Douglas spent his early years at his family's home in Evergreen, CO, which later became the Hiwan Homestead Museum.
[5] He had two children with wife Freda: Ann Pauline Maher (1928–1988), David Douglas (1932–1999), and Eve (Mrs. Wallace Jolivette).
This trip helped to develop a lifelong love of world arts, especially Japanese prints, Balinese wood carvings, and Asian textiles.
[1] During this time he was joined by assistant curator, Kate Peck Kent,[8] who went on to become "professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Denver, a research associate at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and a resident scholar at the School of American Research.
"[9] Douglas created the Indian Leaflet series in 1930 which provided "summary accounts of culture areas and specific tribes alternated with comparative discussions of artifact types.
[6] Frederic Douglas, along with Rene d'Harnoncourt and Henry Clumb, was involved in the Indian Court,[10][11] Federal Building, at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition during the World's Fair in San Francisco.
The fact that we think of Navajo silversmithing as a typical Indian art and of the horsemanship of the Plains tribes as a typical Indian characteristic proves sufficiently that those tribes were strong enough to make such foreign contributions entirely their own by adapting them to the pattern of their own traditions.
[6] "With tremendous courage Eric continued his work despite the amputation of his left arm, intolerable pain, and the knowledge of imminent death from cancer.
[6] He served in the Army Medical Corps from 1942 to 1944 in the Pacific Islands where he "expanded his interested to include the collecting of Oceanic Arts".
[6] "Following his death in 1956, he was then succeeded as curator of the department of native art by Royal Hassrick, Norman Feder, Richard (Dick) Conn, Nancy Blomberg and, at present, John P. Lukavic, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Curator of Native Arts.