Collection inventory

Overview of the Collection
Creator:	Dunn, Alan, 1900-
Title:	Alan Dunn and Mary Petty Papers
Inclusive Dates:	1907-1972
Quantity:	21 linear ft.
Abstract:	The papers of the American cartoonists for The New Yorker (1926-1974) include correspondence (letters from John Taylor Arms, Peggy Bacon, Isabel Bishop, Warren Chappell, Eric Hodgins, and Alan Watts); cartoons and drawings; exhibition catalogs; notebooks; business files and financial records; and memorabilia, including clippings, photographs, and scrapbooks. .
Language:	English
Repository:	Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries 222 Waverly Avenue Syracuse, NY 13244-2010 https://library.syracuse.edu/special-collections-research-center

Biographical History

Alan Dunn (1900-1974) and his wife Mary Petty (1899-1976) were American cartoonists. They married in 1927, and for more than thirty years lived in a modest, three-bedroom apartment in Manhattan that also served as their studio. They rarely left the city and, although they were members of several professional organizations and clubs and attended social events, Mary Petty and Alan Dunn spent a great deal of time developing their art and a unique view of life.

Alan Dunn studied at Columbia University, the National Academy of Design and the American Academy in Rome, an experience which provided him with a particular insight about both European cultures and American tourists. When he returned to the United States, his mild satire was well-received by magazines such as the newly established New Yorker, who began publishing his cartoons in 1926. Thanks to Dunn’s expertise at drawing architecture (beginning in 1936 he contributed regularly to "Architectural Record") viewers can easily identify European settings in his cartoons such as the Roman Forum and the Basilica of Maxentius, and his social satires often illustrate American tourists’ provincial nature and myopic sense of superiority. He defined himself as a "social cartoonist, whose pen is no sword but a titillating feather that reminds us that we do not act as we speak or think."

Dunn eventually became the New Yorker's most prolific illustrator, creating 9 covers and nearly 2000 cartoons over 47 years. Several collections of his cartoons were published including Who's Paying for this Cab? (Simon & Schuster, 1945), A Portfolio of Social Cartoons (Simon & Schuster, 1968) and Architecture Observed (New York, 1970). His work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Academy of Design, and Salons of America, and he was a member of the American Watercolor Society, the New York Watercolor Society, and Salons of America. According to a paper by Eric M. Jones of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, it was a 1950 cartoon of Dunn's featuring flying saucers stealing trash bins in Manhattan that led noted physicist Enrico Fermi to pose the question "Where is everybody?" This question later became known as the Fermi Paradox and, in conjunction with Drake's Equation, provides the mathematical starting point for much current debate on the possibility of extraterrestrials visiting earth.

Mary Petty graduated from the Horace Mann School in New York City in 1922, and five years later she and Dunn were married. Although Petty underwent no formal art training, she had the firm support of her husband who encouraged her originality and natural talent for drawing and provided artistic guidance. Soon she too was being published in The New Yorker, and over the next four decades created a singular style of illustration characterized by a gentle satirization of New York City's Victorian era society. In a series of 35 covers produced over 26 years, Mary Petty created and chronicled the lives of the Peabody family, including Mrs. Peabody, dowager of the family, and Fay, the whimsical, fragile maid who cared for the aging mistress and her family. These cover illustrations so successfully portrayed the personality quirks of New York's upper class that people would write to remark that they knew a family that must have been the model for these paintings.

Petty published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker and painted more than 30 watercolors for the front cover of the magazine. Her work was exhibited nationally and internationally during her lifetime. Examples of her art are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of the City of New York and the Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, Kansas. The largest single collection of her work is owned by the Syracuse University Art Collections, a gift from the artist.

Mary Petty and Alan Dunn believed that gentle, pictorial satire could be as effective as political or editorial comment. Between them they created thousands of drawings that commented upon issues that are still important to us today, reminding us that a genteel manner of examining our culture can still be effective.

