The female cartoonist I am studying Grace Dayton. she was born in Philadelphia in the year 1877 and died in 1936. She was one of the first and most successful female cartoonists. She originally created the series ‘Bobby Blake’ and ‘Dolly Drake
cartoonist profile
Ali Susskind
9/24/23
RHCS 412
Grace Drayton
The cartoonist I will be studying is Grace Drayton. Grace Gebbie was born on October 14th, 1878 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Grace was born into art being that one of her parents was an art publisher. Her dad, George Gebbie, was a lithographer and Philadelphia’s first art printer. She was an illustrator of children’s books, fashion pages, and magazine covers. Along with her artistic skills, she was well known for her fashion sense. She first started off as a freelance artist in 1895. She would sketch pictures of herself as she looked in the mirror. Grace attended what is now Drexel University as well as the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. But there is no actual record of her graduating. Between the years 1905 to 1909 she was a member of the Plastic Club. The Plastic Club is an arts organization in Philadelphia made for women only founded in the year 1897. It promoted collaboration and members’ work. She made her first art sale when she was just 17. Her first illustrations were of cupids and pretty women. In 1895 she made her first magazine sale, selling her illustration of a young girl holding a kitten which she named “Puss”. By the time she was in her twenties she had married Theodore Wiederseim. But that wasn’t her only accomplishment in her twenties. Grace had created the series ‘Bobby Blake’ and ‘Dolly Drake’ both for the Philadelphia Press. In 1909 Grace had published both of these along with ‘The Terrible Tales of Captain Kiddo’ in which she collaborated with her sister. Grace’s whole family were artists, she was just the most successful one. These were all created while she was Grace Wiederseim but the real magic came when she divorced Theodore and married W. Drayton. All of her most famous works were made as Mrs. Drayton. She illustrated children’s books as well as several comics. These comics include ‘Toodles’, ‘Dolly Dimples’, and ‘The Campbell Kids’. Stemming from these comics, she was able to create the adventures of Little Miss Muffett, the Man in the Moon, and others with Dolly Dimple and Bobby Bounce. From 1916 to 1922, Drayton’s work appeared in the Pictorial Review. At this point in time she was known for her Dolly Dingle paper dolls. In 1910 her sister Margaret had a book called ‘Kiddie Land’, in 1911 she had another called ‘Kiddie rhymes’, and ‘Vegetable Verselets for Humorous Vegetarians’, and in 1914 three others, ‘Babykins Bedtime Book’, ‘Little Pets Book’, and ‘Rosy Childhood’. The illustrations in both of these books were done by Grace Drayton.
You all probably know Campbell Soup company whether it’s for the taste or for the creative drawings and ads that play along with the company. Drayton created the Campbell Soup Kids which appeared in the Campbell Soup advertisements in the beginning of the year 1904. Grace’s name actually never appeared on the drawings she did for Campbell Soup. She is known for her children’s characters being cute and cherubic, often with round faces, plump bodies, and rosy cheeks. Her other notable works are Dolly Dimples, Dolly Dingle Paper Dolls, and The Pussycat Princess. Her Dolly Dingle Paper Dolls were featured in the women’s magazine Pictorial Review. She paved the way for a lot of female cartoonists. Grace Drayton is considered to be one of the first and most successful American female cartoonists.
Comic Strip profile
Grace Drayton’s primary syndicated newspaper comic strip is called Dolly Dimples. This appeared in various William Randolph Hearst/King Features Syndicate publications. This comic strip lasted from the year 1903 to the year 1933. The meaning of “dolly dimple” is a traditional name for large ladies who once made their living with freak shows at circuses and carnivals. That was not what Grace Drayton’s comic was about though. It was constantly changing. The main character went from “Toodles” from 1903-1904, “Dottie Dimple” from 1908 to 1911, “Dimples” from 1914-1918, and at last “Dolly Dimples” from 1928 to 1933. The character in the comic strip played a little girl who got into mischief around the house or around an adult. She would later suffer for it or give out a punishment. But she was not alone, she usually had her dog or a little boy with her.
The image from this comic is very colorful and vibrant. There are a ton of details that went into this image you can tell. In the first panel, the little girl is explaining to her cat that it is very dirty and needs to be cleaned. The girl’s face is content but the cat looks mad. They are both sitting on this large chair on the porch of a house. The girl is in a cute, white, flowy dress. She has blonde curly hair. They are both wearing big pink bows, possibly to symbolize that they are both girls. In the second panel the girl is chasing after the cat on a dirt road because the cat is afraid of the water. The little girls face looks surprised and scared that her cat is running away. The cat looks determined to get away from her.
Grace Drayton. “The Woman Behind the Campbell’s Soup Kids.” https://recollections.biz/blog/the-woman-behind-the-campbells-soup-kids-grace-drayton/
Grace Dayton. Dolly Dimples. http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2016/11/dolly-dimples-by-grace-g-drayton.html
Early Life: WordPress 6
Grace Drayton was born on October 14, 1877 in Philadelphia. Her maiden name was Grace Gebbie. She comes from an artistic family. Her dad’s name was George Gebbie. He was a very successful illustrator. He illustrated books and magazines. She was heavily influenced to become an illustrator by her dad being that she grew up in this environment. As a child, she was known for her self portraits. She drew herself while looking in the mirror. Grace found herself to be a funny looking individual. Her dad emigrated from Scotland and worked in upstate New York. He listed his job as a bookseller when he arrived in Philadelphia. Grace had five sisters and one brother. Her sisters were mostly all artistically talented but her brother lacked that talent. Her early education was in private and church schools. She later moved to New York City to continue her work. https://web.archive.org/web/20121104014436/http://home.comcast.net/~bluepatch/Biographies/Grace_Drayton_web.htm
https://www.rubylane.com/relax/blog/graceful-creations
More info on Dolly Dingles: WordPress 7
Dolly Dingle was one of Grace Drayton’s more famous works out of the many she had. They really stuck with people. Dolly Dingles was a spin off of Rose O’Neill’s Kewpies. Dolly Dingles were made in the year 1913. O’Neill’s Kewpies and Drayton’s Dolly Dingles had bright red rosy cheeks that were fat. Their bodies were plump and they had a distinct look to them. Their eyes were almost giving a side look. One difference of the two is that the Kewpies were normally cherubs and babies and Dolly Dingles, Dolly is a little girl. Drayton enjoyed the success that these Dolls brought her. She called them her “funny babies”. Drayton devoted a lot of time to the Dolly Dingles. She would draw over 200 sets of these paper dolls all in color before the year 1926. During the seventies and eighties, Dover books and other publishers actually reproduced Grace Drayton’s work of these dolls. These Dolls had popular themes of travel and holidays. Dolly had a dog named Fido and a cat named Kitty-cutie. She also had friends and family. Soon, her creations went from being two-dimensional paper dolls to three-dimensional plastic dolls and other collectibles. During the dirties and sixties these dolls became salt and pepper shakers. During the eighties they became vinyl dolls and bisque figurines. The bisque dolls were created by a well-known doll artist. The dolls had glass eyes and wigs made for the House of Global Arts. But it didn’t stop there. These dolls were made into ornaments, cups, dishes, utensils, and even cloth dolls.
https://www.virtualdollconvention.com/virtualconventionblog/dollydingle
More with Campbell Soup: WordPress 8
Grace Drayton created the Campbell Soup Kids. They first emerged in the year 1904. They have been prevalent in ads produced by the Campbell Soup company on and off for years. These Campbell Soup Kids dolls were so fascinating that collectors today still have interest in obtaining them. But how did the Campbell Soup company find and gain interest in her work? Grace’s first husband, Theodore Wiederseim, was a lithographer at the time. Lithography is a type of printmaking process. At the time, Theodore did the printing of the street car signs used by Joseph Campbell Company. This company later emerged as The Campbell Soup Company. In 1904, Theodore took a sample of his wife, Drayton’s, work. He took it to an account meeting he had with Joseph Campbell Company on a day in 1904. He showed off her work to the company and suggested the what he called “healthy looking children” to be a good addition to his project, the streetcar advertising. Streetcar was Campbell’s soup new condensed soup product. Fun fact, the company was originally a fruit and vegetable purveyor. But in 1897 that changed. They decided to turn their focus too condensed soup made by one of their chemists. The company took his suggestion into account and sooner than later Grace’s children were plastered on the sides of the streetcars. Originally in black and white but later grew to be color. They eventually became dolls when the company licensed the rights to E.I. Horsman Company. From the mid twenties to the mid forties the children were not used in ads. But were brought back for their fiftieth anniversary. Unfortunately, there are no records of Grace Drayton ever benefiting financially form the licensing.
