NORMAN ROCKWELL: the BUSINESS of ILLUSTRATING the AMERICAN DREAM (155 Pp.)

Home , Albert Dorne, Austin Briggs, Ben Shahn, Berkshire Museum, Evening Post (London), Famous Artists School

HOOVER, DEBORAH D., M.A. DECEMBER 2018 HISTORY

NORMAN ROCKWELL: THE BUSINESS OF ILLUSTRATING THE AMERICAN DREAM (155 pp.)

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Kenneth Bindas

Norman Rockwell was a renowned illustrator and chronicler of American life for more than half

a century, documenting the pulse of American life during pivotal times in twentieth century

history. During his long and celebrated career, he navigated a wide array of business

relationships through which he took direction from his clients, yet simultaneously inserted his

own individualistic perceptions of society capturing change through subtle imagery and minute

details. This thesis will illuminate three such relationships in order to dissect how the interplay

of client to artist negotiations and communications influenced the tenor and content of the

images Rockwell created and the direction of his career. For Rockwell’s magazine covers, The

Saturday Evening Post in particular, the artist was expected to adhere to strict parameters of imagery designed to sell magazines to middle class consumers and business people who in the view of the publisher, epitomized American Exceptionalism and represented achievers in their quest for the American Dream. For his advertising clients, content and messaging were heavily influenced by trends in consumerism, connections of consumerism to democracy, and the science of advertising, coupled with Rockwell’s own observations of societal trends. Finally,

Rockwell’s longtime association with Famous Artists Schools placed the artist and his exceptional talent in the midst of an expansive international business teaching art to those who had time to spare and sought the rewards of the American Dream. Famous Artists Schools also

i provided Rockwell with structure for his multifaceted career that served to ground his family with benefits and consistency. Rockwell was certainly influenced by the clients he served, but also through insertion of his own perceptions, came to influence the direction of American life.

Late in life, Rockwell was able to loosen the constraints placed upon him by his client relationships, working for Look and was finally able to depict the social injustices that haunted him throughout his life and career.

NORMAN ROCKWELL: THE BUSINESS OF ILLUSTRATING THE AMERICAN DREAM

A thesis submitted

To Kent State University in partial

Fulfillment of the requirements for the

Degree of Master of Arts

Deborah D. Hoover

December 2018

 Copyright

Except for previously published materials

Thesis written by

Deborah D. Hoover

B.A., Williams College, 1977

M.A., University of Chicago, 1979

J.D., George Washington University, 1983

M.A., Kent State University, 2018

Approved by

Dr. Kenneth Bindas, , Advisor

Dr. Brian M. Hayashi, , Chair, Department of History

Dr. James L. Blank, , Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

Table of Contents

Table of Contents ...... v List of Figures ...... vi Acknowledgments ...... viii Introduction - Rockwell’s Journey: Building a Career and National Stature ...... 1 Chapter One - Rockwell’s Covers: The Magazine Industry Stokes the American Dream ...... 22 The Curtis Publishing Empire ...... 23 Rockwell and The American Dream ...... 30 Rockwell: Early Manifestations of American Exceptionalism ...... 36 Rockwell: International Perspectives ...... 38 Rockwell: The Decade of the 1930s ...... 40 The War Years ...... 44 The Post-War Years ...... 48 The Cold War ...... 52 Rockwell Dissects the American Dream ...... 56 Chapter Two - Rockwell’s Advertisements: Consumerism & the American Dream Intersect .. 66 Rockwell Connects with Consumerism ...... 66 The Role of Artist and Illustrator ...... 71 The Science of Advertising ...... 75 Rockwell: Patriotism and Consumerism ...... 83 Consumerism Accelerates ...... 89 Rockwell: Portraying America’s Youth ...... 99 Rockwell Reflects America ...... 104 Chapter Three - Rockwell’s Image: Promoting Art Instruction & the American Dream ...... 106 Americans Pursue Art Instruction ...... 106 The Cultural Context...... 110 The FAS Strategy ...... 114 Famous Artists Schools Promote Wealth Generation ...... 120 Famous Artists Schools as Framework for Rockwell’s Career ...... 128 Conclusion ...... 136 Bibliography ...... 138 Appendix A: Figure Sources ...... 150

v List of Figures

Figure 1: N. Rockwell, “Blank Canvas”, Saturday Evening Post, October 8, 1938 ...... 2

Figure 2: N. Rockwell, City Mail Delivery Stamp, 1963 ...... 6

Figure 3: Grumbacher Advertisement, 1940 ...... 6

Figure 4: N. Rockwell, Boy Scout Calendar, A Scout is Helpful, 1941 ...... 6

Figure 5: N. Rockwell, “Playbill,” Saturday Evening Post cover, April 6, 1946 ...... 16

Figure 6: N. Rockwell, Pilgrim, Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1924 ...... 37

Figure 7: N. Rockwell, Pilgrim, Life, November 15, 1920 ...... 37

Figure 8: N. Rockwell, “Aviation Pioneer” The Saturday Evening Post, July 23, 1927 ...... 40

Figure 9: N. Rockwell, “Railroad Ticket Salesman,” Saturday Evening Post, April 24, 1937 ...... 41

Figure 10: N. Rockwell, “Rosie the Riveter,” Saturday Evening Post, May 29, 1943 ...... 45

Figure 11: N. Rockwell, “USO Volunteers,” Saturday Evening Post, February 7, 1942 ...... 47

Figure 12: N. Rockwell, “Gillis Family Heritage,” Saturday Evening Post, September 16, 1944 ...... 47

Figure 13: N. Rockwell, “Statue of Liberty,” Saturday Evening Post, July 6, 1946 ...... 49

Figure 14: N. Rockwell, “New Television Antenna” Saturday Evening Post, 1949 ...... 50

Figure 15: N. Rockwell, “Election Day,” Saturday Evening Post, October 30, 1948 ...... 52

Figure 16: N. Rockwell, “Walking to Church” Saturday Evening Post, April 4, 1953 ...... 55

Figure 17: Johannes Vermeer, “The Little Street,” 1658, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam ...... 55

Figure 18: N. Rockwell, "The Problem We All Live With," Look, 1964 ...... 59

Figure 19: N. Rockwell, “New Kids in the Neighborhood,” Look, May 16, 1967 ...... 60

Figure 20: N. Rockwell, “The Swimming Hole,” Saturday Evening Post, 1945...... 63

Figure 21: N. Rockwell, “The Polluted Swimming Hole,” Look, 1970 ...... 63

Figure 22: Al Hurlburt, Sketch, Look Magazine (NRM Archives: Look Hurlbert, Allen, general incoming, outgoing corresp. 1970-1971)...... 64

Figure 23: N. Rockwell, Interwoven Advertisement, “Still Good,” 1927 ...... 68

vi Figure 24: N. Rockwell, Edison Mazda Ad, “More Light for Each Year of Life,” 1920 ...... 81

Figure 25: N. Rockwell, “Lincoln the Rail-splitter,” (First Federal Savings and Loan Association commission, 1965) Butler Instituteof American Art, Youngstown, Ohio ...... 84

Figure 26: N. Rockwell, Coca Cola Calendar Illustration, “Out Fishin’”, 1935 ...... 85

Figure 27: N. Rockwell, “The Four Freedoms,” 1943 ...... 88

Figure 28: N. Rockwell, Advertisement, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1960 ...... 89

Figures 29-34: N. Rockwell, Advertisements, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes ...... 95

Figures 35-36: N. Rockwell,Advertisements, Crest, 1957 ...... 96

Figure 37: Proctor & Gamble Advertisement Proposal to Rockwell, 1967 ...... 98

Figure 38: N. Rockwell, Cover, “Top Value Stamps, Family Gift Catalogue,”1967 ...... 99

Figure 39: N. Rockwell, Boy Scout Calendar, “Our Heritage,” 1950 ...... 100

Figure 40: N. Rockwell, Boy Scout Calendar, “Scoutmaster,” 1953 ...... 102

Figure 41: N. Rockwell, Advertisement, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1953 ...... 103

Figure 42: Advertisement, Unknown artist, Boy’s Life, 1943 ...... 103

Figures 43-44: Famous Artists Schools materials and sample lesson ...... 108

Figures 45-46: Rockwell’s image in FAS promotional materials ...... 110

Figure 47: N. Rockwell, “Sport,” Saturday Evening Post, April 29, 1939 ...... 112

Figure 48: N. Rockwell, “Beach Scene,” Saturday Evening Post, July 13, 1940 ...... 112

Figure 49: N. Rockwell, “The Outing,” Saturday Evening Post, August 30, 1947 ...... 113

Figure 50: FAS applicants took a talent test ...... 116

Figures 51-52: Sales and Tales, 1960s ...... 117

Figures 53-54: Great Books of the Western World advertisements, 1960s ...... 119

Figures 55-56: Magazine ads for FAS ...... 122

Figure 57: T. Benton, “Outside the Curing Barn,” 1942...... 123

Figure 58: Craft Master New Artists Series Kit ...... 125

Figure 59: N. Rockwell, “Triple Self Portrait,” Saturday Evening Post, February 13, 1960 ...... 135

vii

Acknowledgments

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to many people who assisted me in the creation of this thesis.

First and foremost is my thesis advisor, Dr. Kenneth Bindas, who nurtured my thought

processes, fed my intellect, and pointed me in the direction of stimulating books and ideas. I

am also deeply grateful to my Kent State University (KSU) thesis committee: Dr. Greg Wilson,

Dr. Ann Heiss, Timothy Bell, and the late Christopher Darling, all of whom suggested important directions and resources for my research. I also express my appreciation to the faculty at KSU,

Williams College, and University of Chicago for fueling my passion for intertwining the threads

of cultural history and art history. My colleagues at the Norman Rockwell Museum have been

enormously helpful to me as I have navigated the Norman Rockwell Museum Archives and

asked countless questions about the life and work of Norman Rockwell—thank you to Director

Laurie Norton Moffitt, Curator Stephanie Plunkett, and Archivist Venus VanNess for their

generous assistance. I also thank my husband John and my three children, Catherine,

Nathaniel, and Jack, for their patience as I retreated to work on the research and writing. I

thank Mr. John Lawn for loaning his personal collection of Rockwell memorabilia relating to

Famous Artists Schools and my step father-in-law Lewis Walker for his encouragement and

enthusiasm for the topic. I am grateful to Mitchell Kahan, former director of Akron Art

Museum, for having the vision to bring the “American Chronicles” exhibition to the museum in

2007 and excite my interest in Rockwell’s work. I appreciate the support of my Trustees and

colleagues at Burton D. Morgan Foundation over many years of classes and research that

prepared me to develop this thesis. Finally, I thank John V. Frank for fostering my connection to

viii the Norman Rockwell Museum in the first place and encouraging me to enter the world of

Rockwell.

Introduction - Rockwell’s Journey: Building a Career and National Stature

Deadlines ruled Norman Rockwell’s life and his Saturday Evening Post cover, Blank Canvas, captures the time pressures and creative angst that drove his artistic process.1 In this image, he

is perplexed as he faces a fresh canvas surrounded by reference materials, preliminary

sketches, and art books as inspirational tools to spark his creativity. He commented on this painting: “Meeting deadlines and thinking up ideas are the scourges of an Illustrator’s life. This is not a caricature of myself; I really look like this.”2 Rockwell worked for a variety of clients

during his long career and the process through which he created illustrations differed

depending on the nature of the commission. This thesis will examine the nature of those

relationships and the nuances of the negotiation that took place between artist and client. It is

through these communications that we can discern how Rockwell consistently delivered

illustrations that both reflected and influenced America’s cultural identity.

1 Blank Canvas, Norman Rockwell, oil on canvas, for The Saturday Evening Post cover (October 8, 1938), Norman Rockwell Art Collection Trust. In reality, Rockwell would have conceived his design well before he was sitting in front of the canvas through use of models, photography, and sketching. 2 Linda Szekely Pero, American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2007), 93.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 1: Norman Rockwell, “Blank Canvas”, Saturday Evening Post, October 8, 1938

Following an introduction on the life and career of Rockwell, the thesis will focus on three types

of relationships Rockwell developed as an illustrator: magazine covers, advertisements, and art

instruction. Each relationship, along with representative illustrations, will be examined in the context of major threads in American cultural history. Rockwell’s renowned cover art for The

Saturday Evening Post will be analyzed as it relates to the influence of the American Dream and

American Exceptionalism on the nature of his messaging. Secondly, Rockwell’s advertising illustrations will be considered in the context of consumerism and the connections of consumer culture to democracy, the publishing industry, and the science of advertising. Finally, the story of Rockwell’s engagement as a faculty member for the Famous Artists Schools (FAS) will illustrate the growth of consumer culture capitalizing on the growth of leisure activities, and simultaneously capturing the tale of an enterprise that ignited the vision of the American

Dream among fledgling illustrators and aspiring FAS salesmen.

2 Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) became a nationally-renowned commercial artist during a career that spanned seven decades and coincided with the heyday of the field of illustration art as a primary way of communicating stories and advertising new products to an increasingly consumer-oriented public. He became one of the most successful communicators of twentieth century mass culture and consequently a widely-recognized household name. Readers would queue in front of newsstands to secure the latest edition of The Saturday Evening Post. Despite his appeal among ordinary Americans, he became a controversial figure in the art world as an artist who occupied an odd space somewhere between fine art (high art) and popular art (low art). He has been ridiculed as being overly sentimental and ordinary. Until recent decades, he had been largely excluded from the collections of the nation’s largest museums. Yet Rockwell’s image is evolving as the bounds of art history shift and the emerging field of visual culture comes to recognize the value of imagery that captures the pulse of an era. Rockwell sits in a unique space in American art and cultural history. He was a storyteller extraordinaire and the back and forth communications between Rockwell and his clients—magazines, advertising firms, and Famous Artists Schools—create a fascinating trail of negotiations that document the manner in which Rockwell translated the interplay of consumer trends, mass marketing, historical events, and patriotism.

As we trace public perception of Rockwell, the publication of the Harry N. Abrams, Inc. tome in

1970, Norman Rockwell: Artist and Illustrator, prompted New York Magazine to run a poignant review of the new book. It read:

You can laugh at Rockwell’s claim to a place in the artistic firmament; sneer at his popularity; weep at the limitations of his vision. Yet Rockwell has, in his own

3 way, fulfilled the artist’s mission: he has captured in his paintings for magazine covers, soft-drink ads, patriotic posters and calendars the spirit of his time. The Renaissance painters sold God by turning Biblical personages into the folks next door against home-town settings; Rockwell has done no less for Interwoven Socks….Like it or not, therefore, we are well recorded under his relentless brush. Walk away from Rockwell at your peril; he is our recording angel, in high frequency high fidelity.3

This statement reflects the unique and often controversial place in American history Norman

Rockwell occupies and serves as a fitting introduction to the chapters that follow.

Throughout the ups and downs of his career, Rockwell persevered and rode this wave of mass communication through ingenuity and hard work that allowed him to adapt, learn, seek opportunity, and earn a healthy living throughout his life. His career opportunities allowed him to produce an oeuvre of more than eight hundred magazine covers and advertising illustrations for over 150 companies.4 Rockwell’s early success in his artistic career made him a natural

attraction for advertisers to connect the advancement of their products to his celebrity.

Despite his strong work ethic, Rockwell did struggle at times with the rigor and discipline of

being a commercial artist and needed support to manage his complicated and multifaceted

career. For this role, he hired accountant Chris Schafer, a transplant from Chicago to Arlington,

Vermont, to look after his professional affairs and family finances.

Norman Rockwell’s time was best spent developing a deep understanding of the shifts in

American life during the time period following World War II including the emerging emphasis on consumerism as the track to achieve the American Dream. Rockwell's participation in the

Famous Artists Schools represented an opportunity that connected directly to the rise of leisure

3 Sterling McIlhany, “Rockwell. Seriously,” New York Magazine, October 26, 1970, 54. 4 Martha L. Menk, ed., Masterworks from the Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, Ohio: Butler Institute of American Art, 2010), 305.

4 time in America. Rockwell lent his reputation and talents to the instruction of students in

illustration art sometimes for their professional development, but often for recreational

purposes. He became a legend in the world of illustration art and a powerful draw for FAS

students.

In recognition of the artist’s popularity and place in American history, The Norman Rockwell

Museum opened the doors to its expanded site in 19935 as a single-artist museum focused on

collecting the art of Rockwell, elevating his profile, and placing his work in the larger context of

the history of American illustration art.6 The Museum holds in its Archives Rockwell’s business papers that chronicle his long and resourceful career including records related to magazine cover commissions, Boy Scout calendar designs, advertisements, art supply endorsement,7

book illustration, postage stamp design,8 and his long teaching career through Famous Artists

Schools. Over the decades, the Norman Rockwell Museum has done much to expand the image

of Rockwell as a complex personality who cared deeply about the quality and symbolism of his

work. He possessed a profound self-awareness of his role in the world of illustration art and

the expansive legacy of works he leaves behind serves as a rich repository for cultural history

research.

5 Alan Wallach, “The Norman Rockwell Museum and the Representation of Social Conflict,” in Seeing High & Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture, ed. Patricia Johnston (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 280-290, 280. The Norman Rockwell Museum is located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on a 36-acre site. The museum was previously located in Rockwell’s former home in the center of Stockbridge. 6 Today Norman Rockwell Museum serves as the keeper of the history and meaning of illustration art and is home to Project Norman, the Norman Rockwell Archives, and the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies. 7 In the 1940s, Rockwell allowed Grumbacher to utilize his image and statement for the promotion of artist’s oil colors. 8 In 1963, Rockwell designed a stamp to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of City Mail Delivery.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to Please refer to Appendix A for Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration link to illustration illustration

From left to right—Figure 2: City Mail Delivery Stamp, 1963; Figure 3: Grumbacher Advertisement, 1940; Figure 4: Boy Scout Calendar, A Scout is Helpful, 1941.

Rockwell’s legacy is strengthened by the breadth of his client relationships and this breadth speaks to the dexterity of the artist in navigating a diversity of commissions. He was widely recognized for being extremely industrious, and just after the artist’s death, his longtime client,

The Saturday Evening Post, wrote as follows:

Our own Norman Rockwell, working into his mid-80s and endeavoring to put brush to canvas on a regular schedule while his life forces permitted, was an inspiration to all. He is said to have stopped working only on Christmas morning, and the phenomenal number of paintings that he finished is living proof of the long hours with his paint brushes….He was an actor, painter, producer, storyteller, anything and everything but sedentary.9

Rockwell himself captured the hectic pace of his commissions in his autobiography, My

Adventures as an Illustrator, first published in 1960 and republished after his death.10 In this

volume, Rockwell includes as the last chapter a 1959 journal he drafted while completing a Post

9 Frederic A. Birmingham, “Work-A-Holics Live Longer,” The Saturday Evening Post (March 1979) 38-40, 134-144. 10 Norman Rockwell (As told to Tom Rockwell), My Adventures as an Illustrator (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994).

6 cover known as Family Tree (published October 24, 1959). Selected journal entries describe the perseverance required to complete a commission and the balancing act he managed as simultaneous commissions competed for his attention:

May 7: Back to Stockbridge. But…because I’ve got to catch up on my other work before going ahead on the family tree cover. I have six or eight jobs due in the next four weeks. So I’ll discontinue the diary while I do them….

May 23: Well I’ve finished five jobs. Four to go. I discovered the ninth job in the bottom of a drawer yesterday after a frantic call from the art director. I’m beginning to pine for the family tree cover. (That’s an awful pun!) But I must finish up my other work—ads mostly—first. So back to the easel….

June 5: Attack of guilt over my neglected work. So I drive up to Pittsfield High School to select models for a Parker Pen ad….

June 13: Painting of a single Boy Scout for cover of new Boy Scout Handbook. Had to start it. Deadline….I have suffered meeting (and missing) them for forty-six years. A deadline is like a mean-tempered terrier, it won’t leave you alone for a minute. You run and hide behind a tree and after a while, thinking you’ve escaped him, step out and …rowf! he’s got you by the heel. It’s the same with a deadline. You try to forget about it and finally you do. But then you become uneasy about something. What could it be?...And all of a sudden you remember the deadline, and it chews away at you so that you can’t work, sleep soundly, or digest your meals properly. Indigestion sets in. Goes to the head. Upsets your brains. Brain fever. Coffin. Daisies.

Though I have to admit that I’ve become pretty casual about deadlines. I’ve found they can almost always be stretched…. Still they nag; they’re troublesome. But like worms in apples and rattlesnakes in clover, they are a part of life. You have to accept them. At least if you’re an illustrator…

July 6: All these changes, these inspirations which turn out to be inspirations, these decisions and counter decisions wear me out. I don’t know why I have to go through all of this to paint a picture. It’s a pretty stupid business. But I don’t know any other way to do it. So…Well. To bed.

July 7: Today is Tuesday, and on Tuesdays my business manager, Chris Schafer, spends the morning in the studio. I’m always somewhat embarrassed that I haven’t got further along on the picture since the previous Tuesday. Chris doesn’t say anything; he’s very nice about it. But I’m still embarrassed. So this morning I explained all the troubles I’d been having.11

11 Ibid., 377-393.

Rockwell’s total dedication to his art became apparent in childhood. He demonstrated

remarkable artistic talent at a young age.12 His childhood began in New York City, with the

family later moving to suburban Mamaroneck, New York. His father created a family tradition of reading Charles Dickens stories and during the readings, young Norman drew illustrations of the featured characters. These early artistic experiences and his innate abilities inspired

Rockwell to pursue an artistic career. Coming from a family13 of modest means, Rockwell had to find his own way in the world demonstrating courage and resolve to gain the necessary art training. To achieve his goal, he took odd jobs around his community and saved enough money to secure a private mail route in a secluded and wealthy neighborhood. On his mail route, he met Mrs. Constable who commissioned Rockwell to create hand-painted holiday cards, allowing him to earn the rest of the tuition he needed to begin art school.14 This early history of

Rockwell’s artistic journey sheds significant light on the first steps of his determined and

entrepreneurial career.

Rockwell left high school at age 15 to attend simultaneously the National Academy of Design

and Art Students League.15 The money Rockwell had earned as a young teen ran out during the

course of his training, but his instructors recognizing his talent, arranged for Rockwell to earn

his tuition by becoming a monitor of the studio. During his second year of art school, Rockwell

12 Rockwell’s maternal grandfather, Thomas Howard Hill (1830-1888), was an artist born in England who came to America after the Civil War. He had a modest and rocky artistic career, complicated by a drinking habit and tempestuous personality that created an uncertain home life for his family. As a result, Norman Rockwell’s parents were uneasy when he announced his intentions to become an artist. 13 Rockwell was the older of two sons. His father worked for a textile firm in New York City. 14 Norman Rockwell, Rockwell on Rockwell: How I Make A Picture (Westport, CT: Famous Artists Schools, 1979), 10. 15 Rockwell also attended the Chase Art School, but credited the League with launching his career.

8 (now seventeen) expressed anxiety about his finances. His mentor, Thomas Fogarty (1873-

1938), began arranging commissions for Rockwell to begin earning a living from his art including

opportunities to illustrate a children’s book, a church booklet, and medical research materials.

Fogarty worked as an illustrator as well as an instructor, requiring his students to read and

absorb the contents of magazine articles, followed by an exercise designing imagery to illustrate the piece, utilizing models, props, and outfits of their choosing to bring the scene to life. Fogarty instilled in his students a belief that the successful artist transcended the frame and existed inside the picture.16

At the age of 18, Rockwell became art editor for Boy’s Life, a publication of the Boy Scouts of

America. In 1916, Norman Rockwell traveled to the offices of The Saturday Evening Post in

Philadelphia with two polished cover images and three sketches he had created. Impressed

with Rockwell’s talent, the Post purchased all five images. Thus began Rockwell’s Post

engagement, and over the ensuing 47 years, this lucrative partnership blossomed and thrived

resulting in Rockwell designs for 323 Post covers. These Post images permeated the

households of America, “representing a unifying force in American cultural life. They exercised

major impact on the taste, humor, morals and buying habits of the American public.”17 The

Post covers represented perhaps the single greatest boost to Rockwell’s career—the opportunity to create art for a periodical with mass circulation and readership that appealed to the interests of average Americans. Rockwell was also fortunate to benefit from the Post’s technological transition from “two-color printing to four-color printing on the cover of its

16 Dennis Nolan, Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2018), 138. 17 Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies Business Plan (2008), 20.

9 February 6, 1926 issue, a shift that allowed illustrators far greater latitude in their use of color.”18 As Rockwell gained in reputation and expertise, other magazines—Literary Digest,

Country Gentleman, Leslie’s Weekly, Judge, Peoples Popular Monthly, and Life Magazine—all commissioned artwork from the artist.

Yet Rockwell yearned for broader experiences. During World War I, Rockwell enlisted in the

U.S. Navy after gorging on bulky foods to achieve the required weight. He became a military artist although his tour of duty did not take him to the battlegrounds. He married his first wife,

Irene, in 1916, but the couple divorced in 1930. While on a holiday in California in 1930,

Rockwell met and married Mary Bartow and returned to New York. Rockwell built his career and early family life in New Rochelle, New York where the couple had three sons, Jarvis,

Thomas, and Peter.

Living close to each other in New Rochelle, Rockwell considered the early twentieth century

German-born illustrator J.C. Leyendecker (1874- 1951) to be the ideal role model for his expanding career. Like Rockwell, Leyendecker’s commissions encompassed posters, advertisements, and magazine covers, including 322 Post covers. During the time they both lived and worked in New Rochelle, Rockwell idolized Leyendecker, learned from his techniques and career trajectory, but ultimately overtook him in terms of reputation. In My Adventures as an Illustrator, Rockwell described Leyendecker’s decline, simultaneously illuminating the factors that informed Rockwell’s work practices. Rockwell noted “Now that Joe had isolated himself from life his work became even emptier than before. You can’t do human-interest pictures from an ivory tower (a commercial ivory tower, but an ivory tower nevertheless). You’ve got to

18 Verlyn Klinkenborg, “Pyle and Rockwell—totally American, yet not at all alike,” Smithsonian, July 1994, 88-95.

10 go out and meet people, see what everybody’s doing. Maybe people don’t change radically,

but the surface of things does. And the surface is very important in illustration—the kind of

clothes people are wearing, the houses they’re living in, what they’re talking about. Joe didn’t

do any of this.”19 Leyendecker concluded his career with the Post in 1943 and his illustration career began to dwindle after that time. He died from a heart ailment in New Rochelle in 1951.

Rockwell’s career blossomed and in an interview published in 1964, Rockwell described his philosophy on artistic awareness:

I do know that you have to be extremely human to be an artist. You have to take all the ills that flesh is heir to, the sadness and joys, if you’re going to be a human-interest painter. I’ve had an awful lot of this. I’ve lived in boardinghouses with alcoholics, failures, and the aunt that nobody could tolerate. I’ve traveled and I’ve seen a lot. You have to expose yourself to life if you’re going to be an artist—you have to know the feel and smell of what you paint. You must have curiosity.20

Indeed the heartfelt approach Rockwell adopted to the creation of his illustrations is captured in the instruction shared through Famous Artists Schools instruction materials. Under the

“Advanced Pictorial Composition” section Rockwell describes “A picture with feeling.”

All of my pictures begin with the basic idea of the relationship of people to each other. The picture whose case history I am going to tell you about here is no exception. Right from the start I know what I want to show is the tender love and affection of an old lady and a little girl. This is the fundamental image and, no matter what I do as I progress, I don’t want to lose it. With this mind, I start out to develop a composition, doing everything I can to keep it tender.”21

Rockwell specialized in the creation of images that captured “comedic and sentimental scenes

populated by expressive characters acting out his clever and clearly orchestrated narratives.”22

19 Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator, 172-73. 20 Mary Anne Guitar, 22 Famous Painters and Illustrators Tell How They Work (New York: David McKay Company, 1964), 176. 21 Famous Artists Schools, ed., Famous Artists Course (Westport, CT: Famous Artists Schools, 1960), Lesson 14, 24. 22 Nolan, Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition, 135.

11 This mode of creation necessitated vast amounts of time and effort as Rockwell researched

details, selected the ideal models, decided on props and costumes, and coordinated the entire

scene to tell a complex story through pictures.23

In this endeavor, Rockwell was able to call upon his storytelling skills and capture the entire

story line in the image without the benefit of the written word to supplement the visual

aspect.24 It was the freedom of expression in magazine cover art that appealed to Rockwell and

helped to sustain him over many decades of work. As much as he enjoyed these commissions,

the relentlessness of the monthly schedule at times weighed heavily on the artist as he

struggled to exercise creativity and quality execution. His business correspondence is replete

with the back of forth of scheduling struggles and tight deadlines.

The creative process for Rockwell involved the development of a simple pencil sketch

submitted to the art editor who would approve, reject, or often offer constructive suggestions

that would clarify the intended message or to conform the story line to the message the Post

hoped to convey to its readership in alignment with its key marketing strategies and circulation

goals. In the early years of his Post relationship, Rockwell used the sketch as a basis from which

to create a staged theatrical scene. He selected models, props, and costumes to build the story,

sketch the right poses, and set the tone. Beginning around 1937, Rockwell began to switch to

photography to capture the scene. Next, he employed charcoal to create a more detailed

23 Ibid., 138. 24 Laurie Norton Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 1986), 1.

12 version of the scene followed by a small-size color version, and lastly the full and detailed

canvas.25

In terms of subject matter selection, Rockwell’s writings are vague on particular storylines,

although he does hold true to the notion that historical subjects conveyed a universal message

of “hope, belief, and resurgence.”26 His Post covers tended to blend an air of nostalgia with a

fanciful reflection on the past. Through the partnership he enjoyed with expert oversight by

the Post editorial and art staff, Rockwell depicted topics that reflected a modern topical air and

shared prevailing fads.27

As Rockwell’s multifaceted career progressed, he longed for a more pastoral life in the country.

He noted “It is true that country people fit into my kind of picture better than city people. Their faces seem so open and expressive.”28 Rockwell felt constrained by the impersonal

relationships he developed in the city and felt that small town living would generate closer

personal connections that would contribute to the depth of his creativity. In 1939, completely

disenchanted with life in New York, the family sought a simpler life in rural Arlington, Vermont.

They moved into a quaint farmhouse and became active members of the community attending

square dances, befriending others artists, and employing neighbors as models for illustrations.

In 1943 tragedy struck when a fire destroyed Rockwell’s Arlington studio incinerating many of his paintings along with the costumes and props he relied upon to compose his nostalgic illustrations. The period costumes and props Rockwell valued so highly were not easily replaced

25 Ibid., 2. 26 Karal Ann Marling, Norman Rockwell (New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997), 55. 27 Ibid., 64. 28 Guitar, 22 Famous Painters and Illustrators Tell How They Work, 175.

13 and consequently, the incident of the fire divided his artistic career into distinct stages, with the

middle stage more focused on portraying contemporary scenes and people. It is this second

stage that lends itself to the most interesting interpretations of the interplay between artist

and client as Rockwell shifted his attention to the pulse of American life.29 During this second

stage of his career, Rockwell relied more on composition through photographic sessions, a

practice that allowed him to capture figures in action and choose the poses that best suited his

vision.

During the Rockwells’ time in Vermont, Mary suffered from alcoholism and psychiatric issues

resulting from the stress of raising a family and monitoring its finances in the midst of her

husband’s busy commission schedule. In 1953, the couple moved again, this time to

Stockbridge, Massachusetts so that Mary could receive treatment at the Austen Riggs Center.30

Rockwell established his new studio on Main Street in Stockbridge. Rockwell, who also suffered

from occasional depression, began seeing renowned analyst, Erik Erikson, at the Riggs. Erikson

helped Rockwell to uncover newfound resolve to pursue his passion for illustration art.

Rockwell wrote “I got to talking with Erik H. Erikson, a psychoanalyst at the Austen Riggs Center.

Sort of casually to begin with, but pretty soon I found myself seeing him regularly. He helped

me understand the crisis. And I came through it more easily than I would have plodding along

myself. I sure owe a lot to Erik Erikson.”31 Rockwell’s sessions with Erikson revealed a

29 The third stage of Rockwell’s career began in 1963 when he acquired more artistic and storytelling freedom in his commissions for Look magazine. 30 The Austen Riggs Center, still located in the center of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, was established in 1913 by internist Austen Riggs as a residential facility for the treatment of psychoneuroses. 31 Jane Allen Petrick, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Other People in Norman Rockwell’s America (Miami: Informed Decisions Publishing, 2013), 46.

14 fundamental yearning that the artist needed to “do something important.”32 He felt

constrained by his Post commissions and required new challenges to feel fulfilled.

In his memoirs, Rockwell captures the flavor of these self doubts and aspirations. Rockwell

shared:

But my worst enemy is the world shattering idea. Every so often I try to paint the BIG picture, something serious and colossal which will change the world, save mankind. Humor’s all right, I say to myself, but if I’m to be remembered I’ll have to do something significant, a picture which reflects the large view, which will have a memorable subject. So I exchange my gentle old back-yard plug for a prancing majestic stallion and my customary blue work shirt for a coat of shining armor. And before I know it I’m sprawled on the ground with my nose in the mud, battered and bruised. I just can’t handle world-shattering subjects. They’re beyond me, above me….I do ordinary people in everyday situations, and that’s about all I can do. I didn’t use to think so, but now I know my limitations. Whatever I want to express I have to express in those terms. And I find that I can fit most anything into that frame, even fairly big ideas.33

Despite his self-deprecating revelation, Rockwell became renowned for his optimization of the

narrative tradition in art, utilizing each commission to tell a story reflecting the essence of his

time, “earning the reputation as one of America’s preeminent visual commentators, helping to

forge a sense of national identity through his art.”34 He used each commission to create a

micro-history that told a tale—a story that on the surface may have appeared small in scope, yet the messaging had larger meaning. An apt example of Rockwell’s micro-history approach is

illustrated in the Post cover published on April 6, 1946 depicting charwomen cleaning up after a

theatrical performance and stealing a moment to delight over the theater program they have

retrieved from the floor, even though it is unlikely they were able to view the performance

32 Ibid. 33 Rockwell, My Adventures as an Illustrator, 349. 34 Editors, “Rockwell and Realism in an Abstract World,” American Art Review, October 2016, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5, 102-107, 102.

15 itself. Ruminating on this unusual subject matter, Rockwell described his thought process

stating “It just came to me. I think I have always wanted to paint a charwoman or some similar

type of worker—the poor little drudge who has to tidy up after more fortunate people have

had a good time.”35 This statement demonstrates the manner in which Rockwell transforms a

seemingly mundane moment into an image that conveys much larger social messaging and

consequence. It was his ability to transform observation into illustration that so captivated the

public and enhanced his growing national reputation.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 5: “Playbill,” Saturday Evening Post, April 6, 1946

By the time Famous Artists Schools reached out to Rockwell to join the FAS faculty in the late

1940s, he was a household name and his reputation represented a magnetic draw for the

school to recruit new students.36 Rockwell explicitly set a course for himself that placed his

artistic productions within the sight of ordinary Americans. He said “I don’t want to paint for

the few who go to museums. I want my pictures to be seen and enjoyed by people everywhere.

35Arthur L. Guptill, Norman Rockwell: Illustrator (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications 1946), 53. 36 Rockwell had prior teaching experience at the Otis College of Art and Design in California, where he served as artist-in-residence during the winter months in the late 1940s.

16 I want them published.”37 Rockwell was in the vanguard of the visual culture movement

creating a language of imagery that documented the pulse of the American people. As the fast-

moving world of the 1950s progressed, the narrative tradition practiced with such finesse by

Rockwell came under fire when abstract art began to emerge as a more cerebral form of expression threatening to eclipse narrative and realistic illustration art. Another assault on illustration art came from the evolution of technology in the form of television and more sophisticated photographic techniques.

Rockwell’s life was affected not only by these external forces, but also by events at home. In

1959, tragedy struck again when Mary Rockwell died from heart failure while napping at home.

The following year, Rockwell and his son Tom together wrote the autobiography, My

Adventures as an Illustrator, portions of which ran in the Post over eight consecutive issues. In

1961, Rockwell married his third wife, Mary (Molly) Punderson, a retired teacher with an activist spirit who espoused liberal viewpoints and influenced Rockwell to pursue a new direction in his art. In 1963, Rockwell’s life began to change when he designed his last Post cover and shifted his focus to a new relationship with Look magazine, where he was able to create illustrations of a more poignant and provocative nature depicting important issues of the

1960s decade—space exploration, civil rights issues, and poverty. Rockwell continued to paint in his later years including for the Boy Scouts, portraits of film stars and presidents, and album covers. In 1977, Rockwell received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his “vivid and affectionate portraits of our country” awarded by President Gerald Ford. Rockwell died in

Stockbridge in 1978 at the age of 84.

37 Guitar, 22 Famous Painters and Illustrators Tell How They Work, 175.

17 This thesis will examine the elements of Rockwell’s career through three primary lenses that track cultural history trends transpiring during his lifetime. Chapter one will connect Rockwell’s magazine illustrations to the spread of the American Dream and his expression of American

Exceptionalism. Chapter two will explore Rockwell’s commissions for advertisements that promoted products related to the rise of consumerism. Finally, Chapter three will illuminate

Rockwell’s association with the Famous Artists Schools and its connection to expanded leisure time for American workers and families and the FAS connection to the American Dream. All of these relationships tell the story of Rockwell’s career as he navigated the exchanges and commission parameters with art directors to produce images that chronicle the essence of

American life. Rockwell’s career placed him in a unique position that allowed him to record, be influenced by, and influence the direction of American life.

An interesting thread that connects these three categories of business relationships is the evolution of the Rockwell brand. Part of the appeal of Rockwell images was the manner in which the artist depicted an idealized and fantasized version American life. It was this ability that endeared him to his clients, to consumers, and to readers. Indeed, not only were his illustrations a manifestation of his carefully-crafted brand, but his own somewhat eccentric persona became a sought after image featured in advertisements created by others, advertisements and magazine covers he created, and in the marketing of Famous Artists

Schools services. At times, he consciously wove himself into his illustrations either as the main protagonist or as a supporting character. His approach to managing these requests for use of his own image is instructive in understanding how he viewed his role in the world of illustration art.

To complete the research for this thesis focused on the professional elements of Rockwell’s career, I consulted materials housed in the Archives of the Norman Rockwell Museum in

Stockbridge, Massachusetts. These items included letters, contracts, photographs, reports, memos, and telegrams. I also examined relevant magazines, newspaper articles, television commercials, print advertisements, and original sketches. Among the most important research activities I pursued was close examination of the artworks themselves. Given the commercial nature of most of Rockwell’s work, it would be easy to view these works as superficial manifestations of sales campaigns or magazine promotion. But that would be to miss the many layers of meaning that underpin these artworks—Rockwell’s angst in conceiving the imagery, their connection to everyday American life, the creative tension between illustrator and client, and the perception of the images once released into the public sphere. It was a critical part of the research process to peel back the layers of the onion and comprehend the full meaning of these artworks in the context of American life.

To understand the significance of these primary sources, I consulted secondary sources related to consumerism and advertising, the American Dream, American Exceptionalism, and the rise of leisure time in the United States. The history of advertising in the twentieth century is covered by Jackson Lears in Fables of Abundance conveying a breadth of cultural perspectives about the nineteenth century underpinnings of advertising in America. Julian Sivulka’s Soap, Sex, and

Cigarettes provides a detailed chronology of the evolution of advertising, especially as it relates to popular products for which Rockwell was creating advertisements. On the intersection of advertising and consumerism, several books stand out as critical to understanding the dynamics

19 at play as democracy combined with consumerism to form a platform for marketing. These books include two important volumes, Lizabeth Cohen’s A Consumer’s Republic and Charles

McGovern’s Sold American. Finally, Lawrence Samuel captures the rise of television in the

1950s as the rising medium of choice for advertising in his volume Brought to You by Postwar

Television Advertising and The American Dream.

The context for Rockwell’s work rests with the concepts of the American Dream and American

Exceptionalism as fundamental building blocks. Jim Cullen in his American Dream: A Short

History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation introduces the basic tenets of the American Dream and how that vision has manifested itself throughout the history of our nation. Similarly, Deborah

Madsen explores the origins and fundamentals of America’s elevated self-image in American

Exceptionalism. Lawrence Samuel in The American Dream: A Cultural History ties together notions of the American Dream and the manner in which the Dream showed up in popular culture displayed in newspapers and magazines.

Rockwell’s participation in the Famous Artists Schools is connected to the rise of leisure time in

America. Several volumes provided the necessary background on leisure in America including

Susan Currell’s March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great

Depression. This book paints a detailed picture of the ways that leisure shaped American life providing meaningful context for the establishment of Famous Artists Schools in the 1940s.

Benjamin Hunnicutt in Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream connects the ideal of the

American Dream to the idea of leisure. Finally, Karal Ann Marling in As Seen On TV concentrates on the relationship between Famous Artists Schools and the growth of leisure as the luxury of spare time emerged in American society.

20 Norman Rockwell has been the subject of much examination in both scholarly and popular publications. In 1986, the current director of the Norman Rockwell Museum, Laurie Norton

Moffat, published Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, representing a comprehensive two-volume compendium that details the works of Rockwell divided into client relationships.

This expansive resource is essential to understanding the breadth of Rockwell’s career and output over the decades. Cultural historian and art historian Karal Ann Marling pioneered the analysis of Norman Rockwell through a cultural history lens when she published Norman

Rockwell in 1997. The Norman Rockwell Museum has since published many fine catalogues that examine aspects of Rockwell’s work in a cultural history context including Ron Schick

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera and Virginia Mecklenburg Telling Stories: Norman

Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Some of the most intriguing background on Norman Rockwell has been generated by the artist himself in volumes like Rockwell on Rockwell: How I Make a Picture and My Adventures as an Illustrator created in collaboration with his son, Tom Rockwell.

The completion of this thesis has required the weaving together of multiple streams of information into a coherent whole combining Rockwell’s biographical information with the body of his artistic work and documentation of his commercial relationships. The melding of this research with major themes in cultural history leads to the historical interpretation that follows. Other chapters reflecting the life, work, and relationships of Rockwell in a cultural history context remain to be written—Hallmark cards and the American Christmas, Hollywood commissions, and book illustrations begin this intriguing list.

Chapter One - Rockwell’s Covers: The Magazine Industry Stokes the American Dream

To fully understand the elements of magazine production to which Rockwell contributed, this

chapter will focus on cover art and the character of the negotiations that produced Rockwell’s

headliner images reflecting the nation’s fascination with the American Dream. Over many

decades, The Saturday Evening Post was his most consistent magazine client. The Post served

as a galvanizing force messaging to U.S. households the allure of the American Dream. The

story of Rockwell’s relationship with the Post captures his own journey as an illustrator and

couples that narrative with the magazine’s overarching strategy to influence the direction of

American consumerism and culture. The elements of the American Dream are closely allied

with the concept of American exceptionalism and both concepts will be explored in the context

of Rockwell’s commissions for the Post.

The Saturday Evening Post developed a business model that involved a multipronged approach

to achieving its organizational mission as arbiter of American culture. The bottom line was to

make a profit which it pursued through circulation, but also through its relationship with

advertising firms and corporations. It was the interplay of these two revenue streams that had

to be carefully balanced over time. The interest of advertisers in promoting their message

through a particular channel depended upon the reach and character of the magazine.38 Its circulation tactics were designed to reach an audience best positioned geographically and economically to advance the products that were advertised within its pages. The artistic,

38 Roger I. Hall, “A System Pathology of an Organization: The Rise and Fall of the Old Saturday Evening Post.” Administrative Science Quarterly, June 1976, vol. 21, no. 2, 185-211, 186.

22 narrative, and advertising elements were carefully aligned to consistently underscore an overall

message of consumption and prosperity strategically intertwined with American values. The

Post deployed Rockwell’s talents to achieve its goals of both profit and broad influence.

The Curtis Publishing Empire

In creating illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal, Rockwell

worked for two of the most widely disseminated of twentieth century magazines, both publications created by Curtis Publishing Company based in Philadelphia. Cyrus Curtis (1850-

1933) established Curtis Publishing Company in 1891 and purchased the Post in 1897, a popular weekly publication from 189739 until 1963.40 The Ladies Home Journal held the honor of being

the most widely circulating magazine for women in America and The Saturday Evening Post

achieved the largest circulation of any weekly magazine in the world. The Post developed into a

highly influential magazine for the American middle class, featuring fiction, non-fiction, and

cartoons. Its initial bent was geared to the businessman,41 then men with broader interests, and finally arrived at a formula that appealed to both men and women.42 Advertising was a key component of the financial model for both publications and by the late 1920s, the Post and the

Journal were running forty percent of the advertising copy distributed in the United States. To boost circulation, magazine cost remained low (a nickel per copy in 1920) with 60% of the

39 The Post began publication in 1821 with claims that its roots reach back to Ben Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette established in 1728. 40 The Saturday Evening Post shifted to a biweekly schedule from 1963 to 1969 due to declining sales. After a two year hiatus from 1969 to 1971, the Post became quarterly and then modified its schedule to bimonthly. 41 The Saturday Evening Post aimed its content to the “clean-living, law-abiding, safe breadwinner—the office worker, the small businessman, and the limited investor. In line with this pitch, the Post allowed no liquor advertising, no real estate ads, and no financial ads.” Christopher P. Wilson, “The Rhetoric of Consumption: Mass- Market Magazines and the Demise of the Gentle Reader, 1880-1920” in The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History ed. Richard Wightman Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 39-64, 52. 42 Douglas B. Ward, “The Geography of an American Icon: An Analysis of the Circulation of the Saturday Evening Post, 1911-1944” American Journalism, 2010, 27:3, 59-89, 62.

23 revenue in the 1920s derived from advertising. By the late 1920s, Curtis Publishing advertising

revenue levels hit $50,000,000 and by 1929, net earnings reached more than $21,500,000.43

These popular national publications conveyed advertisements and imagery into American

homes where families were mesmerized by the pages that displayed compelling ads adjacent to

strong editorial and visual content. The Post boasted that it had actually spawned a new class

of magazine readership that reached into cities, towns, and hamlets. The boys recruited to

distribute the magazine came from the more affluent and middle class neighborhoods thus

further aiding in the selectivity of readership aimed at a largely white community of

businessmen and young women employed in reputable pursuits.44 Curtis Publishing interviews

of readership in the 1910s revealed that businessmen were avid followers of Post content as a

means to stay current on consumer products and the best ways to market these wares in their

own establishments.45

Circulation of the Post to its audiences was far from even across the nation with a

concentration of readership located in the Northeast, Upper Midwest, and the West. While the

Post was produced in Philadelphia and took on those quintessential Philadelphia characteristics

of “independence, personal liberty, and a strong connection to the past,” its content and

imagery created a more general aura of America that resonated across the nation.46 In his analysis of the geography of Post readership, journalism historian Douglas Ward observes:

43 Jan Cohn, America: George Horace Lorimer and The Saturday Evening Post (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1984), 166. 44 Ward, “The Geography of an American Icon,” 80. 45 Ibid., 83. 46 Ibid., 82.

24 Neither was the Post itself a place, at least not geographically. And yet, reading the magazine allowed people to be part of an abstract community of readers, a community created by consumption (purchase of the magazine) and sustained by consumption (the purchase of consumer products advertised within the magazine). In that sense, reading the magazine represented an embrace of national culture, a social construction of place through articles, stories, pictures, and advertisements.47

In attracting a committed readership, Rockwell was among the primary illustrators for the weekly Saturday Evening Post, the nation’s leading family-oriented magazine, and contributed directly to the national storyline it promoted. Curtis was in the vanguard of emphasizing a magazine’s narrative and artistic content as a means to entice quality advertisers to the publications. In addition to captivating illustrations, the Post featured stories written by some of the era’s most prominent writers including William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Edith

Wharton. The combined visual and narrative content of Curtis Publishing periodicals served as a powerful tool to attract readership and was a product of strong and opinionated leadership.

The editor and arbiter of content of The Saturday Evening Post during the Rockwell’s early years with the magazine was George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937). Lorimer became editor of the Post in 1899 and served in that role until 1936. Jan Cohn chronicled the influential editorial role

Lorimer played at the Post in her book Creating America: George Horace Lorimer and The

Saturday Evening Post. Cohn states in her introduction:

It is the thesis of this book that George Horace Lorimer set out to create America in and through the pages of the Saturday Evening Post. Week after week he crafted the issues of his magazine as an image, an idea, a construct of America for his readers to share, a model against which they could shape their lives. Certainly, there were other magazines, other carriers of culture, and other visions of America, but for over a quarter of a century the Post was unrivaled in codifying the ground rules that explained and defined Americanism.48

47 Ibid. 48 Cohn, America: George Horace Lorimer and The Saturday Evening Post, 5.

25 Lorimer achieved his goals for the magazine by aligning the literary and artistic content with

national advertising that emphasized “the emerging concept of America as a nation unified by

the consumption of standardized American products.”49 This sense of unity generated through

being a reader of the Post sparked shared understandings, conversations, and “a national

community.”50 Readers of the Post were absorbing what it meant “to participate in the

American experience.”51

Lorimer held a particular view of the quintessential American—“a compendium of nineteenth-

century values, he worked hard, saved money, and assumed the duties of citizenship

responsibly.”52 Lorimer’s perspectives found significant alignment with the world of Rockwell.

Covers created by Rockwell and Leyendecker came to encapsulate the essence of America.

“Each big glossy issue presented a portrait of American success, lavish, powerful, abundant.”53

The illustrations were carefully calculated to convey this message and to sell copies—Rockwell

became a key component of the formula.

Advertising was a key part of the Post’s formula for success. The advertising industry came to

judge the worth of an ad agency based on the volume of advertisements placed for men’s

products in the Post and for women’s products in the Journal.54 Walter D. Fuller, President of

Curtis Publishing, delivered an address on founder Cyrus Curtis in 1948 placing Curtis national

49 Ibid., 9. 50 Ibid., 10. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid., 166. 54 Jennifer Scanlon, Inarticulate Longings: The Ladies’ Home Journal, Gender, and the Promises of Consumer Culture (New York: Routledge, 1995), 199.

26 publications in context. Fuller stated “The name of Cyrus Curtis will always be as inseparable

from the development of the advertising business in this country as that of Henry Ford from the

automotive industry, and Andrew Carnegie from the steel industry. The truth is that the

advertising industry and Curtis’ Saturday Evening Post and Ladies’ Home Journal grew and

prospered together. The Saturday Evening Post, particularly, became the showplace of the

nation’s expanding industry.”55 Fuller continued “Both magazines were interested in publishing

the work of the foremost writers and thinkers of the time and both were interested in providing

a link between the people and affairs of the nation. The two magazines not only reflected the

moods and manners of the day, they often were a step ahead of public opinion on social and

political issues.”56

Despite the self-congratulatory nature of Fuller’s speech, the culture at the Post also reflected

the racially discriminatory practices of the day. Advertisements in the Post for the Ladies Home

Journal promoted the reach of the women’s magazine into “worth-while” homes that were the

best for the magazine, best for advertisers, and best for merchants.57 While Curtis Publishing

employed many African Americans, these employees held more menial jobs at the company

and were relegated to lesser social events in a public park while white employees enjoyed

celebrations with their colleagues at Curtis Country Club. Throughout the 1930s, the circulation

55 Walter D. Fuller, The Life and Times of Cyrus H.K. Curtis (1850-1933) (New York: The Newcomen Society of England American Branch, 1948), 17. 56 Ibid., 19. 57 Douglas B. Ward, A New Brand of Business: Charles Coolidge Parlin, Curtis Publishing Company, and the Origins of Market Research (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 152.

27 and research departments did not seek to connect with African Americans through research or

sales.58

Similarly, Rockwell was restricted in his representation of African Americans and other minority

populations in his illustrations. The Post explicitly constrained Rockwell in his depiction of

character types. For example, in a letter from the Post to Rockwell in July of 1938, Pete Martin

advised the artist that he had to revise his design. The criticism stated “We do feel, however,

that the boy is wrong. To us he looks Jewish, about thirty years old (you can see where he has

shaved off his heavy beard). We don’t ask for a handsome lad, but he should be at least the

gal’s age more youthful and not as seamy and without the semitic nose and cast of

countenance. The crew haircut is okay, but perhaps a blonde head of hair would add to his

youthfulness. In other words, we don’t think the gal would be interested in him as it stands.”59

Rockwell complied with such orders, but these restrictions clearly took their toll on his own

moral code and sense of justice.

Despite difficult conversations of this sort, the Post greatly prized their relationship with

Rockwell. In 1938, Rockwell was invited to connect with their sales force to bolster their

marketing efforts. Pete Martin wrote to Rockwell sharing that, “We are planning a convention

of our salesmen from all over the country here in Philadelphia in January in which we are

hoping you will be our principal attraction.”60 Again in 1941, the Post reached out to Rockwell:

Every year our Advertising Department calls in all the boys from the field offices and they have a three day meeting here climaxed by what they call a Post presentation. As a part of the presentation the Post Art Department is given an

58 Ibid., 132-134. 59 Letter from Pete Martin, Saturday Evening Post to Norman Rockwell, July 29, 1938 (NRM Archives RC 2007.18.1.8c). 60 Letter from Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, November 3, 1938 (NRM Archives RC.2007.18.1.11d).

28 hour in which to do its stuff….This time we have imperative demands to produce Norman Rockwell, and we are hoping you will sort of sound off on what working for the Post means to you.61

By the 1950s, Curtis Publications credited Rockwell with contributing significantly to the success of the Post and its delivery of a consistent message about the essence of the American experience:

I’m sure you’ll be interested to hear that the Hope story, your cover, plus the publicity and advertising, enabled us to set a new all-time high on Post newsstand sales and total circulation. For the first time in history our circulation topped the 5,000,000 mark and enabled us to break that “sonic barrier” as Ben Hibbs put it.62

In 1960, G. B. McCombs, Vice President of Curtis Circulation Company, wrote to Rockwell

stating:

You know, I am sure, that in Curtis’s Single Copy Sales Division we have been saying for years that our very best salesperson is Norman Rockwell. We spend our lives working for good copy position on newsstands, good cover display, and for the development of the buying urge at the point of sale. Yet, never have we found magic more potent than a good Rockwell cover.63

Rockwell’s career as a narrative illustrator is best defined by the 323 covers he created for The

Saturday Evening Post, as he captured the moments of a changing America from 1916 to

1963.64 The Post’s spectacular success rested on the formulae the publishers developed to

combine the power of compelling editorial content with strong advertisement messaging. After

Rockwell’s business relationship with the Post ended in 1963, Post leadership tried to maintain

61 Letter from Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, May 6, 1941 (NRM Archives RC 2007.18.1.30a). 62 Letter from Manager Circulation Advertising, Curtis Circulation Company to Norman Rockwell, February 24, 1954 (NRM Archives RC 2007.18.1.91a). 63 Letter from G.B. McCombs to Norman Rockwell, February 8, 1960 (NRM Archives RC.2007.18.1.98d). 64 Rockwell’s relationship with the Post concluded with his December 14, 1963 cover. Following the conclusion of Rockwell’s relationship with the Post, a series of disputes arose in the decade following regarding the use of Rockwell’s images and his own image. In 1973, for example, Rockwell’s New York attorneys Weil, Gotshal & Manges chastised the Post for appropriation of a Rockwell cover in an advertisement in violation of his contract. Letter from Arthur F. Abelman to Dr. Cory SerVaas, May 3, 1973, (NRM Archives RC 2007 18.2.13).