[Portions of this biographical sketch adapted from text for "Mary Petty Exhibit" at Syracuse University's Lubin House and from "American Satire: Humor in The New Yorker" at Syracuse University in Florence]

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

This collection is partially processed only and remains in original order. Biographical material contains miscellaneous biographical material including a family history. Correspondence, most of which is incoming, includes letters from artists (Peggy Bacon, John Taylor Arms, Isabel Bishop, Felicia Marsh), museums (Cincinnati Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, New York Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art), publications (Architural Record, Living Screen, Saturday Evening Post), publishers (Alfred Knopf, Bobbs Merrill, Doubleday, Simon & Schuster), and writers (Warren Chappell, Eric Hodgins, Alan Watts). Miscellaneous notes contains poems, cartoons, captions, exhibit catalogs, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, notebooks of ideas. Subject files comprise material on a variety of topics including alcoholism, architecture, human body, investing, New Yorker covers, war, and others.

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Arrangement of the Collection

This collection is partially processed only and remains in its original order as received.

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Restrictions

Access Restrictions

The majority of our archival and manuscript collections are housed offsite and require advanced notice for retrieval. Researchers are encouraged to contact us in advance concerning the collection material they wish to access for their research.

Use Restrictions

Written permission must be obtained from SCRC and all relevant rights holders before publishing quotations, excerpts or images from any materials in this collection.

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Related Material

Special Collections Research Center has collections of more than eighty cartoonists. Please refer to the SCRC Subject Index for a complete listing.

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Subject Headings

Persons

Associated Titles

Subjects

Genres and Forms

Occupations

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Preferred citation for this material is as follows:

Alan Dunn and Mary Petty Papers,
Special Collections Research Center,
Syracuse University Libraries

Finding Aid Information

Created by: -
Date: unknown
Revision history: 7 Mar 2007 - converted to EAD (AMCon); 23 Jun 2008 - corrected date format (MRC); 9 Jan 2012 - revised box numbers (MBD)

