Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett (1890-1977)

October is the month for weekend drives to see leaves change to their autumn colors. Now, an artist who drew pictures of leaves:

Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett was born on June 29, 1890, in Seymour, Indiana. Her real name was Joan Ellsworth Bartlett; her nickname may have come in honor of her aunt, Minnie Bartlett EuDaly (1867-1944). Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett's father, John E. Bartlett (1862-1940), was a well-admired artist and sign painter in his hometown and in southern Indiana. Minnie's mother, Rhoda Marie (Coulborn) Bartlett (1861-1922), died of pneumonia when she was still quite young. The Bartletts and related families were prominent in the civic life of Seymour.

Minnie Bartlett carried on in her father's mix of art and business. The first notice I have of her work is for cartoons she drew for a log-rolling and carnival in Seymour in 1905. These were displayed in the window of Cox Pharmacy when she was just fifteen years old. One was of Kin Hubbard's famed Abe Martin character from the Indianapolis News.

Minnie Bartlett graduated in 1907 from Seymour High School, an edifice surrounded by trees and once bordering a tract of forestland. From 1909 to 1911, she studied at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis where her instructors were Clifton Wheeler, Otto Stark, and William Forsyth. In her last year at Herron, Minnie had her art on display in a student exhibit at Herron. More importantly, she landed a plum assignment to provide 133 illustrations for the Eleventh Annual Report of the State Board of Forestry, 1911 (1912). Her drawings were of the trees of Indiana, a botanical key that proved to be the life's work of Charles C. Deam (1865-1953), a self-taught botanist and the first Indiana state forester. The Trees of Indiana was issued in book form in 1919. According to one source, Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett's drawings were used in that edition as well. I have the first revision of The Trees of Indiana from 1932, a book illustrated not with drawings but with photographs.

Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett was listed as an artist in Indianapolis city directories for many years. Later she was employed as a stenographer and in other positions in business. I don't know her date or place of death, but I have found reference to an obituary for a Minnie Ellsworth, age seventy-three, in the Terre Haute Tribune, February 25, 1963, page 2. If anyone can find a copy of that obituary, I would very much like to see it. Joan E. Bartlett retired from Bethesda Hospital in Cincinnati, where she had worked as a clerk-secretary for many years, and died on December 27, 1977, at the Christian Science Nursing Home in Columbus, Ohio. She was eighty-seven years old.

Yellow-poplar is the tallest tree in the eastern United States, reaching heights of 200 feet or more in our pre-settlement forests. Indiana pioneers often built their cabins from poplar, which is naturally straight, easy to work, and resistant to termites. I have read of what was called a three-log cabin: three large-diameter yellow-poplar logs stacked one atop another to give plenty of head clearance inside. Also called tulip-poplar, tuliptree, or simply tulip, yellow-poplar is the state tree of Indiana. Its fall color is yellow. The springtime flowers, which give the tree its tulip name, are more colorful and very showy.

Sassafras is far more colorful in the fall, turning fiery orange and red. The fruits are also colorful. The stalk or peduncle is bright red, the fruit a strongly contrasting dark blue. The Latin name is now Sassafras albidum.

White ash, now reduced in numbers because of the emerald ash borer, is a common tree throughout Indiana and widely planted as an ornamental. The fruits are like little canoe paddles. Fall colors are extraordinary: an indescribable mix of purple, yellow, and crimson, all occurring on the same tree at the same time but at different depths for a unique three-dimensional color-effect.

Sugar maple is the king of the fall forest in brilliant, almost luminous, yellow and orange hues. We are nearing peak season for autumn colors. Go out and see them before they are gone.

Revised and updated, January 30, 2020. Thanks to the commenters below, Monique, William (Anonymous), and Theresa, for information that has led me to updating this article on Minnie Ellsworth Bartlett. Thanks also to the website Find A Grave and the people who have posted information there. If you go to that site (click on this link), you will find abundant information on the Bartlett family and related families.

