You may have never heard of the illustrator Ellen Clapsaddle, but odds are you’ve seen her work.
In 1907, the Universal Postal Congress declared that users could write a message on the left side of the back of a postcard. Until then, only an address was allowed on these cards. That same year, the U.S. Congress complied with this declaration by allowing for message space. From that date to 1915, when World War I interrupted mail delivery between warring countries, is today known as the “Golden Age of Postcards.”
During this short span of time, hundreds of millions of postcards passed through the post office in the United States. People traveling even into a nearby town for supplies often bought a few postcards of the place to put in the mail and let their friends know of their adventure. Photographs of cities, natural sights, and historic monuments were abundant. There were humorous cards, patriotic cards, cards about romance, and cards announcing birthday invitations, marriages, or deaths—cards for every occasion under the sun.
And just as we once put together photo albums before we began storing pictures on our phones, so did recipients of these cards carefully preserve them in albums, to be treasured and shared with others. Some of the illustrated cards were, and are today, valued for their art and beauty.
And the absolute queen of these illustrated postcards was Ellen Clapsaddle.
An Artist Comes of Age
Born in a small farming community in central New York state, Ellen Clapsaddle (1865–1934), like most adolescents at the time, attended a local one-room school through the eighth grade. Though little is known of her during these years, we have some indications that she was delicate in health, shy, and already displaying a keen talent for drawing.
Then, like others her age, especially those in rural communities, she continued her education as a boarder at Richfield Springs Seminary, a preparatory school for young women aiming at higher education. There, she not only enhanced her education, but also was exposed to the culture of Richfield Springs itself. The town at that point in its history boasted beautiful homes and buildings and attracted such visitors as Oscar Wilde and Thomas Edison.
A circa 1885 postcard of Richfield, N.Y. C.H. Vogt & Son. Public Domain
After her graduation in 1882, Clapsaddle then entered the prestigious Cooper Institute in New York City for two years of training in art before returning home, where she remained until her father’s death in 1891, at which point she and her mother moved to Richfield Springs to live with relatives. During these years, she continued her drawing and painting, taught art to local students, and submitted work as a freelancer with some success. The International Art Company accepted and published several of her illustrations and even paid for her passage and an extended stay to study art and engraving in Germany, then the center of the printing world.
Beginning in 1905, Clapsaddle’s fortunes soared when she entered into the realm of postcards with the Wolf Company, which was associated with International Art.
Disaster and Madness
Over the next decade, Clapsaddle produced more than 2,000 postcards for the Wolf Company. She not only provided the illustrations, but also often composed the verses and aphorisms that accompanied them. Reproductions of her cards sold in the millions, and though they are today collector’s items, so many were printed that a buyer can still obtain certain Clapsaddle cards for less than $20.
Soon, the company dispatched her back to Germany. For several years, Clapsaddle worked with the engravers there, her plates and artwork stored in factory warehouses. When the First World War erupted, she found herself cut off from returning to her home and friends in the United States. Worse still, the war’s end had left many of the printing factories destroyed by bombing or fires and left their businesses bankrupt. Clapsaddle’s original work disappeared in those conflagrations.
Here, her story, never altogether clear, becomes even more shadowy. One source, for instance, reported that she had arrived back in the States in 1915 and continued to work as “a greeting card artist.” Most students of her life, however, agree that she went missing in Germany until, at war’s end, one of the Wolf brothers, now bankrupt themselves, raised the money to sail to Europe and search for the lost artist. Eventually, he found her wandering the streets, half out of her mind, destitute and starving.
According to these accounts, Clapsaddle never recovered from this momentous blow. Wolf tried to care for her, but we have little idea of how she managed to feed and house herself after his death. In 1932, she entered the Peabody Home in New York City, a home for indigent women, where she spent her last two years of life playing with children’s dolls and toys.
It was a tragic end to a brilliant career, yet Clapsaddle left her mark on American culture.
Holidays
Clapsaddle’s cards enriched the symbols and the celebration of several major holidays.
Her many depictions of Santa Claus filled out the portrait of that holiday elf given us by Clement Moore in “'Twas The Night Before Christmas” and by other poets and visual artists. In Clapsaddle’s illustrations, we have Santa as we know him today—rotund, dressed in red, bright-eyed with cheeks the color of roses, and nearly always carrying a sack of toys for the children who appear in the pictures with him.
Her Saint Patrick’s Day cards were a huge hit with the United States’ Irish immigrants. The clothing worn by her subjects in these illustrations is imbued with Erin green, and the publicity generated by the cards helped spread the word among Americans about this special occasion. Today, of course, when March 17 rolls around, Americans who celebrate declare all who partake of the festivities magically Irish for the day.
A 1908 postcard boasting a green Zeppelin in honor of St. Patrick's Day. Public Domain
Her greatest influence on American holidays, however, was surely on Halloween. As in her Christmas art, Clapsaddle’s subjects in her many Halloween illustrations are most often small children, chubby-cheeked and innocent, often shown holding either a jack-o'-lantern or a black cat. The Irish and the Scots had celebrated Halloween in the 19th century, and it was well established in the States by 1900, but Clapsaddle’s cards, which were wildly popular and often sent to convey friendly greetings on this day, made the holiday an occasion of innocence and fun for the pleasure of children.
Folklore says that a girl can see her future husband in a mirror on Halloween. Ellen Clapsaddle's Halloween 1904 postcard. Public Domain
Of Childhood and Goodness
World War I was a horrible tragedy whose repercussions echo even today. Millions died, most of whom were young men. The conflict spawned revolutions, dictatorships around the globe, upheavals, massive changes in philosophy, mores, and culture, and another world war. Those young people who survived combat become known as the “lost generation.” Though she was almost 50 when the war broke out, its devastating consequences for Clapsaddle mark her as a member of that forlorn band.
Yet her thousands of portraits, however idealized, give us insight into a seemingly more idyllic time in American life. This is particularly true of her illustrations of children. She was producing her art in “The Golden Age of Children’s Illustrated Books,” an epoch when childhood was becoming more and more regarded by adults as special, a time of innocence. Her drawings may strike some as overly sweet, yet they are reminders to us living today that the innocence of children deserves to be protected and nurtured.
“My heart is like a child” is a line Clapsaddle wrote in a poem to her mother when she herself was a child. That sentiment surely remains both a clue and an epitaph as to her personality and her brilliance.
Would you like to see other kinds of arts and culture articles? Please email us your story ideas or feedback at [email protected]
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make The Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
