designer Dorothy Liebes, and decorator Melanie Kahane were among the Parsons alumni and trustees who collected funds to support an interior decoration lectureship chair at the school.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Transferred from Gimbel Art and Design Library, Parsons The New School for Design.
- Interior decoration (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Manuals (instructional materials) (Type of Material) Subject Source: Art & Architecture Thesaurus
- Retail trade -- Employees (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Selling -- House furnishings (Subject) Subject Source: Library of Congress Subject Headings
- Title
- Guide to the Mary L. Brandt home furnishings training course materials
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- New School Archives and Special Collections Staff
- Date
- July 30, 2010
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin