About this Item
Unpublished notebook, 9" x 11 1/4" containing original artwork and designs, official documents, orders and correspondence pertaining to regimental coats of arms and distinctive insignia for the period 1922-1930. Notebook opens with three pages of formal guidelines for regimental colors and devices, then begins in earnest with original signed Adjutant General order No. 244, October, 1922 calling Falls "to active duty without pay or allowances for service in connection with submission of coats of arms for colors, distinctive badges, insignia, etc." The notebook contains 2 full-page original watercolors and 16 original crest and shield drawings in color pencil (State National Guard Headquarters and 7 regiments - 10th, 14th, 71st, 105th, 106th, 107th, 108th Infantry), along with correspondence, blueprints, design approval documents and finely printed samples for some designs. There is detailed correspondence on Falls' New York State "Half Moon" design, when the Quartermaster Corp of the War Department in Washington severely altered his original conception. Author, artist, military general and New York City socialite DeWitt Clinton Falls (1864-1937) was an authority on military heraldry and uniforms and a designer of military insignia. His papers are held by the New York Public Library and the American Numismatic Society. This Notebook includes: Original watercolor "Half Moon", Nov 1922; 2 letters, Dec, 1922; Memorandum from the Secretary of War Dec, 1922 approving the design; Original watercolor "Regimental Colors for New York National Guard", 1922; Correspondence with Adjutant General's Office and the War Department with 2 blueprints; Copy of "First Design submitted by War Department for emblem of State of New York. Disapproved by Adjutant General, Oct 1922"; 2 letters to Falls from Adjutant General's Office, Apr, 1923, with a proof copy of the QM's altered "Half Moon" crest; Reply by Falls, Apr, 1923 that the Quartermaster' altered design "is awful and under no circumstances should be accepted"; 2 page detailed letter from Adjutant General's Office to Quartermaster General, War Department, Apr, 1923, noting (QM's) five major and several minor deviations from Falls' original, which had been approved by the General Staff; Reply by War Department, May 1923, that the Quartermaster Corps drawing was done in accordance with what was shown and described in "The Hudson Fulton Celebration 1909" submitted in a report to the NY State legislature in 1910, and that revisions to the drawing would be made if the State of New York "does not consider the report as being historically correct and will so state and furnish evidence which it considers authentic"; AG letter, May, 1923 to Falls requesting he draft a second endorsement; Falls' June, 1923 reply that "it was not so much the historical points, that he criticized about the QM design, "as the faulty drawing and bad proportions of many of the details." He points out technical and aesthetic weaknesses (with the eye of an artist) of the Quartermaster drawing that can be easily resolved.; Letter and enclosures to Falls from Adjutant General's Office, June 25 that they are in receipt of Quartermaster revisions and asking him to review; Falls June 28 reply, "it is about as near right as we can get it and same can be returned approved"; Original color pencil drawing "Headquarters Device" with 1 page description. Undated; Original color pencil drawing "10th Infantry" Approved Nov, 1923 War Department, with letter of approval. Notation: "This design not being satisfactory to the regiment permission was given Jan 1926 to submit new design"; 2 original color pencil drawings - one for crest and one for shield (with a printed sample of shield in use) "10th Infantry" with 1 page description. Approved W.D. June 1926, with letters of approval for each. 2 original color pencil drawings - one for crest and one for shield "14th Infantry" with 1 page description. Approved W.D., May, 1925, with 2 letters of app.
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