Throughout the Carriage Association of America’s existence we have worked to preserve the history of carriages and carriage driving. Our archives include over 500 carriage maker catalogs and thousands of prints. One of our most important projects has been preserving the Brewster & Co. records. Arguably the most complete set of American coachbuilder records, the CAA has been proud to make over 8,000 Brewster spec and sales records available to our members.
We now have an exciting and unique opportunity to partner with the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an important Brewster carriage research project – digitizing the carriage drawings.
The Met has nearly 2200 original Brewster carriage drawings that you can help make public
The drawings do require special photographing. They are a combination of graphite, pen and ink, watercolor and gouache, in some cases gum arabic and metallic ink were also used. The drawings are on a variety of different paper types and vary greatly in size. The cost of this special photography [$36,000] is the amount that the CAA has been asked to contribute to the cause. Combined with the Brewster records that the CAA currently possesses, this would be a significant preservation effort. The CAA will be able to link our website (CAAOnline.com) to The Met’s website (metmuseum.org) to allow carriage researchers to view, print and use these images. The Met’s Brewster drawings would be available free to the public as well as researchers and historians.
We have an amazing opportunity to make this happen in 2017 if the CAA can raise $36,000 by September 5th.
If you would like to contribute to this wonderful chance to preserve a piece of American carriage history please contact either myself (gigwhip@att.net) or Jill Ryder (caa_jill@windstream.net) with your pledge to the CAA. Jill and I are available to answer any questions you might have. You can also use the donation button below.
Jerry Rider
Carriage Association of America, President
Donate to the CAA’s Brewster Drawing Project!