Look Closer: Ethel Dougan’s <em>Mittens</em>
· The Atlantic
The mittens were almost 80 years old when Ethel Dougan painted this watercolor, one of more than 18,000 works by some 1,000 financially strapped artists commissioned by the Index of American Design. Part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project, the Index aimed to document historical American arts and crafts and provide inspiration for modern designers.
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The mittens had been knitted by the fiancée of Private Franklin Martin Spaulding, an 18-year-old who had enlisted in the 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment in August 1862. He had seen active service through that winter, as had his mittens. The black-and-white photograph archived with Dougan’s drawing shows little more than a gray pile of moth-eaten wool. Her watercolor—now in the National Gallery of Art’s collection with the rest of the Index—brings the mittens back to life. Worn and faded, certainly, they are nonetheless spirited, with a patriotic color scheme, embroidered stars, and rib-stitched stripes. Arranged on the page with fingertips touching, they seem to reach toward each other like children holding hands.
Dougan depicted the seams and rows with enough precision that an experienced knitter could re-create the design, but even a casual observer might note the mittens’ odd silhouette.
Nestled between the usual two pouches—a big one for the fingers and a small one for the thumb—is a third.
It’s there for the teenage soldier’s index finger, so he could tear the end off a paper cartridge, load his rifle, and pull the trigger in the cold.
Index of American Design / National Gallery of ArtMittens, Ethel Dougan, circa 1940. Watercolor and graphite on paperboard.This article appears in the December 2026 print edition with the headline “Mittens.”