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Aileen Osborn Webb (1892-1979) was an American patron of crafts.

Early Life
Aileen Osborn Webb was born in 1892 in Garrison, New York, to William Osborn, an art collector who later donated his art pieces to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and active member of the Democratic Party, and Alice Dodge, a philanthropist, social reformer and granddaughter of William E. Dodge, Jr. She was educated in private schools in New York City and Paris, where she learned to speak French. At the age of 20, Aileen married Vanderbilt Webb, son of Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt Webb, grandson of William Henry Vanderbilt and great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The couple got married on Saturday, September 10, 1912, in Garrison, New York. A number of obvious society families attended, involving Mr. and Mrs. George W. Vanderbilt and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Pulitzer. Together Vanderbilt and Aileen had three boys and one girl: Derrick, William, Richard, and Barbara.

Family
Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb had deep knowledge of art and education. The men in Aileen Osborn Webb’s family had a lot of influence on her. They set the bar extremely high with humanitarian and civil contribution; their lives were “full of good works”. Her Father, William Church Osborne, was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her paternal great-grandfather, Jonathan Sturges, her maternal great-great-grandfather William Earl Dodge, Sr. and her paternal grandfather, William Henry Osborn, were all superior art patrons of the Hudson River School and were associated with Frederick Edwin Church— William Osborn was a close fellow of the artist. Moreover, her father-in-law, commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, had founded Vanderbilt University. The money made by the Osborn men allowed the Osborn women to establish a philanthropic foundation upon which future generations of women would build. Also, the women of Aileen Osborn’s childhood provided her with an inspirational model of Gilded Age philanthropy and significantly inform her life’s work as the country’s premier crafts advocate. Aileen’s mother’s philanthropic activities figure prominently in her recollections of her life as a girl. Alice Dodge Osborn was a celebrated advocate of the Bellevue School of Nursing. Inspired by her mother-in-law, Mrs. William H. Osborn, who served as the School’s first president in 1873, Alice Osborn herself would later ascend to the presidency of this organization. Another inspirational woman was Osborn’s maternal aunt, Mary Melissa Hoadley(“Aunt May”), the unmarried heiress to the copper fortune who provided Aileen Osborn with the financial resources to later develop her crafts empire.

Philanthropy
Born into a prominent American family of philanthropists who were successful industrialists, financiers and scientists, Aileen Osborn Webb was the premier craft patron of the 20th century. Her ascendancy to this position was seeded in a comfortable and privileged childhood in Garrison, New York and Manhattan where she was surrounded by individuals who advocated giving back to the communities that had made them so successful. In the 1920s, she served as Vice Chairman of the Democratic Party. She was also involved with the Junior League, co-founded by her sister-in-law Frederica Vanderbilt Webb, as well as Mary Harriman and Dorothy Whitney in 1907. During the Great Depression, she encouraged the poor to sell handmade goods to improve their financial situations. She founded America House in New York in 1940. In 1941, she helped start Craft Horizons magazine. In 1943, she founded the American Craft Council. In 1944, she founded the School for American Crafts (SAC), now known as RIT in Rochester, New York. In 1956, she founded the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, now known as the Museum of Arts and Design, the first museum to exhibit craft art by living artists. In 1964, she created the World Crafts Council to support indigenous craftspeople around the world.

America House
During the Depression, Aileen Webb had begun a crafts group called Putnam Coun­ty Products in her hometown of Peekskill, New York, to help local craftsmen sell their wares. Recognizing the need for an organization that would aid members of the many craft leagues around the country find wider markets for their products, she became the guiding light in the formation of the Hand­craft Cooperative League of America in 1940.4 The league decided to establish a shop that would offer crafts of the finest quality from across the country, and chose New York-home to the most discerning custom­ers-as its location. . Webb and her partners felt the more crafts that sold, the more peoples' lives would improve, not only on an economic level for the artists, but a deeper level of meaning for the purchasers, as well. The America House was an outlet for crafts. .The name "America House" was suggested by league member Laurits Christian Eichner, a pewter craftsman. .The marketing strategies at America House were not always strictly retail. Beginning in the early 1940s, Webb and her colleagues also organized several crafts exhibitions.America House gallery could tour Craftsmanship of New England. The exhibition presented the best of regional contemporary crafts in a variety of media: furniture, tapestry, and stained glass. The Hands of Servicemen, on exhibit later that year, was a reflection of current affairs, and Webb’s own desire to see servicemen equipped with useful skills. The show offered military craftsmen an aesthetic and meaningful opportunity to exhibit their work following their return from the War.Throughout these America House exhibitions Webb was creating shows that defined her belief in the potential of craft to elevate society’s tastes. These exhibitions also provided useful skills to those interested in a career in the crafts, and served as a diplomatic tool among countries.The need for exhibition space became a formal goal of the American Craftsmen’s Council after its initial success exhibiting crafts at America House. In 1951, Contemporary Furniture from the School for American Craftsmen opened at the America House gallery. Aileen Webb demonstrated how inextricably linked education and marketing were to the success of the contemporary craftsmen, and she utilized the opportunity to exhibit the students work to gain public exposure for the emerging artists. Recognizing the need to communicate America House's activities, Webb decided to publish an informal internal newsletter, which planted the seeds for what became an internationally respected craft periodical. Craft Horizons appeared as little more than a mimeographed sheet in November 1941, and by the 1960s, under the leadership of editor Rose Slivka, the magazine led in documenting the entire scope of the craft world. Monthly circulation averaged 40,000 copies by 1979, when it was renamed American Craft and it continues to be the country's main craft publication to this day.

Houses
In the 1950s, she bought a penthouse residence that combined two apartments designed by David Campbell on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. Her living-room included a painting by Claude Monet and her front entrance weavings by Lenore Tawney. She also owned a painting by Paul Gauguin. Her penthouse included a studio, where she handcrafted, woodcarved, painted and wrote poetry. Here, Webb enjoyed her view of the New York skyline through the glass wall that separated the living and dining areas. Her grandchildren played on the terrace, a space large and durable enough for roller skates and scooters. She also pursued her life-long passion for pottery in her own private studio. The new apartment gave Webb the opportunity to commission those craftsmen whose work most appealed to her sense of beauty and comfort. She urged craftsmen to take stock of the times and respond to the integrity of materials, noting that “In this mid-century perhaps the tide is turning again, away from the purely cold forms of the last few years to something warmer and more colorful." She spent her weekends in her hometown house in Garrison, which included a table by Wendell Castle. She summered in her husband's family home, Shelburne Farms in Shelburne, Vermont, where she had a "glass house" built on Lake Champlain. Here she furnished her home with modern furniture and a large slate mural by Glen Michaels.

Famous Quotes
- Mrs. Webb always had a tremendous zest for life. In 1972, when she was eighty, she told a New York Times reporter, " I love to dance."

- "It is the things of the spirit, the arts of the country, which have always led mankind forward, and it is to this spirit that the craftsmen of the world must lend themselves."

- "A good life is found only where the creative spirit abounds, where people are free to experiment and create new ideas within themselves."

Death
"It was a sad event for RIT and for the world of art when she died in August, 1979."

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