Papers of Amelia Muir Baldwin, 1821-1961

Amelia Muir Baldwin, interior decorator and needle tapestry designer, was born in Boston on December 25, 1876, the daughter of Loammi Austin and Louise Vernon (Maynard) Baldwin. She was graduated from Melrose High School in 1894 and enrolled as a special student at Radcliffe, 1905-1907. While studying, she supported herself as a bookkeeper and secretary. She became a saleswoman at A.H. Davenport (1913-1915), where she learned the interior decorating trade, and took courses in decorative arts from Huger Elliot at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 1916 she was appointed head of the interior decorating department of Bigelow Kennard and Co., but soon proved too expensive for them and left, to work freelance from her own studio. At this time she also planned and designed the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Bazaars. She then served as a field agent for the United States Housing Corporation (1919-1920). After World War I, she taught courses in applied art at the Garland School of Homemaking, Boston, and then re-opened her studio and went into business as a decorator and a needlework designer and supplier. She weathered bankruptcy in 1923 and developed a good clientele among the wealthy and socially prominent of the 1920s who summered at Lenox, the North Shore or Bar Harbor, and wintered in Chicago, Boston, New York, Washington, Santa Barbara or abroad. She increased her business by exhibiting and had agents in many places; the most active were Marion Webb and M.K. Johnson. As a designer she did extensive research; her designs were sold nationwide and won much acclaim.

She managed to continue her business during the Depression working from her apartment, but her files show the vicissitudes of working with clients who were slow to settle accounts, and who frequently complained that she had supplied too little wool, or had charged exorbitant prices. World War II contributed to the demise of her business, as it was a luxury trade, but she continued to supply clients with wools and designs until her death in 1960.

In 1942 she took a ship drafting course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and found temporary work at the Arthur D. Little Co. From 1942 until 1954 she lived at Elizabeth Peabody House and taught English and Americanization courses to foreigners. She also designed scenery for the House's theatrical productions, working with, among others, Sarah Caldwell. Near the end of her life she was executive secretary, then assistant treasurer, of the Friends of Framingham, positions created by her friends LaRue and Dorothy Brown to provide her with some income.