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Inventory

	Biographical material
Box 1		Biographical material
Box 1		Family history

	Correspondence
Box 1		Dunn to Petty 1926-1927
Box 1		Petty to Dunn 1922-48, 1950, 1953-1971, undated (7 folders)
Box 1		Dunn, Sarah Benton
Box 2		Dunn, Alan 1915-1916, 1918-1920 (9 folders)
Box 3		Dunn, Alan 1921-1932 (9 folders)
Box 4		1933-1944 (12 folders)
Box 5		1945-1950, 1954-1961 (12 folders)
Box 6		1962-1971 (10 folders)
Box 7		1972-1974 (3 folders)
Box 7		undated
Box 7		New Yorker 1920's - 1970's (3 folders)
Box 7		Bishop, Isabel
Box 7		Bacon, Peggy & Petty 1950-1972
Box 7		Arms, John Taylor
Box 7		Hodgins, Eric
Box 7		Chappell, Warren 1957, 1968, 1970-1971
Box 7		Cincinnati Art Museum
Box 7		Cleveland Museum of Art
Box 7		Darrow, W.
Box 7		Day, Bob
Box 7		Dai News 1945-1961
Box 7		deYoung Memorial Museum, San Francisco
Box 7		Dunn, William 1907
Box 7		Fortune 1951-1958
Box 7		Galleries, general
Box 7		Harper, B. 1941-1963
Box 7		Harvard University, Fogg. Museum
Box 8		A. Knopf 11/27/31, 12/17/31
Box 8		Lathrop, Stanley (Tiffany Foundation)
Box 8		Architural Record 1930-1950
Box 8		Mumford, Lewis
Box 8		Living Screen
Box 8		Marsh, Felicia 1954
Box 8		New York Metropolitan Museum
Box 8		New York Museum of Modern Art
Box 8		Munson Williams Proctor, Utica
Box 8		Museum of the City of New York
Box 8		Pierson, Hunter 1952-1971 (4 folders)
Box 8		Price, Gerret
		Publishers
Box 9			Misc. (A-B)
Box 9			Better Homes & Gardens, Book Digest, Bantam
Box 9			Bobbs Merrill, Brandt
Box 9			C-D
Box 9			Doubleday, Dodge
Box 9			E-W
Box 9		Robsjohn-Gibbings
Box 9		Ramsey Advertising Agency 1961-1972
Box 9		Rhode Island Museum of Art
Box 9		Saturday Evening Post 1932-1945
Box 9		Simon & Schuster 1934-1960's (4 folders)
Box 9		Slater Memorial Museum, Norwich, Conn,
Box 9		Toledo Museum of Art
Box 9		Walton, Bill and Emily Ann Cramer
Box 9		Watts, Alan 1957-58, 1962-1963, 1965-1967, 72
Box 9		Watts, Alan, Printed material
Box 10		White, Nelson 1920-24, 1928-1931, 1933-1936, 1938, 1941-1959 (4 folders)
Box 10		Wortman
Box 10		Petty, Mary 1909-1952 (5 folders)
Box 10		Outgoing drafts ca. 1950-1964 (3 folders)
		Petty, Mary
Box 11			Son and mother cartoon (public responses) 1952
Box 11			General 1953-1970 (8 folders)
Box 12			General undated
Box 12			Knopf
Box 12			Maynard Walker Gallery
Box 12		Unidentified
Box 12		Greeting cards
Box 12, 13		Christmas cards (7 folders)
Box 13		Postcards (2 folders)
Box 13		Empty envelopes
Box 13		Apartment leases
Box 13		Bank books
Box 13		Bank statements, bills, receipts, etc. (2 folders)
Box 14		Income tax information
Box 14		Insurance policies, cancelled checks/stubs
Box 14		Misc. bills & receipts
Box 14		Report cards, membership cards, passport
Box 14		Stocks & transaction information
Box 14		Works, lists of works
Box 14		New Yorker contracts
Box 14		Business records - contracts - Simon & Schuster
Box 14		Simon & Schuster - business records - "East of Fifth"
Box 14		Simon & Schuster - business records - royalty statements - "Is there intelligent life on earth?"
Box 14		Simon & Schuster - business records - "Portfolio of Social Cartoons"
Box 14		Simon & Schuster - business records - "Should it Gurgle?"
Box 14		Simon & Schuster - business records - "Who's paying for this cab?"
Box 14		Business records - vouchers - Arch. R., New York, Simon & Schuster, misc.
Box 14		U. S. Government
Box 15		Fraternity & Cosmopolitan Club
Box 15		Edmund Jacobson relaxation cards
Box 15		Alan Dunn & Mary Petty photographs
Box 15		Stationary samples & misc. memorabilia
Box 15		War Ration book pages
Box 15		Alan Dunn - misc. - printed material
Box 15		Alan Dunn - clippings, notices, articles
Box 15		Alan Dunn - assorted leaflets, brochures
Box 16		WW II military inventions
		Notes (index cards)
Box 16			Science
Box 16			Edmund Jacobson
Box 16			Otto Rank
Box 16			Science of Life
Box 16			Wine
Box 16			Krishnamurti
Box 16			Alan Watts, Zen, etc.
Box 16			H.C. Wolff
Box 16			Expressions
Box 16			Misc.

	Miscellaneous
Box 17		Notes (22 folders)
Box 18		Mary Petty - poems (by year & month) - price list
Box 18		Alan Dunn - cartoon & caption ideas/Arc. Rec. ideas - notebook pp.
Box 18		Alan Dunn - cartoon reprod's - discards from Rec. - Brussels Exibit
Box 18		Alan Dunn - exhibition catalogs
Box 18		Alan Dunn - gallery invitations
Box 18		Miscellaneous catalogs
Box 18		Christmas cards w/Alan Dunn cartoons
Box 18		Alan Dunn - editorial notes - New York 1943-1960, 1964, 1967, undated (4 folders)
Box 19		New York cartoons 1927-1931, 1944, 1946, 1951-1952, 1955-1956 (5 folders)
Box 19		Architectural record
Box 19		Book ads
Box 19		Private purkey
Box 19		"Is there intelligent life on earth?"
Box 19		Rackety rac
Box 19		Exhibitions
Box 19		Newspaper & periodical clippings - Alan Dunn cartoons (3 folders)
Box 19		Cartoons by other artists
Box 19		Newsclips
Box 19		Printed Dunn cartoons
Box 19		Poster on cartooning
Box 20		Hizzonor the Mayor
Box 20		Alan Dunn newspaper clippings, miscellaneous
Box 20		Punch In Suzie
Box 20		6th New York album
Box 20		Dunn Family
Box 20		Rejections
Box 20		Alan Dunn newspaper clippings - "Architecture Observed"
Box 20		Alan Dunn newspaper clippings - "Should It Gurgle"
Box 20		Alan Dunn newspaper clippings - "Who's Paying for this Cab?"
Box 20		Alan Dunn newspaper clippings - "The Last Lath"
Box 20		Alan Dunn newspaper clippings - "East of Fifth"
Box 20		Petty clippings
Box 20		Alan Dunn early sketchbook (original at SUAC)
Box 20		Miscellaneous printed material
Box 20		Memorabilia related to scouting
Box 20		Scrapbook 1931
Box 20		Scrapbook , mixed subjects 1935
Box 20		Scrapbook, faces men/women/children
Box 20		Loose Dunn clips
Box 21		Notebooks - mixed study, list of words (2 items)
Box 21		Scrapbook of book reviews - Dunn
Box 21		Captions (used?) Jan 1938 - Sept. 1959 (7 volumes)
Box 22		Notebook of subjects & dates
Box 22		Topics (or Topix)
		Notebooks
Box 22			[untitled] 1938-1956 (9 volumes)
Box 22			Architectural Record captions (2 volumes)
Box 22			Names
Box 22			Captions - drugstores 1948
Box 22			"Spots" - captions undated
			Notebooks & loose notes
Box 23				"Stage War" undated
Box 23				"The War Situational" 1951
Box 23				"First 3 War Bonds" 1942
Box 23			Cliches - collected expressions from cliche book (4 volumes)
Box 23			"Nibbles" undated
Box 23			Resubmissions/resubmissables (2 volumes)
Box 23			Gag larder"
Box 23			"Brownstone Book"
Box 23			"Bons du passe"
Box 23			"This Island" - book notes undated
Box 23			"Sociological Submissions"
Box 23			SRL Possibilities" 1959
Box 23			"World City - New York"
Box 24		Ideas - World & U.S. Politics early 1960's
Box 24		Captions 1962-1967, undated (2 folders)
Box 24		Captions - Contemp May 42
Box 24		Captions - Ideas & Expressions (not used)
Box 24		Captions - "Firsts" (5 notebooks)
Box 24		Captions - From Roughs (3 notebooks)
Box 24		Originalia
Box 24		Caption phraseology
Box 24		Caption reworks
Box 25		Captions - story (4 notebooks)
Box 25		Captions - expression (5 notebooks)
Box 25		Captions - current book Jan 1, 1947
Box 25		Captions April 1951 - June 1953 (2 notebooks)
Box 25		Captions 1953?
Box 25		Ideas (5 notebooks)
Box 26		Ideas - captions undated (9 folders)
Box 27		Ideas - captions undated (4 folders)
Box 27		Miscellaneous
Box 27		Miscellaneous - pictorial classification
Box 27		Essay drafts
Box 27		Miscellaneous captions/titles/ideas
Box 27		"Collegiatism - A Disease"
Box 27		"The Daily Event" v.1 Nov. 28, 1912
Box 27		"Disillusionment of a young painter"
Box 27		"Don't Tell Everything"
Box 27		"Ek and Ulg: The Real Adam & Eve"
Box 27		"Enough Time, The Pattern of the Executive Life" by Eric Hodgins
			See also Package 1
Box 27		"Environment" - poem fragment
Box 27		"An Essay on Civility"
Box 27		"Eternal City"
Box 27		"Every Moment..." - untitled quote
Box 27		"The Finest Man in the World" - by D. C. Allen
			See also "Don't tell everything".
Box 27		"Focus of Attention - a Study"
Box 27		"Gilding the Dandelion"
Box 27		"Goodbye Manhattan" first draft
Box 27		"Goodbye Manhattan" last draft -
Box 27		"Graphic Comment Art"
Box 27		"I Became a Stray Cat"
Box 27		"I Remember, a Pictorial Autobiography of an artist's childhood - an adventure in beauty"
Box 27		"Individuality"
Box 27		"Ingio Schulane" movie scenario
Box 27		"Ingio Schulane" story
Box 28		"Is there Intelligent Life On Earth?" working draft
Box 28		"Is there Intelligent Life On Earth?" - A Report to the Congress of Mars - incoplete draft
Box 28		"Is there Intelligent Life On Earth?" - A Report to the Congress of Mars - typescript carbon
Box 28		"Is there Intelligent Life On Earth?" - miscellaneous
Box 28		"Is there Intelligent Life On Earth?" screenplay
Box 28		"Just As The Little Fishes"
Box 28		"Lapis Blue" - first draft; final drafts (3 folders)
Box 28		"Lapis Blue" - manuscript pages, drawing
Box 28		"Lapis Blue" - copy manuscripts
Box 29		"Lapis Blue" - original drawings and manuscript
Box 29		Poem, "Long gloomy..."
Box 29		"The Man is insane"
Box 29		Metabolism, resume on
Box 29		"Museum bars"
Box 29		Nazi guide to America
Box 29		"New Theory of Temperament"
Box 29		"Pulsar One - A Fantasy for the Knowledgeable Child"
Box 29		"Rabbit"
Box 29		"Rabbit" by Alan North
Box 29		"Recent Rejection Slips" revised by Alan Dunn
Box 29		"Rum Runner's Romance"
Box 29		"S P Therapy"
Box 29		"Sensation of Beauty"
Box 29		"Should it Gurgle"
Box 29		"Should it Gurgle" - working title: If it weren't for Russia
Box 30		"Six Billion People" - illustrations
Box 30		"Six Billion People" - incomplete drafts (6 folders)
Box 30		"Six Billion People" - manuscript
Box 30		"The Somers Portrait of Helen" by George Gaignes
			See also "They're brothers under the skin".
Box 30		"Taste" - 3d draft
Box 30		"They're Brothers Under the Skin" - by George Gaignes
			See also "The Somers portrait...".
Box 30		"You Can't Go Home Again"
Box 30		"Your Day of Rest"
Box 31		Writings for - "Talk of the Town"
Box 31		School notes?
Box 31		Book notes (4 folders)
Box 31		Petty, Mary, "House of the Seven Gables"
Box 31		Writings & captions, Architectural Record (3 folders)
Box 32		Reproductions from The New Yorker 1926-1965, undated (8 folders)
Box 32		Reproductions 1956-1964
Box 32		Reproductions - newspages and magazine work 1926-1927

	Subject files
Box 33		Alcohol , New Yorker 23 Jan 1960
Box 33		Architecture (7 folders)
Box 33		Architecture - water
Box 33		Art pages
Box 34		Cartoonists
Box 34		Colour
Box 34		Hardwoods
Box 34		Human body
Box 34		Investing
Box 34		New Yorker cartoons, mixed artists and years (7 folders)
Box 35		New Yorker cartoons (4 folders)
		New Yorker covers
Box 35			Addams, Charles
Box 35			Allen, Laura J.
Box 35			Anno, Peter
Box 35			Barlow, P.
Box 35			Birnbaum, A.
Box 35			François, Andre
Box 35			Getz
Box 35			Hubbell, Albert
Box 35			Karasz
Box 35			Kovarsky
Box 35			Kraus
Box 35			C.E.M.
Box 35			Mahood
Box 35			Modell, F.B.
Box 35			Price, Garrett
Box 35			Saxon
Box 35			Steig
Box 35			Steinberg
Box 35		[Physics]
Box 35		Punch cartoons
Box 35		Saturday Review cartoons
Box 35		Thelwell (cartoonist)
Box 35		War
Box 35, 36		Miscellaneous printed material (2 folders)
Box 36		Small oils and watercolors - field sketches?
Box 37, 38		Card files of cartoons used
Oversize 1		Maps, Coldstream and the Bedford plan - 2 untitled cartoon publications
Oversize 2		Enough time, the pattern of the executive life - book dummy
Oversize 3		New Yorker Dunn cartoons 1930-1940, 1926-1955 (2 volumes)

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