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Object Timeline

  • We acquired this object.

1948

  • Work on this object began.

2021

2025

  • You found it!

Book, Intruder in the Dust

This is a Book. It was written by William Faulkner and designed by E. McKnight Kauffer and published by Random House. It is dated 1948. Its medium is lithograph. It is a part of the department.


Intruder in the Dust tells a chilling account of an African American farmer, Lucas, who is wrongfully accused of murdering a white man. Lucas is in danger of being lynched by a mob before he is proved innocent with the help of the narrator, a white teenager. Kauffer designed two covers that featured Lucas, but Random House chose to publish an illustration of an empty churchyard cemetery that holds the exonerating evidence.

It is credited Exhibition purchase.

Its dimensions are

H x W: 20.5 × 14 cm (8 1/16 × 5 1/2 in.)

This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Underground Modernist: E. McKnight Kauffer.

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If you would like to cite this object in a Wikipedia article please use the following template:

<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://www-4.collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/2318805325/ |title=Book, Intruder in the Dust |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=11 February 2025 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>