Text and captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Hoosiers in Art-Musicians, Singers, and Composers

A young Hoagy Carmichael (1899-1981), drawn by the illustrator McClelland Barclay. Born in Bloomington, Carmichael was known for his songs "Stardust" and "Georgia on My Mind" and for his movie roles, especially in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). 

The U.S. Postal Service recognized him with a stamp in 1996.

Cole Porter (1891-1964) was also a Hoosier. Born in Peru, Indiana, he, like Carmichael, composed popular songs and appeared in movies. He also appeared on the cover of Time magazine, on January 31, 1949. The artist was Boris Chaliapin.

Cole Porter composed scores for Broadway musicals. His most famous is probably Kiss Me, Kate from 1948, the score for which is on the piano in this charcoal portrait by Soss Melik. 

Finally, like Hoagy Carmichael, Cole Porter has been commemorated on a postage stamp.

Secondo "Conte" Candoli (1927-2001) was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, and famously played in Doc Severinsen's orchestra on The Tonight Show. He also had his own group, as this album cover from 1957 shows. Eva Diana was the artist.

The great Wes Montgomery (1923-1968) hailed from Indianapolis and died entirely too young. People still listen to his music nearly fifty years after his death.

The Jackson 5 famously came out of Gary, Indiana. In 1971-1972, they starred in their own animated Saturday morning show on ABC-TV.

Jack Davis of MAD magazine fame drew this caricature of the Jackson 5. Unfortunately I don't have a better version to show.

Captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Bob Parker (1915-1998)

Robert D. "Bob" Parker was born on August 8, 1915, in Indiana and lived in Fort Wayne as a boy and for most if not all his life. He worked as a photographer and commercial artist, but Bob Parker gained his fame by drawing baseball cards. Unfortunately, I know little else about his life or work. Bob Parker died on May 3, 1998.

Text copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Hoosiers in Art-Aviators

Hoosiers have contributed to aviation in America from the beginnings of powered flight. Although Orville Wright (1871-1948) was a native Ohioan, his older brother Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) was born in Indiana, in the Henry County village of Millville. The Wright Brothers have been commemorated on many postage stamps. Here's one from Romania.

And another from Ivory Coast.

Octave Chanute (1832-1910) corresponded with the Wright Brothers and encouraged them in their efforts. Born in France and a resident of Chicago, Chanute conducted tests of gliders at Miller Beach, Indiana, in the 1890s. The portrait here is by Milton Caniff, famed cartoonist on Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon.

World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker (1890-1973) was, like Orville Wright, born in Ohio, but from 1927 to 1945, he owned the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This image is from a series of trading cards called "Sky Birds," from 1933-1934, as are the following five images.

Amelia Earhart (1897-1937?) was born in Atchison, Kansas. In 1935, she joined the faculty of Purdue University as a counselor and adviser. The Purdue Research Foundation paid for the Lockheed Electra in which she was flying when she disappeared over the South Pacific in 1937.

In the category of "Almost a Hoosier" comes Major (later Colonel) Reed Landis (1896-1975), son of Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944), a commissioner of baseball and federal judge who lived in Indiana and practiced law there as a young man. Reed Landis was born in Ottawa, Illinois, and served in the United States Signal Corps during World War I.

Francis "Gabby" Gabreski (1919-2002), the leading American ace of World War II, was born in Pennsylvania, but matriculated at the University of Notre Dame, where he became interested in aviation. The art is once again by Ohioan Milton Caniff.

Unlike his contemporary, Gabby Gabreski, Tom Harmon (1919-1990) was born in Indiana (in Rensselaer) and attended school out of state. He won the Heisman Trophy at the University of Michigan. In 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and served in China. Harmon was awarded the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. The image here is from his NFL rookie card from 1941. 

Captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Indiana Bison-tennial!

We're still a year and a half away from the beginning of Indiana's bicentennial year, but I would like to be among the first to make the connection between that celebration and the Indiana State Seal, which includes the image of an American bison, and to say:

Happy Bison-tennial, Indiana!