29 a cordial relationship with the artist. Following a visit with Rockwell and Molly in 1973, then

Curtis Publishing president Beurt SerVaas wrote to Rockwell with this reflection on the visual legacy his illustrations created for our nation:

It certainly proves that civilization rests on shifting sands and that the future of mankind and life as we know it in this generation has no great expectations for longevity. But, Norman, as we do have a timeless record of homus americanus in the 20th century and your works may someday in the centuries to come be one of the more permanent landmarks of our time.65

Rockwell’s all-American persona fit squarely within this paradigm and his illustrations derived

from his own imagination were honed through editorial coaching to deliver messages fully

enmeshed with the Post’s profit-oriented goals. The cover art Rockwell created for the Post at

a rate of approximately one per month served as a mobile billboard for the Post’s agenda.

These images were entertaining and captivating in their nature, sometimes simple in their

messaging, but often laden with more complicated symbolism. Upon receiving their copies,

readers would have delighted to unravel the subtle details of the imagery that helped them

understand and reflect upon their own times, including the meaning of the American Dream.

Rockwell and The American Dream

Dominating Rockwell’s creative process was his allegiance to American values. In many ways,

Norman Rockwell should be viewed as the nation’s chronicler of American cultural identity,

including manifestations of the American Dream and American Exceptionalism. According to

Jim Cullen, the American Dream first appeared as a concept in 1931 when James Truslow

Adams published The Epic of America in which he described the concept as “that American dream of a better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank, which is the greatest

65 Letter from Beurt SerVaas to Norman and Molly Rockwell, January 8, 1973, NRM Archives, (RC 2007, 18.2.12c).

30 contribution we have as yet made to the thought and welfare of the world.”66 Cullen believed

that the American Dream was not just a twentieth century phenomenon, but rather originated

from the time the Puritans set off for new shores, through the Revolutionary War, to the Civil

War era, and into the twentieth century. Throughout this history, the American Dream

appeared in different guises, although at times became a bit tarnished. Rockwell’s illustrations

over the decades of the twentieth century chronicle the changing notions of the American

Dream in ways that the average American could understand and internalize.

In Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream, Benjamin Hunnicutt returns to Adams’ original

ideas on the American Dream emphasizing that the higher goal was not just about making

money and the acquisition of material goods, but also pertained to quality of life and spiritual

enrichment.67 Hunnicutt believes that the American Dream has become degraded from its original lofty vision of a full and meaningful life to a myopic view that the Dream is all about

economic growth, national prosperity, and the accumulation of wealth and possessions.

The notion of the American Dream builds upon American Exceptionalism, both concepts that

contribute in significant ways to the nation’s cultural identity. Alexis de Toqueville is commonly viewed as the source of the term in the 1830s when he characterized American society as exceptional. He wrote “the position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.”68 De Toqueville was fascinated with American democracy and what it meant for the future of a young nation.

66 Jim Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1932), viii. 67 Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt, Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013), x-xi. 68 Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy In America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., vol. II, 1972 Reeve translation), 36.

31 He promoted the impression that the social structure of America manifested a unique character that distinguished it from other societies. The United States adopted this “myth” as truth and widely embraced this viewpoint in its institutions, government, and culture. The Saturday

Evening Post became the main platform through which Rockwell expressed his perception and vision of the American Dream and American Exceptionalism.

Rockwell’s imagery embraced American exceptionalism in important ways. Notions of exceptionalism encourage the representation of an idealized version of American life. While

Rockwell does not use the term exceptionalism, his words evoke the concept. Of other illustrators he admired, Rockwell wrote “[b]ut the best illustrators went beyond merely suggesting setting and picturing characters. They gave a tone, a different dimension to the story they accompanied. And finally, perhaps, the illustrations had a life of their own, became considered in their own right as pictures. The Illustrations, for example, of Arthur Rackham suggest the world of the stories they accompany but they suggest a great deal more: a world of imagination, of fantasy and magic.”69 Of his own work, Rockwell stated “[w]ithout thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. And perhaps, therefore, this is one function of the illustrator. He can show what has become so familiar that it is no longer noticed. The illustrator has become a chronicler of his time.”70

Rockwell follows in a long tradition of artists and writers who have been inspired by American

Exceptionalism. In her book on American Exceptionalism, Deborah L. Madsen states that

69 Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, xi. Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) was an English book illustrator. 70 Ibid., xii.

32 American exceptionalism permeates every period of American history and is the single most powerful agent in a series of arguments that have been fought down the centuries concerning the identity of America and Americans. Though the arguments themselves change over time, the basic assumptions and terms of reference do not change, and it is the assumptions that are derived in important ways from the exceptionalist logic that taken to the new World by the first Puritan migrants. Exceptionalism describes the perception of Massachsetts Bay colonists that as Puritans they were charged with a special spiritual and political destiny: to create in the New World a church and a society that would provide the model for all the nations of Europe as they struggled to reform themselves (a redeemer nation).71

Madsen describes the mission of nineteenth century writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne as focused on the creation of literature that advanced democratic ideals.

She characterizes exceptionalist rhetoric as aimed at promoting the notion that “America will

now be the global champion of democracy and privileged guardian of political values.”72

Godfrey Hodgson in The Myth of Exceptionalism also traces the manifestations of American

Exceptionalism from the nation’s early days:

That belief does have roots that go back to the very earliest era of American settlement in North America. To some extent, it did guide the Founding Fathers and their early nineteenth-century successors. In the nineteenth century Americans believed that theirs was what Jefferson called “the empire for liberty” and instinctively applauded when Lincoln said that their country was “the last, best hope of earth.” American exceptionalism was nourished by the spectacular success of the United States in the twentieth century, and especially by the way in which America, alone, emerged strengthened by the two world wars. It was encouraged by the ideological struggle with communism.73

A manifestation of this strength in the late 1930s, appeared as corporate America became a powerful voice for building a consensus view of the “American Way” espousing the supremacy

71 Deborah L. Madsen, American Exceptionalism (Jackson, Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press, 1998), 1-2. 72 Ibid., 70-71. 73 Godfrey Hodgson, The Myth of Exceptionalism (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 10.

33 of the nation’s free enterprise system.74 While efforts to mold public opinion had been

prevalent in the corporate world in the 1910s and 1920s, in the 1930s, such efforts focused on

the bolstering the tenets of the free enterprise system.75 As Wendy Wall notes “[t]hey promoted a version of the American Way that celebrated individual freedom rather than majoritarian democracy and that posited a harmony interests among classes.”76 Wall continued:

“the widespread invocation of a common American way, dream, idea, or creed did not indicate the dawn of an era of harmony and consensus. On the contrary, the proliferation of such terms in the late 1930s attested to a profound sense of anxiety—an anxiety shared by Americans across the political spectrum—about national identity and unity in an increasingly threatening world. The collapse of the national economy undermined long-standing power structures and called into question rarely challenged assumptions about the stability and progress of American capitalism.”77

It is into this arena that Rockwell in partnership with The Saturday Evening Post launched his version of the American way/dream—an idealized version of the truth aimed at building a consensus among middle class America about how they should live, dress, relax, and consume.

Although Rockwell as illustrator served as the translator of this consensus building effort, it was the Post editors who guided the subject matter, tone, tenor, and ultimate message to be conveyed by the artist’s illustrations. In an era undermined by instability in the economy and international relations, the Post deployed Rockwell’s talent in a manner deliberately aimed at building a consensus through shared traditions and history.78

74 Wendy L. Wall, Inventing the “American Way”: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 6. 75 Ibid., 51. 76 Ibid., 6. 77 Ibid., 17. 78 Ibid., 31.

34 Cultural historian Warren I. Susman explored this concept of a shared notion of cultural

heritage. Susman focused on the 1930s in Culture as History, detailed his belief that this decade through the initiatives of the New Deal, helped Americans to focus on the importance of culture and prompt intellectuals to reconnect with their native land and its own unique

cultural significance.79 Susman notes that “the idea of culture was anything but new in 1930s,

but there was a special sense in which the idea became widespread in that period.”80 Culture would no longer be viewed as merely the highest level of intellectual and artistic achievement, but rather as the manner in which people living in a particular area approach their daily lives and values. “It is not too extreme to propose that the idea of culture was domesticated, with important consequences. Americans then began thinking in terms of patterns of behavior and belief, values and life styles, symbols and meanings. It was during this period that we find, for the first time, frequent reference to an “American Way of Life.”81 Susman notes that in this

era, fascination with folk culture emerged and “a new epic vision of the American past and

present was being forged, its mythic sense of involvement and fulfillment created by unfolding

the tale itself.”82 In extolling the attributes of the folk culture being captured through musical folk ballads for example, he compares the content to the sentimentality of Rockwell’s Post covers.83

The 1930s also witnessed the widespread recognition of American folk culture through the

creation of the Index of American Design, a project that came to fruition under the Federal Art

79 Warren I. Susman, Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon, 1973), 159-161. 80 Ibid., 153. 81 Ibid., 154. 82 Ibid., 205. 83 Ibid.

35 Project (1935-43) and produced close to 18,000 watercolor illustrations of American folk

culture from the colonial period until 1900. While the primary purpose of the project was to

provide employment, its execution had the enormous benefit of documenting the creation of

folk and art objects that were uniquely American. The depiction of these objects provided the

nation with a clearer sense of the cultural traditions and patrimony that characterized its past

including its early Colonial history.84

Rockwell: Early Manifestations of American Exceptionalism

In his early work, Rockwell held a fascination for Colonial subjects, a reflection of the times and

the American penchant for Colonial revival in home décor in the 1920s and 1930s. This

gravitation to Colonial furnishing evidenced an attempt to escape the increasingly fast moving

world and economic calamity of the Depression era.85 The Saturday Evening Post promoted the

joy and financial benefits of collecting art and antiques.86 Rockwell illustrated a variety of

Colonial themes ranging from founding fathers to frontier explorers to Colonial tradesmen.

Those subjects that captured home interiors often represented Rockwell’s own interest in antique furniture, decorative arts, and period costumes. Rockwell’s New Rochelle colonial home and studio were designed by architect Dean Parmalee, who also toured New England with Rockwell to purchase more than $20,000 worth of antiques to furnish the studio in the late

1920s during the rise of antique collecting as a popular pastime.87 Rockwell greatly admired

the Colonial décor of the Wayside Inn in South Sudbury, Massachusetts and his studio

84 Virginia Tuttle Clayton, Elizabeth Stillinger, Erika Doss, and Deborah Chotner, Drawing on America’s Past: Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2002), 1. 85 Marling, Norman Rockwell, 47. 86 Cohn, Creating America, 207. 87 Marling, Norman Rockwell, 47.

36 furnishings captured that atmosphere including Windsor chairs, a grandfather clock, pewter

flagons, antique andirons, bellows, and a wagon wheel chandelier.88 Rockwell viewed his

studio as a respite from a turbulent world of war and upheaval. Karal Ann Marling wrote “[i]n a

world run mad with easy credit, fast living, and constant change, the colonial style offered some

hope of stability, a reminder that basic values persisted, or ought to persist, whatever the craze

of the moment.”89 Rockwell considered his studio to be modern in an antique sort of way—an expression of Puritanism in a modern world.90

Please refer to Appendix A for Please refer to Appendix A for link to link to illustration illustration

Figure 6: Pilgrim, Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1924

Figure 7: Pilgrim, Life, November 15, 1920

Saturday evening PostSPil

Rockwell often depicted Pilgrim figures on Thanksgiving magazine covers and occasionally in

advertisements. The Pilgrims represented a group of “religious dissenters” who travelled to a

new continent to pursue religious freedom and a new life for themselves and their

88 Ibid., 49. 89 Ibid., 50. 90 Ibid., 49.

37 descendants91 and as such, Pilgrims and Puritans have come to be associated with American

exceptionalism and the American Dream. American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead

believed that the concept of the Puritan permeated American society connecting “success with

goodness” and serving as a hallmark of American culture.92 In describing this distinguishing

cultural characteristic, Mead wrote: “On it is based our acceptance of men for what they have

become rather than for what they were born….On it is based our faith that simple people…are

worthy of a hearing in the halls of the great. On it is based our special brand of democracy.”93

Rockwell embraced these fundamental principles in his illustrations as an integral underpinning of the American Dream.

Rockwell: International Perspectives

While Rockwell’s main focus was on American culture, his perspective often involved reflection

from an international angle. In Spreading the American Dream, Emily S. Rosenberg traces the

dissemination of American ideals around the globe through various means focused on free

enterprise principles and corporate expansion goals bolstered by philanthropy, mass

communications, and international nonprofit activity, efforts that were increasingly

supplemented over time by the programs and policies of the federal government.94 Rosenberg presents the concept of liberal-developmentalism, an ideology that drew together free enterprise tenets, free trade and investment practices, open sharing of American culture and information, and a fundamental belief that other nations should emulate the American way of

91 Cullen, The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation, 15. 92 Wall, 93-94. 93 Wall, 94. 94 Emily S. Rosenberg. Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion 1890-1945 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 12-13.

38 life.95 Rosenberg underscores the irony of the sanctimonious promotion96 of American culture

and values when in reality the United States economic system evolved from a blend of

individual enterprise and policies of government that promote business expansion.97

Although Rockwell’s emphasis was always on depiction of American life, he traveled to many other nations including his first international trip to Venezuela in 1921 and numerous later trips to Europe to study the Old Masters. For Rockwell, international travel served not only as a way reenergize his spirit, but also as a mirror upon which to reflect his impressions of the American

Dream. Of his international travel, Laura Claridge wrote:

Paradoxical though it may be, Rockwell’s cosmopolitan spirit, the citizen-of-the-world mentality that revivified his aesthetic energies, fueled the creation of six decades of what would be variously praised and condemned as “universal,” “timeless” pieces of “Americana.” Without the foreign travel Rockwell undertook throughout his life, the “American” dream of tolerance and liberality and general goodwill would have withered before he was forty.98

While circulation of The Saturday Evening Post was largely a domestic proposition, the Post did develop a modest international following. Curtis Publishing records reveal that in 1920, for example, 3% of the Post’s circulation was outside the 48 contiguous states, including subscribers in Canada, U.S. possessions, and abroad.99

In 1927, Rockwell created the “Aviation Pioneer” cover for the Post two months after Charles

Lindbergh completed his historic transatlantic flight representing an important moment in the

95 Ibid., 7. 96 Rosenberg emphasizes that economic expansion during this time period moved through three stages of government support: the promotional state (1890s to WWI), the cooperative state (1920s), and the regulatory state (Depression to WWII), with each stage demonstrating increased federal involvement in order to more aggressively promote U.S. interests and values abroad. Ibid., 232. 97 Ibid. 98 Laura Claridge, Norman Rockwell: A Life (New York: Random House, 2001), 167-68. 99 Ward, “Geography of an American Icon,” 86, footnote 24.

39 history of travel and exploration. This image serves as an interesting example of the blending of domestic and international storytelling. Rockwell portrays Lindbergh in flying helmet and goggles inside a hero’s circle with his aircraft in the background. The vignettes below the portrait place the historic flight in the context of a Mayflower-like sailing ship and a covered wagon evoking westward expansion, both references to American Exceptionalism in the context of international aviation history.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

aand 10 “”” “1199719 1927

Figure 8: “Aviation Pioneer” Saturday Evening Post, July 23, 1927

Rockwell: The Decade of the 1930s

In the 1930s, Rockwell’s fascination with the past sometimes resulted in rejection of cover art submitted to the Post. A 1938 letter to Rockwell, reveals the nature of such a rejection: “It seems that Mr. Stout prefers a modern note in the auto show cover rather than going back to yesterday, and he has selected a little sketch of Jack Sheridan’s which goes into the future

40 rather than the past.”100 These instances of rejection shed light on how Rockwell navigated the

feedback he received on his creative direction.

Editor George Horace Lorimer and Rockwell developed an intense working relationship with

Lorimer expressing strong opinions about what images and articles would appeal to the public.

Rockwell would bring him designs and he would make an immediate judgment writing “OKGHL”

on the edge of the drawing. Eventually Rockwell perfected the editorial meetings he had with

Lorimer. “He now appeared each time with exactly five sketches, of which only three struck

him as worthwhile. The editorial meeting would then take place with Lorimer pacing and

Rockwell strenuously acting out the ideas expressed in the cover sketches, impersonating an

old cowboy or dancing around in imitation of the little animals decorating a picture of

spring.”101

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 9: “Railroad Ticket Salesman,” Saturday Evening Post, April 24, 1937

100 Letter from Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell (Offices of Editor Wesley Winans Stout), February 3, 1938 (NRM Archives, RC 2007.18.1.6b). 101 Cohn, Creating America, 280.

41 Guidance from the editorial staff came in many forms. Rockwell focused very little attention on

images that directly reflected the Depression era, and at times it seems that the Post was

steering him away from reflecting economic turmoil and the apparent erosion of the American

Dream.102 For example, Rockwell worked in late 1936 on a cover featuring a railroad ticket

salesman. His preliminary idea for a small town ticket booth was overridden by the Post editor

Wes Stout, likely based on the notion that the image needed to appeal to the magazine’s core

readership in more populous and prosperous communities. Art editor Pete Martin conveyed

the direction to Rockwell as follows:

He has only one suggestion to offer and that is that you don’t have the railroad ticket man such a hick or in such a small town ramshackle office. We feel it would be more typical of millions of our citizens if he worked in a town of between ten and fifty thousand inhabitants and not such “Mi gosh” and “by- heck” surroundings.103

This exchange with the artist and the final version of the “Railroad Ticket Salesman” addresses

the nature of the relationship between Rockwell and Post executive leadership. Clearly,

Rockwell was instructed to make the change in order to maximize circulation appeal, forcing

Rockwell to shift his focus from his fascination with small town life and situate the image in a place where readers and would-be travelers had the means to dream about and plan exotic travel to places advertised on the exterior of the booth. The ticket seller, who looks exceedingly bored, sags in the booth next to a sign that asks “Are you bored—Travel.” The advertisements tacked to the booth tempt rail travelers to consider adventure travel to the Orient, Paris, and the mountains.