Wikidata Profile
Cartoonists Wikidata: When looking up Grace Dayton on Wikidata not much came up. At the top of the page it gives her name in both English and spanish. They both read Grace Drayton. Then it tells us her description. There was not much to this other than it just says “comics artist and illustrator”. Although this is true it is just the surface of who she is and what she did. The last column gives each of her names that she went by throughout her life. This column fails to recognize her maiden name, Grace Gebbie. When you scroll down on the page you will eventually see this large black and white picture of Grace. This was seen to be one of if not the earliest picture taken of Grace. There are only a couple references included in her Wikidata Profile. Her sex is listed as female and she is a citizen of the United States. She is known to be one of seven siblings but her Wikidata profile only lists one of them, her sister Margaret G. Hayes. This is most likely because Grace did a lot of illustrations for a bunch of her sister’s books. I like how most of her employers were listed in this profile but I wish they had references. There isn’t really any story that goes along with her Wikidata profile which is surprising because she is so successful and illustrated a lot of famous strips.
Timeline JS :
The process of making the timeline was fun but difficult at the same time. I am not used to using google sheets so getting the hang of how to use and manage all of the cells was confusing at first. My comic artist is Grace Drayton. She has a lot of accomplishments throughout her life but at the same time it is sometimes hard to write a lot about her because she died fairly early. I was able to incorporate her early life and how she got into drawing based on the fact her dad was an art publisher. I decided to incorporate that piece because it was her father who was her inspiration. I began to tell about her early life. Where and when she went to college because this is also where she learned a lot of her skills. But her talents were not just based on what she had learned at Drexel University and the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. Grace Drayton as an early artist freelanced and sketched herself while looking in the mirror. She loved to sketch self portraits. Under the early artist part of the timeline is where her career really started. I state how her first art sale was at this time when she was 17. Then I moved on to the year 1900. Grace Drayton was in her early twenties here which is why I titled this section this. She was also very successful in her early twenties. At this time she was not Grace Drayton, she was Grace Wiederseim after marrying Theodore Wiederseim. This year was revolutionary for Grace because she created some of her most notable comic strip characters. The character Dolly Dimples that she created was published in the New York Herald. I felt it was important to highlight this early on because these characters had set up the rest of her career for success. After setting the stage for her early accomplishments I wanted to dive deeper into her popular work of her syndicated comic strip Dolly Dimples. From then on she was very well known so all of her work going forward was very popular. Another contribution to her work are the Campbell Soup Kids. Her cute cherubic style of drawings with plump bodies and rosy cheeks are what Campbell Soup is known for. Unfortunately they did not end up giving her any credit for her drawings. Throughout Grace’s career she was mostly, other than her dad, surrounded by women. In 1905 she joined the Plastic Club. I thought this was a very interesting part of her life and her career. This arts club and organization was all for women. During her time here she collabed with others. This club sparked her collaboration with her sister Margaret G Hays. The next component of the timeline I chose to go into her accomplishments and collaborative projects with her sister. During this time she divorced Theodore Wiederseim and married W. Drayton where she finally became Grace Drayton. Grace’s sister was a writer and wrote many children’s books. While Maragret wrote, Grace drew the pictures for each of her six books mentioned in the timeline. Her work continued to become more and more relevant and famous. In 1916 all the way to 1922 her work was published in the Pictorial Review. But it didn’t stop there, Grace’s work continued to be published in the Pictorial Review and her work with Dolly Dimples continued and expanded. The last point made here was her most famous work, ‘The Pussycat Princess’. It was unfortunate that Grace only worked on this piece for a short amount of time.