The Seal of the State of Indiana, a design proposed before Indiana was a state. Only two other states--Kansas and North Dakota--include the image of a bison on their state seals. Both were admitted to the Union after Indiana. That will make the Hoosier State the first to observe a bison-tennial. By the way, whoever designed the seal is a candidate for the first illustrator to call Indiana home.

Update (Mar. 30, 2015): As it turns out, I was not the first to make the connection between the state seal and the bicentennial, but my wishes are the same. Also, there are some who believe that William Henry Harrison created the seal, modified from the original seal of the old Northwest Territory.

Text and caption copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Hoosiers in Art

A cartoon by Art Young (1866-1943) showing types from the World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. In the upper left, lounging on a wooden chair, is what seems to be the simplest among them. According to the caption, he is "A Posey County Type on the Veranda of the Indiana Building."

Posey County is the southwestern-most county in Indiana and home of the New Harmony Utopian community of the early nineteenth century. It's the only county in Indiana that touches both the Wabash River and the Ohio River. I have never been there, but I imagine that the farming is good and that the timber is almost southern in character and composition. (Indiana by the way is the only state in which our two deciduous conifers are both native. Baldcypress, a southern tree, is found in Posey County. Larch, or tamarack, calls the northern part of the state home.)

Unfortunately for Art Young, he was not born a Hoosier. He was instead native to Illinois. Young worked for the Chicago Daily Inter Ocean early in his career and created this cartoon for the paper's color section. New York newspapers get a lot of attention because of their color Sunday comics--Hogan's Alley (The Yellow Kid), Buster Brown, and so on--but the Chicago Inter Ocean was the first American paper to print in color. This cartoon gave me the idea for today's posting. It's only right that it should come first.

A cartoon by a native-born Hoosier who was transplanted out of state, and referring to a cartoon by a non-native who was transplanted to Indiana. The native was Cyrus Cotton Hungerford (ca. 1889-1983), aka Cy Hungerford, a newspaper cartoonist in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and more famously, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hungerford was born in Manilla, Indiana, not far from my home. He left Indiana early on but returned there for eternal rest. This cartoon, from fifty-seven years ago this month, refers to Toonerville Folks, also called Toonerville Trolley, drawn by Fontaine Fox (1884-1964). Fox was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but matriculated at Indiana University. That's where you will find his collection of original cartoons as well.

It's time for the county fair all over America, and children are carefully showing their livestock and poultry like the girl in this painting by Norman Rockwell from 1947-1948. Times have changed and clothing, too, but you might still see people like this at the 4-H fairgrounds this month. (Note the 4-H shamrock on the papers under the girl's arm.) Every one of them is a Hoosier.

In 1947, Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) made a trip to Jay County, Indiana, to take pictures of the Steed family and their neighbors. The artist used those pictures as references for his painting "The County Agent," published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1948. From left to right, the people in the painting are Don Steed of Redkey; Mr. Steed's daughter Jama; Jay County Extension Agent Harold Riby (or Herald K. Rippey--I'm not sure as to the correct spelling); Larry and Sharon Lear or Steed (again, not certain); Mr. Steed's wife Martha; and hired hand Arlie Champ.

James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916), a portrait by T.C. Steele (1847-1926). Born in Greenfield, Indiana, Riley was known as the Hoosier Poet and the Hoosier Bard. Steele was the leading artist in the renowned Hoosier Group of the late 1800s and early 1900s. This painting is from 1891. Riley was then in his early forties, and the artist had not many years before returned from studies in Germany. The dark palette and careful brushwork indicate a German influence. Steele's landscapes, for which he known, are much more colorful and impressionistic.

Here is a later portrait of Riley by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). The palette is still dark, but there are rosy tones in the subject's face and hands, and his tie is red. Sargent was trained in France; he is known for his quick, loose, and impressionistic brushwork. Of the two, I believe this to be the more successful portrait. Nonetheless, T.C. Steele was a very fine artist.