102 Shortly after Rockwell created the “Railroad Ticket Salesman,” he provided the cover for the June 12, 1937 Post featuring “Dolores and Eddie,” an out-of-work dance team soberly pondering their next move while perched on the top of their travel trunk. 103 Letter from Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, December 4, 1936, (NRM Archives, RC 2007.18.1.4d).

42 Rockwell’s inclination to represent the ordinary man in his original “Ticket Seller” illustration

also speaks to the stresses that plagued him during his career as he attempted to reconcile his

own social viewpoints with the business aims of his clients. During the early 1930s, James

Truslow Adams, an author who gained a national reputation during the 1920s for his writings

on the history of New England, wrote about the meaning of the American Dream. Adams

stated:

If the American Dream is to come true and to abide with us, it will, at bottom, depend on the people themselves. If we are to achieve a richer and fuller life for all, they have got to know what an achievement implies. In a modern industrial State, an economic base is essential for all. We point with pride to our “national income,” but the nation is only an aggregate of individual men and women, and when we turn from the single figure of total income to the incomes of individuals, we find a very marked injustice in its distribution.104

Rockwell’s “Railroad Ticket Salesman” in its original version reflected the artist’s pondering about the very nature of the American Dream.

In an ironic twist, the “Railroad Ticket Salesman” assumed larger significance as the Post requested that Rockwell return the original to their possession, in contrast to the usual practice that the originals were returned to Rockwell.105 The reason for this request was twofold,

initially to feature the image in an exhibition. The second reason rested in business purpose

connected to the interest of one of their important clients, William Kenney, the president of

Great Northern Railroad from 1932 until the time of his death in 1939. Pete Martin expressed

appreciation to Rockwell for returning the original painting. Martin explained, “The President

of the Great Northern Railroad, who places an important amount of advertisement in the POST

104 Adams, The Epic of America, 410. 105 Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, 251.

43 every year has a big yam for the original. After it comes back from the exhibition we would

appreciate if you would allow us to present it to him.”106 Rockwell’s painting was destined to adorn the walls of a corporate leader and icon of the American Dream.

The War Years

The battle to protect the American Dream became the rallying cry during the war years. Just as

the Post controlled the magazine’s messaging during the Depression era, the war years

spawned other priorities for the magazine’s content and imagery. Along with the rest of the

nation, The Saturday Evening Post was thrust into war time and forced to participate in paper

rationing, inhibiting its expansion efforts during the 1940 to 1944 time period. Curtis Publishing

raised the subscription rate at this time from $3.00 to $4.80, likely an attempt to compensate

for the lost revenues from decreased advertising during this era and possibly support the need

for paper rationing. These moves resulted in a 14% increase in revenues.107

In creating Design for Victory, William L. Bird, Jr. and Harry R. Rubenstein collected poster

images (mainly from the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution)

representative of the full range of messages developed by government, advertising agencies,

labor, and business intended to rally Americans at home in support of national defense efforts

106 Letter from Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, April 27, 1937 (NRM Archives, RC.2007.18.1.5c). 107 Roger I. Hall, “A System Pathology of an Organization: The Rise and Fall of the Old Saturday Evening Post.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 21:2, 185-211, 200.

44 during and immediately following World War II.108 Design for Victory chronicles the nation's comprehensive effort to reach and engage all Americans in the war effort and explains the war poster phenomenon as an important chapter in the evolution of our nation's visual culture through images that were carefully calculated and created for the multiple purposes of binding citizens behind a common cause, promoting the commercial goals of business enterprises, and soothing tensions in the workplace.109 Rockwell’s iconic May 29, 1942 “Rosie the Riveter” cover

provides a poignant example of the Post celebrating the contributions of American women on

the home front taking on the traditional male roles in the workplace.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 10: “Rosie the Riveter,” Saturday Evening Post, May 29, 1943

Rockwell’s role during World War II was important as he communicated to the American public

many other scenes from the home front depicting families coping with the impact of the war on

loved ones protecting our nation. Rockwell created eleven Post covers that portray the

imaginary GI Willie Gillis as he navigates military service beginning in 1941 and attends college

on the GI bill in 1946. It was unusual for Rockwell to create a character who appeared over

108 William L. Bird, Jr. and Harry R. Rubenstein, Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998), 111. 109 Ibid., 1.

45 many years as someone who represented the average American navigating wartime. American

families embraced this multiyear story of Willie Gillis, modeled on Rockwell’s fellow Vermonter,

Robert Buck. Buck was an unassuming young man with red hair and his image came to

represent the hopes of Americans as they strove to win the war and reach peace. It is notable

that Willie Gillis was in keeping with Rockwell’s mostly peaceful depiction of the war effort.

Only on one occasion did he create a true wartime image that captured a soldier on the front—

Let’s Give him Enough and On Time—an image he created in 1942 for the U.S. Army Ordinance

Department.110

The character of Willie Gillis fulfilled other wartime roles including promotion of the sale of

defense bonds. The Post recruited its corps of artists to pitch in and contacted Rockwell with

the following request in 1941:

In an effort to help stimulate the sale of Defense Bonds, we are asking all of our best POST artists, who have created well-know POST characters, to do a small drawing of that character to be used as fillers in the back of our publication working into the drawing BUY DEFENSE BONDS slogan or sign. We are trying to suggest ideas whenever possible to help artists in this job, but we must also count on the artists themselves to put on their thinking caps, also….In your case, of course, we want a picture of Willie Gillis.

In a handwritten postscript the editor suggested “The government has asked us to help gratis

and we are hoping you will want to contribute your time and work too.”111 Rockwell did in fact agree to this request and in 1944, the Post published his sketch of Willie Gillis pointing to a poster that encourages Americans to buy bonds for victory and the protection of the American way of life.

110 Marling, Norman Rockwell, 98. 111 Letter from Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, December 31, 1941 (NRM Archives, RC.2007.18.1.37j).

46 The Post requested Rockwell to rally around the war effort in other ways as well. In 1941, Pete

Martin wrote to Rockwell about observing sensitivities in the depiction of fashion elements:

We have employed a fashion and style consultant to advise us in regard to Post covers and illustrations that involve these elements. It is not our plan to emphasize styles and fashion anymore than we do at present or allow the style element to become more important in relation to our pictures than they now do BUT we do plan to see to it that the styles and fashions we portray are right and beyond criticism.112

Subsequently, a memorandum from Frank Eltonhead was sent to Rockwell on April 10, 1942:

Perhaps you saw in the New York Times, Thursday, April 9, the articles about Women’s Styles being affected by the War Production Board’s new rulings. Here’s the dope in case you missed it. No doubt, it will have a strong influence on appearance of our heroines. Quoting from a memo from our Fashion Department, they say: “What we must stress most is the pencil silhouette and the straight classic line. The chief things to avoid are full bouffant skirt, the dirndl effect, the three-piece suit, matching top coats, boleros and ensembles. I think that the very short hair-cut will be so universal that we should, if possible, feature it in a number of our illustrations.”113

The cover image Rockwell created in 1944 reflects the style guidance the Post delivered to artists, particularly in the trim silhouettes of the USO volunteers.

Please refer to Appendix Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration A for link to illustration

Figure 11: “USO Volunteers,” Saturday Evening Post, February 7, 1942

Figure 12: “Gillis Family Heritage,” Saturday Evening Post, September 16, 1944

112 Letter from Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, December 31, 1941 (NRM Archives, RC 2007.18.1.37f). 113 Memorandum from Frank Eltonhead to Norman Rockwell, April 10, 1942 (NRM Archives, RC2007.18.1.46).

The Post-War Years

For the July 4, 1946 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Rockwell produced Working on the

Statue of Liberty for the cover. During wartime when funds were scarce, the iconic statue did not receive the care and attention it warranted. In 1946, it was time to catch up on

maintenance and a campaign was underway to raise the funds for refurbishment. In the

meantime, the only real statue maintenance Rockwell could capture was the annual cleaning of

the amber glass in the torch. Rockwell started the project in March of 1946 and since the glass

would not be cleaned until July, he had to work off photographs of the torch. Rockwell had to

add the steeplejacks to the image by using models posed on ladders back in his Vermont

studio.114

As a depiction that highlights the torch, Rockwell’s rendition of the Statue of Liberty

emphasizes the idea of enlightenment. With two birds circling in the sky, the angle of the

illustration is literally a bird’s eye view of the symbol of liberty visible to immigrants as they

made their way to Ellis Island. Yet its portrayal is also powerful in its level of detail as to how

the statue was assembled including sheets of metal on the arm, strands of hair, drapery folds,

rays of the crown, and ornate grill of the lantern. While the Director of the Monument was

hopeful that the Rockwell cover would yield funds for refurbishment, he eventually admitted

that the symbolism of the torch failed to achieve the goal of garnering donations for the

cause.115 Yet the impact of the Statue of Liberty held other significance—the steeplejacks

114 Petrick, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Other People in Norman Rockwell’s America, 18-19. 115 Ibid., 20.

48 include an image modeled from Rockwell himself on the side of the flame and an African

American at the base of the flame, one of the rare instances in which Rockwell was able to depict a person of color for a Post cover.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 13: “Statue of Liberty,” Saturday Evening Post, July 6, 1946

As The Saturday Evening Post depicted scenes from the fast-moving post-war years, the reach and revenues from the magazine grew substantially. The readership expanded in the 1945 to

1947 timeframe from 3.4 to almost 4 million readers, although the profit margin fell from 14% to 7% of revenues in 1946. Due to the increase in readership, the cost of advertising fell from

$4.96 to $4.24 per page per 1,000 readers in 1947.116 At this time, the magazine increased both the number of advertising pages and the number of editorial pages, causing a deleterious increase in production cost thereby suppressing the profit margin. The next few years from

1948 to 1950 witnessed stagnant growth resulting from a variety of factors—the lessened

116 Hall, “A System Pathology of an Organization: The Rise and Fall of the Old Saturday Evening Post.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 201.

49 impact of the post-war trial subscription tactic and an increased need for promotional efforts to keep readership stable. This phenomenon may have also related to the competition for readership attention due to the rise of television as a communications and entertainment medium.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 14: “New Television Antenna” Saturday Evening Post, 1949

Rockwell became an energetic messenger of the American Dream as the post-war years provided abundant opportunity for consumption of new inventions. The year 1949 marked the year television first entered American households en masse. In this year, the Post published the New Television Antenna on its cover depicting the installation of an early antenna on the peak of a weathered Victorian house situated in an urban environment. The peak of the roof mirrors the church steeple that appears prominently in the background possibly contrasting traditional worship with emergent technology worship. The homeowner, an older gentleman outfitted in suspenders and arm garters, sticks his head out the window ebulliently sharing the

50 news with the installer that the antenna and television screen were operational, albeit with a

slightly fuzzy image on the screen.

Television transformed the way products were marketed and the manner through which

consumers learned about the latest trends. Televised cooking lessons heightened the popularity

of the famous Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book and the epic Pillsbury Bake-Off that “put home

cooking on an equal footing with televised sports.”117 Advertisers during this time lured women to become consumers of prepackaged foods and time saving devices, partially freeing them from housekeeping drudgery, yet simultaneously perpetuating societal norms that kept women largely tethered to the home and family, while their husbands ventured into the workplace.

In depicting post-war America, Rockwell conceived the idea of the Election Day squabble between husband and wife as the nation prepared to vote in the 1948 presidential race between Thomas E. Dewey and Harry S. Truman. The backdrop for this debate illustrated with dueling newspaper stories, was the suburban family kitchen outfitted with modern appliances, the latest plastic-coated dinette set, toddler, and pets. The surface of the work is filled with pattern and color that characterized the tract home environment of the post-war era focused on comfort and the latest fads in home décor.118 The scene Rockwell captured reflected the

typical post-war suburban home.

117 Karal Ann Marling, As Seen On TV (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 212. 118 Marling, Norman Rockwell, 75.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 15: “Election Day,” Saturday Evening Post, October 30, 1948

As the era of the Cold War dawned, advertisers continued to gear their messaging to women

and Rockwell’s cover designs reflected the role of women in the context of family and home.

The Cold War

For The Saturday Evening Post, the period from 1951 to 1960 represented a period of “forced growth” precipitated by increased competition from Look magazine and a resultant battle for circulation.119 The Post took the view that circulation was critical to its future success and

consequently reduced its subscription rate while simultaneously investing massive promotional

dollars to improve its competitive position in the market. The investment in promotional

funding increased dramatically during this time resulting in forced growth of 4 million to 6.3

119 Hall, “A System Pathology of an Organization: The Rise and Fall of the Old Saturday Evening Post.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 202.

52 million. To cover these costs, the Post did not increase subscription cost, but rather opted to increase advertising fees, resulting in a decrease in advertising business.120

The Cold War began in the years following World War II as a state of geopolitical strife between countries of the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and related states) and countries of the Western

Bloc (United States and NATO allies). The Cold War was marked by a series of crises that continued into the early 1990s when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. During the Cold War era, the United States actively promoted the benefits of U.S. consumer products through trade shows staged in nations all over the world from South America to Asia to Europe. These shows deliberately connected the concept of consumer capitalism with democracy and “the American way of life.”121 These exhibits typically displayed an American home complete with furnishings and appliances, coupled with examples of mail order catalogues and television and films depicting the American way.

Karal Ann Marling observed that cultural aspects of life in the 1950s take on heightened meaning when placed in the context of the Cold War political and international currents of the decade. At the American Exhibition in Moscow in 1959, Vice President Richard Nixon and

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev sparred over Nixon’s view that modern appliances represented American freedom of choice and Khrushchev’s perspective that the exhibition represented “a display of wretched excess and bourgeois trivia.”122 The symbolism of

American-made appliances—refrigerators, washers, dryers, and stoves—manufactured in

120 Ibid., 202-203. 121 Laura A. Belmonte, Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 127. 122 Marling, As Seen on TV, 243.

53 stylish colors and operated through push button technology, were aimed at freeing housewives from tedious tasks. Futuristic appliance design drew upon the nation’s fascination with the automobile and their ostentatious chrome adornments.123 Marling describes this appliance phenomenon as a flashpoint in Cold War diplomacy. During Nixon’s trip to Moscow in 1959

Khrushchev mocked the reliance of Americans on newfangled kitchen technology, although it was clear that the “kitchen debate” really just served as an outlet for the vast cultural and political differences that separated the two nations.

Other phenomena in the 1950s influenced how Americans lived. In Homeward Bound, Elaine

Tyler May124 addresses the political climate and public policy context that characterized the

Cold War era, influencing how American families conducted their private households in order to strengthen family life as a defense against fears of communism and sexual deviancy.125 In order to paint a vivid picture of family and marital life during the Cold War, May draws extensively upon the results of the Kelly Longitudinal Study (KLS) conducted by University of Michigan psychologist E. Lowell Kelly126 on the lives and sexual experiences of 300 white, middle class couples from the late 1930s until 1955 (Appendices capture KLS quantitative results and sample

KLS 1955 questionnaire).127 May connects America’s preoccupation with worry about the potential of atomic warfare and communist incursion to efforts to strengthen national defenses by discouraging homosexual, premarital, and extramarital sex128 and encouraging containment

123 Ibid., 143. 124 Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era. (New York: BasicBooks, 2008). 125 Ibid., 11-12. 126 Ibid., 14. 127 Ibid., 229. 128 Ibid., 91.

54 of sex within the marriage,129 domesticity,130 and full preparedness for nuclear disaster131 as the proper areas of focus for wives and mothers. Homeward Bound connects the nation’s preoccupation with global threats to the personal lives of families, a political stance that resulted in “a demographic explosion in the American family,”132 ultimately keeping post-WWII women tethered to domestic and maternal roles instead of realizing the seeds of shifting gender roles that had been planted in the 1930s and 1940s.133

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 16: “Walking to Church” Saturday Evening Post, April 4, 1953

Figure 17: Johannes Vermeer, “The Little Street,” 1658, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

129 Ibid., 109. 130 Ibid., 151. 131 Ibid., 101. 132 Ibid., 6. 133 Ibid., 5-6.

55 In Rockwell’s “Walking to Church” dating from 1953, Rockwell celebrates the cohesiveness of the American family as a bulwark against the threatening world that characterized the Cold War era. For this cover, Rockwell depicts mother, father, and three children setting out for church

early on a Sunday morning, the church steeple in the background with its ringing bell scattering

a flock of birds. The unity of the family is emphasized by the clothing they wear—the father

and two boys all in gray suits and hats and the mother and daughter in pink with identical hats

positioned at precisely the same angle. The purpose of the outing is emphasized by the fact

that each family member carries their own prayer book and the deliberate forward motion of

their walk is conveyed through the positioning of the feet in mid stride. The setting for this

vignette speaks to Rockwell’s fascination with Old Masters, in this case, possibly Johannes

Vermeer’s “The Little Street,” depicting a street in Delft.

Rockwell Dissects the American Dream

In the 1960s, Rockwell’s world took some dramatic turns. The Saturday Evening Post suffered

from a series of questionable policy decisions and operated in loss positions in 1958 and 1959.

According to Roger Hall, the Post “was on the brink of bankruptcy and never really recovered

from this policy cul-de-sac of too high a subscription rate, too high an advertising “rate,” a

declining annual volume, and too high promotional expenditures to solicit trial readers to

replace the defecting readership.”134 A series of moves to bolster the business failed and even

backfired. A move to lessen the number of pages led to the reduction in plant capacity and a

crippling strike. The Post’s formula focused on a wholesome American Dream seems to have

134 Hall, “A System Pathology of an Organization: The Rise and Fall of the Old Saturday Evening Post.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 203.

