Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery, one of the pioneering commercial art galleries in New York, played a very important role in promoting modern American art (the first generation) during the second quarter of the twentieth century and well into the 1950s. It patronized such prominent artists as Stuart Davis, Ben Shahn, Charles Sheeler, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Jacob Lawrence and others, itself being patronized by such influential people as Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Duncan Phillips, and Holger Cahill (director of the WPA Federal Art Project.)  In contrast to Alfred Stieglitz's prestigious galleries (the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, known as 291 [1905-17], the Intimate Gallery [1924-29], and An American Place [1929-50]), or Charles Daniel's daring attempt (the Daniel Gallery [1913-32]), Halpert's Gallery was more of a businesslike nature. Unlike Stieglitz, who was rather fastidious in selecting customers and never reduced prices for the artists he represented (Max Weber, Arthur Dove, Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Georgia O'Keeffe), or Charles Daniel, who was a bit loose in spending and accounting (he spent rather wildly on unpromising artists and often underpaid the more popular artists), Halpert, who used to study at the National Academy of Art and the Art Students League and worked for major department stores and investment banks, was astute in finding promising artists, deft in advertising, and proficient in managing the financial matters, including the commission (usually 30 to 33 1/3% of the total sale) and the copyright and reproduction fees.  It deserves to be noted that many of the Downtown Gallery artists were minority artists, i.e. artists who belonged to racial or social minorities and, in the face of racial/xenophobic prejudices, had to fight their way for social recognition and acceptance : Ben Shahn was a Jewish-American (so were Bernard Karfiol, Jack Levine, and William and Marguerite Zorach), Kuniyoshi a Japanese-American, and Law-rence an African-American. It should also be noted that Halpert herself was a Jewish-American (an East-European Jew) and that there was a sort of communal feeling as well as reciprocity between her (the art dealer) and the gang (artists) under her protection. Shahn and Lawrence obviously-and Kuniyoshi partially-owed their success to her promotion, while she was rewarded with their gratitude and the growing reputation and prestige of her own gallery, which turned out to be a potent medium (or center) for social messages or proclama-tions. "Suddenly for an unknown all the doors miraculously opened," Shahn admitted (though he later experienced certain discomforts with Halpert) ; "Edith Halpert was greatly responsible for me and my early success," Lawrence agreed ; "We would all like to feel that we are a part of the Downtown Gallery, your family with the same ideals," Kuniyoshi confirmed in one of his letters to Halpert.  Halpert's intention, in other words, was to maintain the great variety 66 the artists from "many states and many lands" had created, or, as she wrote to Marsden Hartley in the midst of the Depression, to protect "what little color the mixed nationalities [had] brought to the severe background of America." Although the gang at the Downtown Gallery were largely on their own, each struggling with his or her own prob-lems, they all knew that, as "newer" Americans or social outsiders, they were fighting for the same goals of social equality and freedom of expression.