All the Plummers Kept Diaries, illustration to 'Rebecca Mary's Diary,' for "Harper's Monthly Magazine"
Elizabeth Shippen Green American
Not on view
The important American illustrator Elizabeth Shippen Green studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts then joined forces with two fellow artists, Jessie Willcox Smith and Violet Oakley, together leasing the former Red Rose Inn in West Mount Airy, near Philadelphia in 1904. Howard Pyle dubbed them "The Red Rose Girls" and their shared home and workplace was known as Cogslea. Each artist proved an important force in the golden age of illustration, with works published in magazines and books. In 1901 Green became the first women to be given a contract by Harper's Montly Magazine, and this drawing was made to illustrate a story about a Rebecca Mary, a girl who expresses herself imaginatively in a diary. Green's innovative use of a vertical format enabled the image to be shown next to a related column of text.