56 eroded and sensationalist stories to attract readership led to lawsuits for defamation requiring

payment of heavy damages to compensate the wronged parties. Life, Look, and the Post engaged in fierce battling over the top spot in the market reflecting the large egos that characterized the industry. A 1970 New York Times article noted:

And troubles for Life in the circulation war came in 1963, when Look which had passed the Post in 1961, moved into the number one spot. The figures were 7.49 million to 7.17 million…And oh how Look rubbed it in. It ran ads with headlines such as “Look is bigger than Life.”…It was this sort of goading, several publishers thought, that led to Life into taking what they consider was a major tactical misstep.135

From these times of strife, the Post never recovered its solid footing and discontinued its

weekly publication in 1969 and later reviving as a less frequent and modified publication.

By this point in time, Rockwell was safely ensconced in his new relationship with Look magazine

in a role that more fully realized his vision of the illustrator as a voice of change.

Rockwell entered a new phase in his artistic career in the 1960s and was keen to depict topics

that could provoke conversation and promote deeper understanding. Rockwell began

discussions with Look in the summer of 1963 as captured in this letter from Look art director

Allen Hurlburt to Rockwell:

When we were approached and it was pointed out that you were interested in working for LOOK, we were prompted to confirm our high regard for your talent and our interest in working with you if and when you are free to work for us. But I would like to reemphasize that in our judgement it would not look proper for you to accept a commission from LOOK while you are continuing to serve the Saturday Evening Post.136

Rockwell later responded:

135 Philip H. Dougherty, “Life-Look Battle ends, but the war goes on,” New York Times, May 10, 1970, 15. 136 Letter from Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell, August 20, 1963 (NRM Archives, Look Al Hurburt, corresp. Re NR’s choice of LOOK or SEP, outgoing NR response ending SEP connection, June 5, 1965).

57 I am no business negotiator and thought I should call you so that you people and I understand what was said yesterday. After all there were two of you and I’m not too sure my memory is faultless. I want to be freelance again. Do I understand you and Mr. Mich accept the idea. I will be delighted to paint two jobs for you in 1964 and that you want me to do so. I may also do jobs for McCall’s, none for Life and possibly the candidates for the Post. I will call the Post and tell them I am going freelance not mentioning you or your visit. Maybe they will accept my new status, maybe they’ll sever my connection with them. So be it.137

Al Hurlburt informed Rockwell that “My first knowledge of the fact that you might be free to

work for LOOK came when I received a call from Ed Eberman, of the Famous Artists Schools in

Westport.”138

By the following year, it seems that Rockwell was at peace with his decision and wrote to Look

as follows:

I thought I should write to you and tell you that the next day Frank Kilker of the POST called up and insisted that he come up and tell me of a wonderful plan they had for me. I told him I was all booked up but he said he would only spend a half-hour, so he came up Saturday. My man of business, Chris Schafer, and I had lunch with him at the Red Lion Inn and I heard the plan. I am very glad that I did this because the plan and everything else has permanently dispelled the feeling of nostalgia I had for the “dear old Post.”139

Look magazine provided him the opportunity to pursue this new passion. He wrote to Look art director, Al Hurlburt in 1966:

I don’t want to sound slushy or sentimental but I can’t resist writing you to tell you how much your creative art direction has meant to me. You have given me the opportunity over and over again to paint pictures of contemporary subjects

137 Handwritten letter from Norman Rockwell to LOOK, apparently 1963 and likely a draft for typed version (NRM Archives, Look Al Hurburt, corresp. Re NR’s choice of LOOK or SEP, outgoing NR response ending SEP connection, June 5, 1965). 138 Letter from Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell, November 18, 1963 (Look: Brackman, Arthur, incoming outgoing correspondence re possible lawsuit, NR’s move to Look, 1963). 139 Letter to Al Hurlburt from Norman Rockwell, June 15, 1965 ((NRM Archives, Look Al Hurburt, corresp. (Re NR’s choice of LOOK or SEP, outgoing NR response ending SEP connection, June 5, 1965).

58 that I am fascinated with. I just have to express to you my thanks and, believe me, I am bending every effort to make my work worthy of the opportunities you are giving me.140

Rockwell’s career shifted dramatically in 1964 when he began his engagement with Look

magazine and was finally in a professional relationship that would allow him to depict subject

matter that related to America’s most vexing problems, including the Civil Rights Movement.

The Problem We All Live With was featured inside the January 14, 1964 Look magazine with no descriptive text—the image was intended to speak for itself. The scene captured Ruby Bridges as she walked under the protection of four federal marshals on her way to William Frantz Public

School in New Orleans, a recently desegregated elementary school where Bridges was the only

African American child. The backdrop for this drama is a wall splattered with the remnants of a thrown tomato and defaced with the racial slur “NIGGER” and the acronym “KKK.” Rockwell also included a heart just in front of Ruby Bridges with the initials NR MP, a reference to

Rockwell and his third wife Molly who inspired him to pursue more poignant subjects.141

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 18: “The Problem We All Live With,” Look, 1964

140 Letter from Norman Rockwell to Allen Hurlburt, March 1, 1966 (NRM Archives, Look Al Hurburt, incoming, outgoing correspondence, 1966). 141 Claridge, Norman Rockwell, 451-452.

59 In a similar vein, the story of suburban integration in New Kids in the Neighborhood completed

for Look in 1967 provides an ideal example of Rockwell’s new passion for illustration conveying

serious societal commentary. In this illustration, Rockwell captures the changing nature of

suburban America as a black family moves in and neighborhood children stop by to greet them

with pets in tow. The street scene of similar closely-situated homes stretch up the hill in

Chicago’s Park Forest community, one with the requisite automobile parked in the driveway.

The children’s posture seems to portend that they will be playing together soon, with one boy

dressed in his baseball uniform and the other carrying a baseball mitt behind his back. While

the children are tentatively acquainting themselves, a neighbor up the street peers out behind

a parted curtain.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 19: “New Kids in the Neighborhood,” Look, May 16, 1967

While Rockwell portrayed a more optimistic view of the suburbs, Lizabeth Cohen explores in great depth the consequences and legal challenges that resulted from the construction of suburban neighborhoods—unequal opportunities for schooling and segregated neighborhoods, all quantitatively documented with maps, charts and data. In her chapter on Reconfiguring

60 Community Marketplaces, Cohen examines the phenomenon of suburban shopping malls

constructed to satisfy consumer demands for goods. Similarly, the marketplace transported to

the suburbs also had unintended consequences--underemployed and underpaid female shop workers, racial segregation of shoppers, and union disputes. The author posits that marketers and manufacturers took the position that segregation of consumers was in their best interest as they employed market studies and targeted advertising to promote products. Cohen argues that the privatizing of public space under the roofs of expansive shopping malls had deleterious effects on the “maintenance of the democratic political culture”142 through the public sphere.

Jürgen Habermas, German sociologist and philosopher, theorizes that the public sphere (loosely

defined) encourages dialogue and debate contributing to the shaping of societal ideas and

movements.

In A Consumer’s Republic, Lizabeth Cohen also explores the foundations of the culture of

consumerism in America in the twentieth century. Cohen analyzes citizens’ attitudes toward

consumption during World War II and the visions Americans generated about how life would be

following the war. She also examines the full flowering of the consumer movement in the

postwar period and its role in promoting national economic prosperity. While the immediate

post-war years were characterized by simple pleasures—one speed bikes, one-telephone

homes, basic kitchen amenities, and modest vacations—the next fifteen years saw the

explosion of consumerism.143 Cohen analyzes the role of marketers and advertising firms in

142 Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Paradox of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 289. 143 Ibid., 49.

61 solidifying strategies to reach consumers through scientific and targeted marketing.144 She

offers a study of the manifestations of a consumer society including urban and suburban

patterns of living and land use. The shift of families to the burgeoning suburbs in the post war era had wide ranging implications for society. Cohen explores in great depth the consequences and legal challenges that resulted from the construction of suburban neighborhoods—unequal

opportunities for schooling and segregated neighborhoods, all quantitatively documented with

maps, charts and data.

In commentary on other ills of American society, particularly consumerism run amuck, Rockwell

painted this full page image of a polluted stream for Look magazine at a time when the

American Dream was falling into disarray. In deciding on the composition, Al Hurlburt, Director

of Design for Cowles Communications and publisher of Look, wrote counseling the artist: “This

is a rough (with my apologies) of the final layout, the new painting will be full page in full color.

Many thanks for your patience.”145 Subsequently, Rockwell responded to the counsel from Al

Hurlburt:

As I told you on the phone, the new pose and figure of the grandfather in the pollution picture is a tremendous improvement. He appears to be stepping forward to the very edge of the roadway and is looking down in kind of a horror,

144 Lizabeth Cohen sets up several categories of consumer—the citizen consumer and the purchaser consumer—as a key construct for the tension that developed around consumerism during boom and bust times of the twentieth century. Ibid., 8-9. Citizen consumers were “committed and sacrificing” in how they managed their households, purchasing in ways that respected and supported economic recovery and war time efforts. The purchaser consumer on the other hand, was “profligate” promoting “self interest in the marketplace out of confidence in the ameliorative effects of aggregate purchasing power.” Ibid., 8. The purchaser consumer subverted the rationing rules during war time by hoarding and purchasing products underground. Ibid., 69. Citizens adopted other permutations and combinations of these attitudes in the ensuing decades—the purchaser as citizen (contribution to a mass consumption economy that would serve to power the economy out of its wartime and depression malaise) and the multifaceted consumer/citizen/taxpayer/voter position (expansion of the consumer mentality to include satisfaction with government representation). Ibid., 9. 145 Letter from Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell , undated, but likely 1970. (NRM Archives: Look Hurlbert, Allen, general incoming, outgoing corresp. 1970-1971).

62 and it gives a helluva of a lot more impact and interest. The thing I don’t think I mentioned in talking with you the other day is the fact that I believe you said to leave out the factories in the background and make it a smoggy atmosphere in the sky. I know your idea of more throw-away tin cans, bottles, and dirty paper, will help the pollution idea too. I put down that the job should be finished sometime in February so it will be ready for publication in the spring when the swimming pools are active again.146

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 20: “The Swimming Hole,” Saturday Evening Post, 1945

Figure 21: “The Polluted Swimming Hole,” Look, 1970

146 Letter from Norman Rockwell to Al Hurlburt, November 24, 1970. (NRM Archives: Look Hurlbert, Allen, general incoming, outgoing corresp. 1970-1971).

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 22: Al Hurlburt, Sketch, Look Magazine (NRM Archives: Look Hurlbert, Allen, general incoming, outgoing corresp. 1970-1971)

The “Polluted Swimming Hole” would be one of the last projects the artist would complete for

Look. Rockwell continued working for Look until 1971 when he received the following letter

from Al Hurlburt:

By now, I am sure you have heard of the sad decision to suspend publication of LOOK. As you can imagine, things have been a bit rough around here, and I certainly hope that the news has not been disturbing to your much needed vacation….Lee and I will be here until the end of the year, taking care of things and solving many problems that remain to be solved.147

At the end of 1971, Rockwell wrote to Hurlburt sharing that “It is very sad to me that I am not

going to work for you at LOOK any more. I had a wonderful time doing all the creative things

that you thought of during that period.”148 During his long career, Rockwell navigated many

different types of relationships as an illustrator. As a body of work, the magazines illlustrations

he created form a unique record of the cultural history of America, representing an amalgum of

147 Letter from Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell, September 23, 1971 (Look: Hurlburt, Allen, corresp. Suspension of publication of Look, September 23, 1971). 148 Letter from Norman Rockwell to Al Hurlburt, December 28, 1971 (Look: Hurlburt, Allen: Outgoing corresp. Re Hurlburt’s retirement. December 28, 1971). Al Hurlburt went on to establish an independent design laboratory, known as Allen Hurlburt/Design Laboratory in New York. Allen Hurlburt Press Release, December 1, 1971 (Look Hurlburt, Allen: outgoing corresp. Re Hurlburt’s retirement December 28, 1971).

64 Rockwell’s voice and the goals of the publisher. He also created a wide array of advertising commisions that sought to market products through magazines and other outlets aimed at reaching consumers. The next chapter will analyze the nature of his role in the world of advertising.

Chapter Two - Rockwell’s Advertisements: Consumerism & the American Dream Intersect

The images Norman Rockwell created for his advertising clients resulted from the interplay of

many factors. Advertising agencies began to collect data in the early twentieth century that

informed their strategies for the creation of campaigns to attract consumers. Major publishers

intertwined ads with editorial content to create cohesive messaging and attractive imagery in

order to maximize magazine sales. Correspondence with Norman Rockwell indicates that ad

agency art directors were relying on research and data as they guided the artist in the creation

of his illustrations. Rockwell’s role in the creative process was to tap his observational prowess

at capturing the pulse of American life. He chose models that personified idealized versions of

American life. The nature of these images was dictated by the agencies and the agencies

focused on white America. Thus Rockwell was not depicting minorities except in subservient or

minor roles. Rockwell served in the role of translator, but injected as much of his personal perspective into advertising imagery as the market would bear. His correspondence with the art directors reflects the creative negotiation that transpired during the course of a

commission.

Rockwell Connects with Consumerism

During the 1920s and 1930s, the early years of Rockwell’s career, America transitioned from

“primarily a production-based society to a consumption-based society” precipitating the spread

66 of mass culture across the nation.149 American culture had become firmly rooted in the

practices of consumerism directly connected to identity, self worth, and a healthy economy.

The tentacles of consumption had far reaching impact on pivotal aspects of society including the women's movement, traditional male-female roles, and the kaleidoscope of style and

culture trends that turned the heads of consumers over the decades. The advertising profession organized fervent campaigns that ingeniously connected mass consumption to

American patriotism and citizenship and over the years Rockwell’s contributions to advertising illustration reflect these trends.

We can observe the transformations that occurred throughout the decades of Rockwell’s career as his style evolves and the advertising industry responds to shifts in society and historical events often developing aggressive strategies to captivate consumers. In Fables of Abundance,

Jackson Lears applies a cultural history lens to the evolution of advertising in America, connecting the “carnivalesque” tendencies150 of pre-industrial advertising practices and the

concept of agrarian abundance in the nineteenth century 151 to the trends that followed as the

field of advertising professionalized and relied increasingly on technology, science, and

psychology to market mass-produced products created by large corporations.152 Lears introduces the idea that late nineteenth century advertising drew upon the notion of carnival eccentricity to promote products.153 Lears explores the tension that arose in the early

twentieth century as the advertising field developed standards related to the truth-in-lending

149 Joan A. Saab, For the Millions: American Art and Culture Between the Wars (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 81. 150 Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America (New York: BasicBooks, 1994), 197. 151 Ibid., 102-03. 152 Ibid., 225. 153 Ibid., 105-06.

67 movement154 and affiliated with the emerging managerial class,155 yet still found itself

fundamentally rooted in the hawking mode of early advertising traditions.

Even Rockwell often depended on “carnivalesque” messaging in his early days such as in the image he created for Interwoven Socks in 1927, entitled “Still Good” depicting a gentleman down on his luck salvaging worn socks to keep warm. Rockwell’s character in “Still Good” is an

example of an emphasis before World War I on the design of the ad to “stop a reader from

turning the page of the magazine or newspaper.”156 One way of achieving this goal was to

create eye catching and memorable images often incorporating humor and trademarked

characters, a methodology for which Rockwell was well known.157 Rockwell designed ads for

Interwoven Socks over several decades spanning the 1920s to 1940s, most of which appeared

in The Saturday Evening Post, a popular periodical for fashion advertisements.158

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 23: Interwoven Advertisement, “Still Good,” 1927

154 Ibid., 205. 155 Ibid., 194-95. 156 Juliann Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising (Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012), 108. 157 Ibid., 109. 158 Dr. Donald Stoltz and Marshall Stoltz, The Advertising World of Norman Rockwell (New York: Harrison House, 1985), 102.

68 Rockwell set about to expand his client base. By the 1930s, he had become a sought after

advertising professional producing illustrations for ads promoting products as diverse as

Interwoven Socks,159 Jello, Grape-Nuts, and Coca-Cola.160 He never wanted to be associated

with a single brand so he created illustrations for a wide array of products.161 Rockwell charged

twice the commission for an advertising illustration as he did for magazine covers, perhaps

reflecting perceived deeper pockets and the need to sublimate his own creative juices. The

creative process looked different when the end product was an advertisement because the

client conceived the direction for the ad, often marginalizing the artist in the deliberation.162

The creative process often involved Rockwell fitting into the constraints of a preexisting

advertising campaign. Art directors often delivered precise parameters to Rockwell, at times

even sharing a preliminary sketch that supplied content, theme, and composition elements.163

This manner of working was far less appealing to Rockwell who embraced the creative

storytelling side of the illustration profession.164

159 Interwoven granted permission to Institute of Commercial Art (forerunner of FAS) and Norman Rockwell to use Interwoven images for whatever purpose. Interwoven images do in fact appear in FAS training materials. Mettler noted “He is one of the first artists we ever employed, and we have taken about everything he woiuld ever give us; and some of them were very wonderful—even in his own eyes, I am sure.” John Wickoff Mettler to Institute of Commercial Art, June 18, 1948, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1948). 160 From 1928 to 1935, Coca-Cola commissioned six paintings from Rockwell to illustrate advertisements for their beverages, accessed April 23, 2016, www.worldofcoca-cola.com. 161 Deborah Solomon, American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2013), 108. Rockwell worked for more than 150 commercial clients during his career including prominent companies such as Pan American, Ford, Upjohn, Hallmark and Franklin Mint. Rockwell’s most expansive commission focused on a series of 81 images of American family life for Massachusetts Life Insurance Company. Ron Schick, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2009), 138. 162 Guptill, Norman Rockwell: Illustrator, 129-130. 163 Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, 249. 164 Ibid.

