Carroll Thayer Berry - Between The Wars

Between The Wars

After World War I, Berry settled in Chicago, where he worked as a designer of installations and interiors for office buildings. He also met his second wife, Janet Laura Scott, a successful illustrator, who later designed Raggedy Andy dolls and books about the Bobbsey Twins.

During the Depression, Berry and his wife left Chicago and moved back to New England, where they bought a house in Wiscasset, Maine. Their home became a meeting place for craftsmen and artists of the region. Meanwhile, with World War II on the horizon, the Bath Iron Works commissioned Berry to document (through a series of paintings) their construction of fighting ships for the U.S. Navy. These oil paintings depict the shipyard in full production, at a time when the phrase “the delivery of a destroyer every other Friday” was a common slogan (Hammond).