Nancy Vincent McClelland

Nancy Vincent McClelland (1877–1959) was the first female president of the first US national association of interior designers, the American Institute of Interior Decorators (A.I.D), which is now called the American Society of Interior Designers (A.S.I.D.) and was one of an early group of female interior decorators practicing during the first decades of the 20th century. McClelland was also an expert on the European/American antiques. She was a writer for interior journals such as: Collier's, Country Life, House Beautiful, and House and Garden. She was an expert on wallpaper and the Scottish furniture designer Duncan Phyfe of New York. She received several rewards for her work. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She was multilingual and spoke French, Italian, German, and Spanish. McClelland first started her career as a reporter of stories of women's interests, schools, and clubs for the Philadelphia Press from 1897 to 1900.

Au Quatrième and Wanamakers From 1901 to 1907, McClelland worked in the advertising department of Wanamaker's Department Store, where she also had an opportunity to create window displays and store exhibits. She thus commenced her study on what she called "proper and effective arrangement."

Nancy McClelland, Inc. and Interior Design In 1922, she left Wanamaker's and opened her own store, Nancy McClelland Inc. in New York City. The firm specialized in formal period-style interiors in 18th-century French styles in addition to English Regency, English Georgian, and American Colonial. McClelland employed apprentices at her firm, including Mary Dunn, Inez Croom, and Michael Greer. Dunn later took over the business when McClelland retired. Croom went on to become a wallpaper expert in her own right.

McClelland's interior decorating style has been described as “rather correct and formal”. The colonial revival movement was in full effect in the 1920s and many of her interiors reflect this. She was also a founding member of the American Institute of Interior Decorators (A.I.I.D.), which changed its name to American Institute of Decorators (A.I.D.) in 1936. During her tenure as president of A.I.D. the organization admitted students for the first time. During her travels through Europe, McClelland searched for historic wallpapers to bring back to America and visited important sites such as the German Wallpaper Museum, now part of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel.

McClelland believed wallpapers were the most useful backdrop when furnishing a room. In addition to selling antique wallpaper, McClelland also sold reproductions under her firm's name. McClelland's reproductions show her meticulous attention to detail. She even went so far as to have her wallpapers woodblock printed in France on joined sheets of paper, as they would have been in the eighteenth century. In addition to being sold in their New York City showroom, Nancy McClelland, Inc. wallpapers could be found at George J. Brewing in Boston, and The Chintz Shop in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Kansas City. In addition, she restored and/or decorated various houses and museums, such as Mount Vernon, the plantation home of George Washington in Virginia, and the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House in Portland, Maine, the Morris- Jumel Mansion in New York, Brompton Hall, now part of the University of Mary Washington, Blair House in Washington, D.C., and Stanton Hall in Natchez, Mississippi.

She also wrote Duncan Phyfe & The English Regency (1939), which examined the work of the famous cabinet maker Duncan Phyfe. She believed the Regency period to be the most "polished", most "animated", and most "corrupt" era for the English society. She also wrote numerous articles for magazines, including Collier's, Country Life, House Beautiful, and House and Garden.

Books Historic Wallpapers: From Their Inception to the Introduction of Machinery (Lippincott, 1924) The Practical Book of Decorative Wall Treatments (Lippincott, 1926) The Young Decorators (Harpers, 1928) Duncan Phyfe and the English Regency (William Scott, 1939) Furnishing the Federal and Colonial House (Lippincott, re-edited in 1947)