Here is the Hoosier Poet on a smaller scale: a U.S. postage stamp from 1940.

I believe this to be a picture of Gene Stratton Porter (1863-1924), author of A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles, but the source on the Internet does not describe or identify the painting, nor does it give the name of the artist.

"The Underground Railroad" by Cincinnati artist Charles T. Webber (1825-1911). Painted in time to be displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, "The Underground Railroad" shows Levi Coffin (1798-1877) and his wife Catherine White Coffin at their work. The Levi Coffin home in Fountain City, Indiana, is a National Historic Landmark.

"The Canal: Morning Effect" by Richard Buckner Gruelle (1851-1914), a member of the Hoosier Group and father of a family of artists in Johnny, Prudence, and Justin Gruelle. The view (from 1894) is of the Indiana Statehouse, and beyond that, of the Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis. There is in fact a Hoosier in the painting, a woman wearing a red hat. I saw an image of this painting years ago and I have never forgotten it. It came from a self-taught artist. The canal in the picture is just west of Downtown. My grandfather's brother drowned in its waters at the age of four more than one hundred twenty years ago.

A statue of a Doughboy from a cemetery in Monroe County, Indiana. One hundred years ago this summer, the world went to war. America sent hundreds of thousands to men to the Western Front after entering the war in 1917. They proved decisive in victory for the Allies. Hundreds of thousands were also killed, wounded, or died of non-combat injuries or disease. In 1918-1920, the Spanish flu killed tens of millions of people all over the world. When I see a death date of 1919 for a young person in the United States, I can't help but think it was because of the flu. The Riddle brothers, one of whom may be depicted in the statue shown here, may very well have died of the disease that so ravaged the world.

If you go to Monroe County, or Lawrence County, or places close by in Indiana, you will see much that is made of limestone, including the statue of Joe Palooka at Oolitic. Joe Palooka was created by the cartoonist Ham Fisher (1900 or 1901-1955), a Pennsylvanian by birth but also a traveling salesman. He is supposed to have sold Joe Palooka the comic strip first to the Indianapolis Star. Whether that story is true or not, Fisher seems to have had a soft spot in his heart for the Hoosier State. On June 14, 1948, he was on hand to dedicate the Joe Palooka statue at its original location. (It was later moved to Oolitic.) Near Oolitic is the quarry where the limestone used in the Empire State Building was cut.

Johnny Appleseed (1774-1845) came to Indiana late and life. He died there and was buried there, in or near Fort Wayne in 1845.

Edward Eggleston (1837-1902) wrote The Hoosier Schoolmaster, one of the most popular of nineteenth century novels. It was adapted to this children's version in the 1940s. The cover illustration is unsigned. In 1812, my family came over from Kentucky into Jefferson County, Indiana, about where Eggleston's book is set. Maybe those are little Bear children running around the school.

Speaking of little bears, here is a picture of the kidnapping of Frances Slocum (ca. 1773-1847), which took place in Pennsylvania in 1778. Frances, renamed Mo-con-no-quah (translated as Young Bear or Little Bear), was removed to Indiana, grew up in the Delaware Indian tribe, and married a Delaware man. In 1837, she was reunited with her family, but she decided not to return to them. Instead she lived out her life in Indiana, a place named for her people.

Mo-con-no-quah in adulthood. The portrait is signed. It appears to be the same signature as in the image above.

O-Saw-Se-Quah (or O Sha Se Qua), Frances Slocum's daughter, a drawing that is perhaps also by the same artist. (Note the distinctive B in the lower right corner. The date appears to be 1904.) American Indians were the first Hoosiers. I'll close with the image of a woman who was descended from them and from the white settlers who displaced them. 

Captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Abraham Lincoln in Indiana

Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky and lived as an adult in Illinois, but his formative years were spent in what is now Spencer County, Indiana. Young Abe arrived in Indiana in the autumn of 1816, not long before the territory became a state. He was then just seven years old. When he was nine, Abe's mother died of milk sickness, a mysterious disease we now know is caused when cow's milk is poisoned by white snakeroot. Abraham Lincoln of course went on to be a lawyer, a U.S. representative, and, as the first Republican president, the Great Emancipator and the savior of the Union. He wrote: "All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother--blessings on her memory." Nancy Hanks Lincoln lies buried in Hoosier soil, near her home on Little Pigeon Creek.

I recently found three books on Indiana history and Abraham Lincoln. I would like to show three illustrations from those books, each by an illustrator previously unknown to me either as an illustrator or by name. Two have birthdays coming up next month.

"A Typical Pioneer Scene" by the Brown County artist Marie Goth. Born in Indianapolis on August 15, 1887, Jessie Marie Goth was educated at Manual Training High School and the Herron School of Art in her home city. Her teachers included fellow Hoosiers William Merle Allison, Harry E. Wood, and William Merritt Chase. Marie also taught art, but she is best known for her portraits. She was in fact the first woman to paint an official portrait of an Indiana governor (Henry F. Schricker). Her younger sister Genevieve, also an artist, married an artist, Carl C. Graf. Marie Goth was otherwise connected by blood or association with artists of the Hoosier Group and among the artists' colony in Brown County, Indiana. Her longtime companion was the artist Veraldo J. Cariani (1891-1969).

The drawing here is from Historic Indiana by Julia Henderson Levering (1916). In his youth, Abraham Lincoln would have lived in a cabin like this one. He also worked on a ferry boat and a flatboat, making a trip to New Orleans in the 1820s. In 1830, he moved with his family to Illinois, leaving his Indiana home behind. By coincidence, Marie Goth lived in a log house in Brown County. She, too, fell victim to poison when she was bitten by a brown recluse spider in the autumn of 1974. In her weakened state, she fell down the steps of her home and died on January 9, 1975.

In 1927, The Indiana Lincoln Union put out a booklet called Lincoln the Hoosier, written by Charles Garrett Vannest and illustrated by a youthful Constance Forsyth. Born in Indianapolis on August 18, 1903, Constance Forsyth was the daughter of artists Alice Atkinson Forsyth and William Forsyth. Like her father, Constance was renowned as a painter and teacher. Her résumé runs to hundreds of items (education, exhibitions, prizes and honors, holdings in museums, teaching career, etc.). One highlight of her career was her assistance to Thomas Hart Benton in his completion of the murals for the Indiana Building at the Century of Progress Exposition, the Chicago World's Fair of 1933. Lincoln the Hoosier was the first of two books she illustrated, the other being The Friends by Esther Buffler (1951). Constance Forsyth died on January 22, 1987, in Austin, Texas.

This map of Lincoln home sites is in a second booklet called Abraham Lincoln: A Concise Biography, published in 1934 by the Lincoln National Life Insurance Company of Fort Wayne. The mapmaker was Noble Brainard, also of Fort Wayne. (The image reproduced in the booklet shows only part of Brainard's original design. The image above is from the Internet.)

Noble Eyck Brainard was born on September 3, 1893, in Buda, Illinois. Like Marie Goth and Constance Forsyth, he was a teacher. For a time he lived in New Mexico, but he also worked as a civil servant in the Philippines and in Fort Wayne, where he resided from the 1920s on. Brainard married Amelia Zichgraf in 1924 in Fort Wayne. The copyright date on the map above is 1933. Brainard died on October 28, 1956, and is buried in his adopted home city. For years, Fort Wayne was home to the Lincoln Museum, one of the largest collections related to Abraham Lincoln in the United States. In 2008, shortly before Abe's bicentennial, the Lincoln Financial Foundation, holder of the collection, donated it to the Indiana State Library and the Allen County Public Library.

Text and captions copyright 2014, 2024 Terence E. Hanley