69 The nature of the advertising relationship also had an impact on how the physical painting was

perceived and valued. Unlike in the fine arts field where the end goal is considered the painting

itself, Rockwell’s paintings were a means to an end. He was creating the design in order to sell

the reproduction rights. At the time of their creation, his oil paintings were photographed and

then reproduced for mass consumption rather than enjoyed for their individual qualities. This

phenomenon contributed to the manner in which his works have been treated and collected

over the decades. In instances of paintings for advertising, the originals were usually retained by the agency or the client company. Advertisements had a short life in terms of their impression and consequently, the originals were not valued in the same way as cover art.165

The original oils were often gifted to corporate executives upon retirement or relegated to

dusty storage closets where their value ceased to be recognized.166 In recent years however,

Rockwell’s image and his place in the history of art have undergone a metamorphosis and

consequently, the value of Rockwell’s original oil paintings has skyrocketed reflecting the

shifting notions of Rockwell’s meaning to American life, culture, and sensibility.167 Indeed

165 Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, 251. 166 Tomas Kellner, “Thanks for the Memories: Norman Rockwell’s Paintings Shed Light on Thanksgiving and the History of Electric Illumination in America” in GE Reports, Nov. 24, 2015. https://www.GE.com/reports/author/200020778/, accessed online March 9, 2018. 167 In 2013, Rockwell’s 1951 Saturday Evening Post cover Saying Grace sold at Sotheby’s for $46 million. Maria Puente, “Norman Rockwell masterpiece sells at record price,” USA Today, Dec. 4, 2013, 2018. www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/12/04, accessed online April 8, 2018. In 2017, a huge controversy erupted when the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA pursued a plan to sell Shuffleton’s Barbershop, a painting Rockwell had donated to the Museum. Rockwell’s family and others challenged the sale, but the Massachusetts Attorney General and Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court eventually approved the sale of this and other works in order to provide resources to sustain the institution long term. The Rockwell painting will be sold to a museum for an undisclosed sum and remain on public view. The level of rancor generated by this sale evidences the stature of Rockwell’s reputation. Colin Moynihan, “Judge Allows Berkshire Museum to Sell Rockwell Painting and Other Works,” New York Times, April 5, 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/arts/berkshire-museum, accessed online May 5, 2018.

70 Rockwell’s own career unfolded during a time when artists were playing new and different

roles.

The Role of Artist and Illustrator

Rockwell built his career during a time when the status of the artist was in transition. As a

result of the Federal Art Project implemented in the 1930s under the Works Progress

Administration, artists were employed in a variety of roles to create public art and document

America’s cultural heritage. The artist was transformed into a producing worker akin to other trades that worked with their hands.168 This phenomenon allowed art to infiltrate more layers

of society democratizing artistic expression and removing it from its pedestal as a sacred

object.169 Consequently, many artists working in the Federal Art Project began to identify

themselves as members of the working class.170 In For the Millions, Joan Saab describes the

activist efforts of the painter and printmaker Rockwell Kent (1882-1971) who organized

workers including artists to unionize with a goal of achieving “security, good pay, and

reasonable leisure for the enjoyment of life.”171

This democratization of artistic creation was connected to a wider array of artistic media. As

technology expanded the available options for communication, visual culture became an

increasingly important vehicle for the transmittal of ideas, employed by government, business,

and the social sector as a means to disseminate information and deliberately influence the

168 Saab, For the Millions: American Art and Culture Between the Wars, 15. The Federal Art Project was at times interpreted as a return to the traditions of Renaissance patronage when wealthy patrons provided opportunities for artists to work. Saab 44-45. 169 Ibid., 16-17. 170 Ibid., 31. 171 Ibid.

71 decisions and behavior of citizens. The advancement of technology (print, photography, film,

television) greatly enhanced the capacity of society to broadly convey messages to people in

their homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods. The reproduction of images in Rockwell’s era

capitalized upon technological advances of “halftone and color printing” that allowed for

translation of the artist’s own artistic vision and style, inspiring the public’s fascination with

realistic images.172 Social science also evolved to inform message content so that

communications became highly calculated and directed for maximum impact, especially in the

promotion of consumer products.173 Following the conclusion of World War I, advertising firms

in the 1920s enjoyed new prestige and influence. It became increasingly important for the best

advertising agencies to affiliate their marketing campaigns with recognized artists. These firms

recruited well-known illustrators like Norman Rockwell to stray from their creation of magazine

covers to also design eye-catching images for advertisements.174

Rockwell’s participation in the advertising business violated a pledge he agreed to as a young

artist with his fellow students. The group agreed that they would not compromise their values,

never execute advertising jobs, and never earn more than $50 per week. By 1915, Rockwell

had already broken his promise as he launched his career in advertising.175 His approach to

these early advertising designs may have been more palatable to him since the compositions

172 Nolan, Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition, 7. 173 Daniel Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 2004), 54-56. Horowitz examines the rise of consumerism through the lens of advertising and its impact on women, especially the role of psychologist Ernest Dichter who in the postwar era redefined housework and American womanhood. Dichter’s market research firm with franchises across the country conducted studies for corporations that captured the pulse and desires of the American consumer and translated these findings into clever marketing campaigns aimed largely at women. 174 Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity 1920-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 8. Even the Metropolitan Museum of Art vowed to assist advertising firms by appointing a liaison officer to assist in the identification of images for adaptation. 175 Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, 249.

72 closely mirrored his style seen in the magazine cover art. These early advertising compositions

had a more narrative character than his later advertisements often incorporating children and

sometimes the elderly engaging together. Many times the narrative seemed only loosely connected to the product being promoted.176 In the 1930s and 1940s, Rockwell became more

selective about his advertising commissions, a luxury that he could afford given his elevated

status as a recognized giant in the field of illustration art. In the 1950s, the volume of

advertisements Rockwell completed increased continuing into the 1970s and the later years of

his career.177 Yet the Rockwell faced ongoing struggles to balance client priorities and his own

personal perspectives.

Jackson Lears provides examples of the ways true artists intersected with the world of

advertising and the conflicts that resulted when the “individual vision”178 of artists like Leo

Lionni (1910-1999) collided with the demands of client-centric commercial art focused on

producing billboards, packaging, and trademarks for mass consumption and a regimented

corporate master.179 Lionni exemplifies the plight of the artist who possesses an individual

vision, but finds his idea subject to the constraints of a client/artist relationship. Lears suggests

that “Art by committee, like writing by committee, was a recipe for mush; marketing

considerations dictated systematic inoffensiveness, or formulaic sweetness of kitsch. The only

risks the artist could hope to take were in the area of formal innovation. Modern designers had

to check their cultural convictions (if they had any) at the agency door.”180 In this context, Lears

176 Ibid., 250. 177 Ibid. 178 Lears, Fables of Abundance, 340. 179 Ibid., 339. 180 Ibid., 340.

73 states that “corporate advertising” differed dramatically from earlier types of patronage often

resulting in frustration for the serious artist.181

Despite the intense pressures of the corporate world of advertising, Rockwell stuck to his

principles of creating realistic images at a time when abstract art was attracting significant

attention. Rockwell’s art has historically been situated in a netherworld somewhere between

high and low imagery. His art has been described as “an adaptation of the genre tradition to

the needs of the mass middle-class market.”182 It was his devotion to exacting detail derived from the use of models, actual settings, and photography that so fascinated his public.

Rockwell created a world that was grounded in realism, yet rendered through his fanciful imagination. His dedication to realism placed him in the 1950s at center of the debate that raged about New York advertising firms adopting the visual vocabulary of abstract artists to sell products. Consumers had been reared on the steady diet of realistic illustrations to acquaint them with products and many reacted negatively to the suggestion of product attributes

181 Michelangelo for example was an artist who pioneered artistic autonomy in his patronage relationships and would not have embraced the controlling influence of the cardinals when planning the design for the Sistine Chapel. In his groundbreaking book, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Michael Baxandall begins with the premise that the creation of a fifteenth century Renaissance painting was the result of a relationship between the artist who made the image and the patron who ordered its creation within the social framework of the day including commerce, religion, and prevailing customs and traditions. Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), 1. Thus the practice of patronage in the Renaissance time period must be viewed as casting a significant influence over the direction of projects including their content and aesthetics. But even during this period, the seeds of change were evident. Michelangelo, for example, exhibited exceptional talent and technical prowess as he became a tour de force in painting, sculpture, and architecture, literally changing the way artists related to their patrons and paving the way for the artist as creator to have more input as to how commissions were fulfilled with more freedom “to experiment and to innovate.” Linda Murray, Michelangelo (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), 206-07. 182 Wallach, “The Norman Rockwell Museum and the Representation of Social Conflict” in Seeing High & Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture, 283.

74 rendered in simple broad brush forms and shapes.183 Commentators on the advertising

industry noted that the public preferred the “homely humanness” of “Norman Rockwellish”

illustrations to bold abstractions.

Adhering to his dedication to realism, Rockwell converted ordinary Americans into “art appreciators” attuned to the power of visual culture. His storytelling skills paved the way for the impact of visual communication in television and film.184 Rockwell’s legacy has shifted over

the decades as the field of visual culture has emerged expanding traditional notions of art

history. As Thomas Hoving has observed “Rockwell is more and more identified—correctly—as

a cultural phenomenon, one who made a sea change in the perception of art in this nation.”185

It was Rockwell’s omnipresence in American households through the magazine industry’s mass

distribution channels that led to his well-deserved reputation as the artist for the people.

Rockwell’s reputation was also connected to a notion of honesty, a trait that rendered him a popular choice for advertising imagery.

The Science of Advertising

Curtis Publishing actively cultivated trust among its readers and Rockwell’s forthright and all-

American image fit this strategy. Curtis promoted truth in advertising and became a champion of “honest and fair dealing in advertising in the United States.”186 As early as the 1890s, Curtis

promoted the testing of products that were marketed through Ladies’ Home Journal. As a

183 Marchand, Advertising the American Dream, 146. 184 Thomas Hoving, “The Great Art Communicator,” in Maureen Hart Henessey and Anne Knutson, Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999), 28-31, 30. 185 Ibid., 31. 186 Matthew J. Culligan, The Curtis-Culligan Story (New York: Crown Publishers, 1970), 47.

75 supporter of the Pure Food and Drug Acts, he sought to battle the marketing of products

introduced to the public with little justification for wild claims of their effectiveness. In a

cutting edge move, Curtis Publishing Company established a Division of Commercial Research in

1911 to build the first publisher-initiated marketing research department in the nation. This

department was aggressive in its tactics including interviews with consumers and wholesalers

and the analysis of household trash to discern purchasing patterns.187 Chemical testing of

products ascertained potential harm and overall effectiveness before the advertisement would

be accepted. In 1912, the Curtis Advertising Code explicitly stated that Ladies’ Home Journal

would refuse any advertising contracts related to tobacco products.

Despite the emphasis of Curtis Publishing on truth in its advertisements, the end goal was to

make a profit. Rockwell’s interactions with his advertising clients often reflected deliberation

evidencing the profit-motivated manufacturer expectations for product sales. Advertising firms

were drawing upon the expertise of professionals who understood how to reach consumers.

For example, a contemporary of Rockwell, Christine Frederick (1883-1970), became a home efficiency expert and consultant to the advertising industry, promoting traditional values of the mother and wife as manager of the home. Frederick was college educated and decided that she would systematize her housekeeping duties according to industrial standards.

Subsequently, she penned articles for Ladies Home Journal about household efficiencies. She earned a reputation within the male-dominated advertising industry as the voice of “Mrs.

Consumer” and able to provide counsel on what would appeal and what would sell to the

187 Curtis Publishing Company (Biography/History), www.dla.library.upenn.edu accessed online May 6, 2018. Charles Coolidge Parlin (1872-1942) was the inaugural director of the division and is credited with being a pioneer in developing the field of market research.

76 homemaker. Her book entitled Selling Mrs. Consumer (1929) sought to justify the concept of planned obsolescence as a necessary factor in the expansion of an industrial economy.188

As industrial activity moved away from the home to the factory, the American household emerged as a bastion of domesticity and a place where consumerism driven by the housewife thrived as she filled the home with new technologies and leisure activities.189 Hobbies took on

a more meaningful role as women and men sought to define themselves and fight boredom.190

Home ownership was also an increasingly important aspect of American life and by 1930 about

half of the homes in America were owner occupied creating increased demand for all the

products and appliances needed to furnish and operate these homes.191 Homes evolved into

places of greater comfort, privacy, cleanliness, and size in the early part of the twentieth

century.192 The homemaker could consequently turn her efforts from “physical labor to

household management”193 and be more available to tend to the needs of her husband and

children.194

In The Anxieties of Affluence, Daniel Horowitz captures the shifting attitudes of Americans over four decades from 1939 to 1979. Horowitz highlights a Ladies’ Home Journal survey and series

(1939)—“How America Lives”—painting a vivid pre-war picture of the different living standards

of sixteen American families from the wealthiest to the poorest. Horowitz summarizes minute

188 Janice Williams Rutherford, Selling Mrs. Consumer: Christine Frederick and the Rise of Household Efficiency (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2003), 150-51. 189 Frank Trentmann, Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First (New York: Harper Perennial, 2016), 223. 190 Ibid., 229. 191 Ibid., 239. 192 Ibid., 243-245. 193 Ibid., 254. 194 Ibid., 255.

77 details on family members, professional, volunteer, and recreational activities, consumption

habits and priorities, and even family budgets that provide deep insights into how Americans

conducted their daily lives. Clearly, this research was designed to illuminate the essence of the

American family and to inform how the magazine could reach more families and influence their

purchasing decisions.195

Mass consumption really exploded during the 1920s, a consequence of the expansion and professionalization of the advertising field. Clever advertisers such as the behemoth firm of J.

Walter Thompson believed their role was to overturn the status quo196 by educating consumers

and introducing new ideas. Women became a key target in the early 1900s once research showed that females were making most of the purchasing decisions for American households.197 Advertising agents talked down to female consumers, believing that women

were less capable of reason and made decisions based on sentiment and emotion.198

Advertising agencies even developed a construct that reached out to women by equating their

role with a man's world of work--"home superintendent" and "a good workman needs good

tools."199 Cyrus Curtis speaking to a group of advertisers said “Do you know why we publish

Ladies’ Home Journal? The editor thinks it is for the benefit of the American woman. That is an

illusion, but a proper one for him to have. But I will tell you the publisher’s reason…To give you

people who manufacture things that American women want and buy a chance to tell them

195 Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 24-34. 196 Charles F. McGovern, Sold American: Consumption and Consumerism 1890-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 31. 197 Ibid., 36. 198 Ibid., 39. 199 Ibid., 42.

78 about your products.”200 Consequently, the images intended to capture the attention of

American women had to be carefully and strategically constructed.

Curtis Publishing recognized the appeal of Rockwell’s designs to achieve this goal. The overall

visual design of a magazine in the 1920s became the purview of the art director, although this

professional often hired out the artistic work to others.201 While abstract art was having a

design influence in periodical publishing, advertisements published in magazines like Ladies’

Home Journal tended to be more conservative. In fact, research at this time indicated that

readers valued the realistic and sentimental depictions created by Norman Rockwell for cover

art over more modern and abstract illustration art.202 Carefully researched elements were

combined in Curtis publications to maximize sales and serve the needs of businesses marketing

their products.

In the 1920s, the business of America became business and women by a wide margin were recognized as the primary consumers and purchasing decision makers in families.

Manufacturing expanded to meet the growing demand for consumer products. According to the Ladies’ Home Journal, in 1929, women were controlling 80 to 85 percent of the $40 billion in U.S. retail sales. This phenomenon had a huge influence on the manner in which publishers designed their magazines to reach the female market. In addition, after women earned the right to vote in the U.S. in 1920, women felt more empowered to work outside the home and by 1925, 30 percent of the workforce was female.203 During this time period, social science was

evolving to collect data that defined market segments and deliver information on market

200 Douglas B. Ward, “The Reader as Consumer: Curtis Publishing Company and its Audience, 1910-1930” Journalism History, summer 96, 22:2, 46-55. 201 Ibid., 142. 202 Ibid., 144. 203 Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 138.

79 tendencies in geographic areas, population types, and climates. Market analysts also collected

data on frequency of purchases, spending levels, effective media outlets, and buying habits.204

The Ladies’ Home Journal and other popular women’s magazines of the day, known as women’s

service magazines, became highly influential in determining what women purchased for

themselves and their families.205

Fine early examples of Rockwell’s advertising work that illustrate female consumer satisfaction

with products can be seen among the twenty illustrations Rockwell completed for Edison

Mazda Lampworks between 1920 and 1927 mainly for inclusion in Curtis publications, The

Saturday Evening Post and Ladies Home Journal, but also used for in-store displays.206 The

illustration featured here (“More Light for Each Year of Life”) captures a domestic scene of the

happy family with mother, father, and child enjoying a special moment celebrating the third

birthday of their daughter. Scenes of domestic harmony fit the notions of the time related to

traditional roles of men and women and the sanctity of home life. Here the mother is

presenting the cake, presumably one she has baked, while the father looks on in his business

attire. The mother and child are the highlighted figures in this advertisement, possibly

targeting the female as the main decision maker for home décor and management. The dining

table and sideboard display elegant serving pieces conveying the impression of a well-

appointed home. The Edison Mazda light campaign offered an opportunity for Rockwell to

understand the impact of electric illumination on the American home and family. He depicted

204 Ibid., 139. 205 Ibid. Other publications for upper and middle class women included Vogue, Bazaar, and Good Housekeeping. Lower class women gravitated toward McCall’s. 206 Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, 365.

80 families in a host of activities from singing together to playing cards to reading, all highlighted

by the aura of electric lamps.207

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 24: Edison Mazda Ad, “More Light for Each Year of Life,” Saturday Evening Post, July 10, 1920

The attention advertisers paid to the female consumer continued in the decades that followed.

Horowitz examines the impact of the rise of consumerism and advertising on women, especially

the role of psychologist Ernest Dichter who engaged in the “postwar reconstruction of

American womanhood.”208 Dichter’s market research firm with franchises across the country

conducted studies for corporations that captured the pulse and desires of the American

consumer and translated these findings into clever marketing campaigns. Dichter and others

constructed surveys with hundreds of questions derived from Freudian psychology.209 Dichter

also employed the concept of the focus group to interview consumers about products and

advertisements. There is little evidence in Rockwell’s writings that he was directly absorbing

207 Tomas Kellner, “Thanks for the Memories” in GE Reports, Nov. 24, 2015. 208 Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 56. 209 Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 223.

81 the research and data collection that underpinned advertising strategies, yet the goals of this

research are evident in the communications between Rockwell and his advertising clients.210

The adjustments recommended by art directors reflect the subtle messaging advertisers

required to attract and retain customer loyalty.

Rockwell wrote about his individual approach to developing advertising images stating “[n]o

matter how beautiful an advertising picture may be, if it does not sell the product which it

advertises it is a failure.”211 He describes two approaches to creating advertising images: one

that associated specific products with depictions of delighted customers and a second that

connected the company brand and reputation to images of reliability and honesty such as

Abraham Lincoln. Rockwell’s explicit recognition of the associative power of advertising images

explains his willingness to allow his own image and story to be so blatantly deployed as the

basis for Famous Artists Schools’ aggressive advertising campaigns.212 His own image and

illustrations became linked to patriotism and the American way of life.

210 While Dichter celebrated and courted the role of the female consumer, activist Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, criticized corporate America for transforming women into consuming machines and characterized the existence of women in suburbia as bleak and unfulfilling. She pointed out that “somehow, somewhere, someone must have figured out that women will buy more things if kept in the underused, nameless- yearning, energy-to-get-rid of state of being housewives.” She accused Dichter of prioritizing a level of domesticity that “demanded the uncompensated labor of white, middle class women to complete the Herculean task of keeping their suburban homes spotless.” Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 121-23. 211 Rockwell, Rockwell on Rockwell, 23. 212 See chapter 3 of this thesis focused on the Famous Artists Schools.

82 Rockwell: Patriotism and Consumerism

Consumption became connected to the American way of life. In the 1920s, consumer

advocates213 launched a campaign for consumer independence as a key right of citizenship calling out fraudulent advertising practices and shoddy products. Organizations such as the non-profit Consumer Research, founded in 1927, provided scientific research on the goods being purchased, promoting the consumer's right to understand the quality and effectiveness of products prior to purchase.214 Consumer Research published the book 100,000,000 Guinea

Pigs in the 1930s, which served as a rallying cry for consumers and ushered in an era of suspicion of the practices of big business and advertisers. Consumer Research heavily promoted the idea that government should intervene to protect the consumer.215 From the

mid-1930s, business fired back and began to craft a new campaign for marketing products that

connected “consumption to the American way of life.”216

Patriotism was important element of Rockwell’s professional persona and the advertising commissions he undertook often reflected his own American ideals. In his correspondence with advertising clients, Rockwell expounds upon his patriotism. Rockwell, for example, wrote to Donald Lindsay, President of Lincoln First Federal Savings and Loan in Spokane, Washington regarding the commission of a Lincoln portrait destined for advertising purposes, saying “My

213 Consumer advocates Stuart Chase and F.J. Schlink coauthored the Book Your Money’s Worth in 1927, “a full scale exposé of consumer exploitation through inefficient production and distribution, defective and dangerous products, and fraudulent advertising.” McGovern, Sold American, 170. 214 Ibid., 186. 215 Ibid., 252. 216 Ibid., 262. From the turn of the century to the 1930s, magazines developed into one of the principal vehicles to advance a consumer society. If abundance was the credo of the pre-Depression years, the Depression represented a "crisis of capitalism" and highlighted how dependent the American economy had become on consumer spending. McGovern points out that the Depression era would represent the destabilization of the "culture of consumerism."

83 favorite American Is Abraham Lincoln. I have painted pictures of him a number of times and

always with great pleasure. He was no ‘pretty man’ but I feel that everything about him personified the strength, integrity and spirit of America.”217 Rockwell’s portrayal of Lincoln

with axe in one hand and text in the other captures this American icon at the time when he was

transitioning from “woodsman to statesman.”218 The portrait measures seven feet in height

and depicted Lincoln from below, accentuating his tall stature and ultimately larger-than-life

status as American president.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 25: “Lincoln the Rail-splitter,” (First Federal Savings and Loan Association commission, 1965) Butler

Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio

Just as Rockwell at times relied on famous historical figures to encapsulate his messaging, the advertising industry was overt in its connection of consumerism to American values. Charles

McGovern has aptly described the work of the advertising industry as "commandeering

217 Letter from Norman Rockwell to Donald P. Lindsay, May 24, 1965. (NRM Archives, Lincoln First Federal Bank corresp. 1965-66). The painting of Lincoln entitled the Lincoln the Railsplitter once in the collection of Ross Perot, is now in the collection of the Butler Museum of Art in Youngstown, Ohio. 218 Menk, ed., Masterworks from the Butler Institute of American Art, 305.

84 democracy."219 Advertisers often adopted a political vocabulary to sell goods by connecting the consumption of products to an American way of life and ultimately to happiness. The state of abundance (and equal access to abundance) was equated with the ideal state of American society.220 Rockwell participated in the connection of advertising messaging to American values

and pleasures. In an illustration for Coca Cola, for example, Rockwell depicts a young man

enjoying a leisurely fishing excursion with his dog, punctuated with the sweet taste of a soft

drink, often equated with the American lifestyle.221

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 26: Coca Cola Calendar Illustration, “Out Fishin’”, 1935

The pre-war years and wartime presented new avenues to connect consumerism and patriotism. In The Anxieties of Affluence, Daniel Horowitz discusses the views of author Lewis

219 McGovern, Sold American, 1. 220 Lizabeth Cohen also describes the first waves of a movement that promoted product consumption in the guise of patriotic duty. The seeds of this movement originated during the Great Depression when merchants fought hard to promote consumption as a means to preserve America’s capitalist society. Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic, 18. 221 From 1928 to 1935, Coca-Cola commissioned Rockwell to paint six oil paintings that were utilized to market Coca Cola beverages. Of those six original paintings, three original artworks – “Barefoot Boy,” “Out Fishin” and “Concert on the Steps” – remain in company’s collection. https://www.worldofcoca-cola.com/media- alert/norman-rockwell/ accessed March 4, 2018.

85 Mumford from the pre-war era, arguing for the necessity of self-restraint so that Americans can

stay focused on the core issues of democracy uncorrupted by the trappings of affluence. This

era of conservative spending sets the stage for the strict economies that were necessarily thrust

upon Americans during war time as each citizen’s contribution and sacrifice to the war effort.

Advertisements from manufacturers called upon Americans to buy bonds to support the war

effort—essentially encouraging would-be consumers to save “on the installment plan” for the

post-war years when they could consume more aggressively.222

McGovern explains how advertisers planted the idea that buying products was simply a part of

the cause—citizen’s doing their part to help win the war.223 Rockwell was keen to provide other imagery to support the war effort in the form of posters. In Design for Victory, William L.

Bird, Jr. and Harry R. Rubenstein detail the role that print media and poster creation played in

the promotion of the war effort and the rallying of Americans to do their part to ensure

victory.224 The war poster phenomenon was an important chapter in the evolution of the

nation’s visual culture through images that were carefully calculated and created for the dual

purposes of binding citizens behind a common cause and often promoting the commercial goals of their for-profit creators.225 War posters promoted a range of patriotic goals among

families, workers, and employers, including an expansive campaign to encourage Americans to

invest in the cause of war through the purchase of savings bonds (transformed into defense

bonds) and save on the installment plan for later purchases of consumer goods.226 Rockwell

222 Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 45. 223 McGovern, Sold American, 1-2. 224 Bird and Rubenstein, Design for Victory, 1. 225 Ibid., 2, 51. 226 Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 45.

86 had a vision for war posters carried out in his renowned Four Freedoms227 posters originally submitted to the Office of War Information (OWI), but initially rejected because OWI deemed

Rockwell to be an illustrator and not a real artist.228 Rockwell responded to Franklin Delano

Roosevelt’s introduction of the Four Freedoms (Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear,

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship) concept before America entered World War II when

the President delivered his State of the Union address in January of 1941. The four images

Rockwell created in 1943 helped Americans to understand in a concrete way the fundamental

freedoms for which the war was being waged. The paintings were included in a traveling

exhibition organized by the Post and the United States Treasury Department and this Second

War Loan Drive attracted more than a million viewers and helped to raise $133 million through

the sale of war bonds.229

227 The Four Freedoms are the subject of an exhibition entitled “Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms” that opened In New York City in May of 2018 and will travel to select American cities and to Normandy, France in 2019 to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day. 228 Bird and Rubenstein, Design for Victory, 37. 229 James J. Kimble, “An Introduction” in Stephanie Haboush Plunkett and James J. Kimble, Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & The Four Freedoms (Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2018), 149.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figure 27: Norman Rockwell, “The Four Freedoms,” 1943

Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company also became a major client for Rockwell images and connected its products to American values and the democratic process. Eighty of these black and white pencil sketch ads appeared in major periodicals in the 1950s and 1960s. The style of these drawings is sketchy and quickly executed with focus on the major protagonists and little context for the subject matter.230 Rockwell illustrated the practice of democracy through his voting booth illustration published in 1960. At the same time, Massachusetts Mutual was insuring the homes and goods purchased by consumers. Rockwell wrote of this commission:

I was delighted by the double recognition that came my way in connection with the Massachusetts Mutual advertisement to be published just before the November 8th election. First, I was asked to illustrate myself in a voting booth, where you may be sure I will be. In addition, I was invited to write and sign the text of the message urging the millions of Post, Time and Newsweek readers to vote. It is such an important subject that I put modesty aside and proudly accepted both invitations. The Massachusetts Mutual is to be commended for

230 Moffatt, Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue, 250.

88 urging men and women all over America to exercise their franchise by voting which is one of our richest privileges and greatest responsibilities.231

Rockwell deployed his own image to express the importance of the American democratic process in the context of promoting a company established to protect the fruits of consumerism.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 28: Advertisement, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1960

Consumerism Accelerates

Following World War II, the pent up demand of the war years gave way to robust consumer demand. Americans began to fill their suburban homes with televisions, washers, dryers, stereos, toys, plastics, and frozen foods, leading to the “highest standard of living in the history of the world.”232 It is during this era, that Rockwell accepted his highest volume of commercial

231 Letter from Norman Rockwell to Mr. Kalmbach, undated (NRM Archives, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, incoming outgoing correspondence, 1952-1963). 232 Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 50.

89 assignments.233 In Fables of Abundance, Jackson Lears chronicles the evolution of the advertising industry highlighting its heyday in the 1950s.234 Production of print media advertising became the focus of advertising firms as they churned out ads informed by social science research and designed to attract consumers (still mainly women). The post-World War

II era had deeper impact on women as Americans worried about the implications of the Cold

War and nuclear threat, connecting these concerns to a heightened emphasis on domesticity and the role of women as keepers of family life and a means of strengthening national civil defense.235

Karal Ann Marling, art historian and American Studies scholar, examines the visual imagery of the 1950s that captured the latest innovations and inventions. In the excitement of the post war era, consumer culture was a driving force for the U.S. economy and television began to capture the images that characterized this explosion of inventiveness and consumption. From fashion to entertainment to food to automobiles, Marling illuminates what Americans saw in their everyday lives and how these images influenced what consumers craved and what they purchased. She extracts the essence of the 1950s as a decade that sent the lives of American families careening in a new direction through a barrage of novel ideas and images. Marling also explores the theme of television as the medium that streamed a kaleidoscope of images into

American households. This exposure set the stage for the spread of new ideas and trends that engulfed middle class society, fueled by a spirit of consumerism. Television became the

233 Schick, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, 138. 234 Lears, Fables of Abundance, 251. 235 May, Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War, 99.

90 primary voice and chief purveyor of the essence of the American Dream.236 For example, suburban American life required an automobile for daily living and Americans embraced this need with gusto, as industrial designers created increasingly fanciful fins and hubcaps for vehicles that took on the quality of museum objects.237 “The notion of the car as a work of art” created an aura of automobile worship and the fact that “automakers were the TV network’s biggest sponsors” ensured that television spread car fever throughout suburbia.238

The television industry would reconstruct the world of advertising and marketing.239 As television sorted out the most effective way of reaching viewers, ad producers looked to print media for models. Some commercials even mimicked Rockwell illustrations in their storytelling quality and Americana character.240 The storytelling of televised programming often blended with the storytelling of commercials, imitating a technique that had been utilized in the magazine industry for decades. Yet this dramatic shift to television as the medium of choice for advertisers along with advancements in color photography signaled major shifts in Rockwell’s life as an illustrator. He was slow to adapt to the world of television, not being an early adopter in the late 1940s and clinging to his radio.241 By the 1950s, the appeal of Rockwell’s realistic style of illustration art was beginning to fade and abstract styles became more popular.242 As

1952 drew to a close, it was clear “that television advertising had graduated from its initial phase and was well on its way to becoming the most important and influential commercial

236 Lawrence R. Samuel, Brought to You By Postwar Television Advertising and The American Dream (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 3. 237 Marling, As Seen on TV, 147. 238 Ibid.,148. 239 Samuel, Brought to You By Postwar Television, 3. 240 Ibid., 6. 241 Claridge, Norman Rockwell: A Life, 360. 242 Ibid., 370.

91 medium in history.”243 Rockwell continued to produce art for print ads, but his cover art

commissions began to dwindle. The role of television creeps into his world in the 1950s and

1960s as he makes appearances including in televised ads for Famous Artists Schools.

In the 1950s, Rockwell was still creating print advertisements and was working with Chicago- based advertising firm Leo Burnett Company on the creation of ads for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.

Breakfast cereals first entered the market as part of a healthy diet geared to provide lighter breakfasts for workers engaged in less strenuous jobs.244 Dr. John Kellogg through his work at

the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan developed Corn Flakes as the first cold

breakfast cereal. He “boiled, mashed, chilled, dried, and baked blobs of corn into crispy

flakes.”245 Kellogg’s first recipe flopped when the product tasted bland and did not have

sufficient shelf life. At this point, Kellogg’s brother William, an accountant, stepped in and

redesigned the product and its packaging. Sanitas Toasted Corn Flakes became Kellogg’s Corn

Flakes and wildly popular as America’s breakfast cereal. A 1914 advertisement described the

cereal as “so perfectly sealed that wherever and whenever you buy them, they will be fresh and crisp as they are when they come from our ovens.”246

Kellogg’s designed carefully crafted campaigns to market their breakfast product connecting

the cereal to American values. By the time Rockwell was creating ads for Kellogg’s in the

1950s, Corn Flakes had become closely associated with the healthy American family. Post-war

advertisements still focused on the female consumer, but also highlighted “Mr. and Mrs.

Consumer and their children, then, served the media and advertisers well as a means to sum up

243 Samuel, Brought to You By Postwar Television, 43. 244 Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 89. 245 Ibid. 246 Ibid.

92 the complex social reality into one symbol.”247 It was in this advertising environment that

Rockwell designed his ads for Kellogg’s. Communications about these ads capture the tides of the era as Burnett requests Rockwell to depict the perfect American family.

I believe I have a new slant on the four Kellogg paintings which will make it a better project all around and more stimulating for you. Instead of the four members of the family (Dad, Mother, Bub and Sis) our new idea is individual pictures of four children of varying ages—two boys and two girls. While we would still like to keep the illustrations in silhouettes, I believe a little plot could be introduced in each one, such as a baby eating his first corn flakes (bent type spoon, high chair, etc., maybe with proud mother and father looking on); little girl feeding corn flakes to her doll, etc., etc.248

In early 1954, Burnett wrote to Rockwell to say that “I just got back from a sales meeting in

New Orleans and everybody up and down the line is highly enthusiastic about these four kids

you did for us.”249 Later that same year, Burnett confirmed that Rockwell would capture the

quintessential American parents—working father and stay-at-home mother. Burnett wrote:

Just to confirm our understanding, the ones we are settling on are: 1. The man with his brief case eating a hurried breakfast. 2. The young wife eating breakfast after the family has departed for business, school, etc.250

Burnett was clear with Rockwell that while there were certain design requirements to which

the artist must adhere, he did provide some leeway:

247 Ibid., 220. 248 Letter from Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell dated August 25, 1952 (NRM Archives, Burnett, Leo Company corresp. 1951-1955). 249 Letter from Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, January 21, 1954. (NRM Archives, Burnett, Leo Company corresp. 1951-1955). For these four paintings, Rockwell was paid $15,000 per invoice dated March 4, 1953 (NRM Archives, Burnett, Leo Company corresp. 1951-1955). 250 Letter from Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, October 1, 1954 (NRM Archives, Burnett, Leo Company corresp. 1951-1955). The painting of the wife was apparently not completed as planned.

93 Although our art directors have made an attempt to suggest your style, we of course want you to feel completely free to express yourself in any way you see fit to get the general plots outlined in these rough sketches and in the copy.251

Burnett also coached Rockwell in the creation of the series with “cute youngsters with strings

around their fingers, reminding people to buy a spare package of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.”252 The

Corn Flakes commissions were an ideal fit for Rockwell allowing him to depict children and

families in the rush of life in the post-war era.

251 Letter from Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, December 7, 1954. (NRM Archives, Burnett, Leo Company corresp. 1951-1955). 252 Letter from Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, January 18, 1955. (NRM Archives, Burnett, Leo Company corresp. 1951-1955).

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figures 29-34: Advertisements, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

In a similar vein, Rockwell created ads for Proctor & Gamble to market Crest toothpaste illustrating American youngsters. These ads featured fresh young faces of children boasting that their dental exams showed no cavities (“Look Mom—no cavities),” referencing the primary role that mothers played in the rearing of children. For these ads created in the late 1950s,

Rockwell was working through the Benton & Bowles advertising firm in New York City to develop a whole series of ads of young boys and girls. Each ad featured an image of the Crest

95 tube and to ensure accuracy, the ad agency offered to supply Rockwell “with a photostat of the

Crest tube, to whatever size your tinsmith desires.”253 Clearly realism and accuracy were

critical to Proctor & Gamble and the art department at Benton & Bowles pointed out these

details to Rockwell:

I’m returning the photograph of the girl for ad #6. As you can see by my crop lines on the photograph and in the attached tissues, I’ve tilted the head to get more dynamics into the girl’s movement. Make sure though that the card she is holding is horizontal. Also note the comments about the girl’s upper front teeth. This is extremely important. (I am enclosing for your information a portion of a letter from the client in which the appearance of adult teeth versus baby teeth, from a technical point of view, is discussed.)254

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figures 35-36: Advertisements, Crest, 1957

Proctor & Gamble was keen to associate their products with the Rockwell name and proposed

other concepts to the artist including ideas for Bounty paper towels and Ivory soap. In 1966,

the Art & Package Department at Proctor & Gamble tried to encourage Rockwell to create an

253 Letter from Robert Brooks, Benton & Bowles to Norman Rockwell, May 2, 1957 (NRM Archives: Benton & Bowles, corresp. 1957). 254 Letter from Robert Brooks, Benton & Bowles to Norman Rockwell, August 27, 1957 (NRM Archives: Benton & Bowles, corresp. 1957).

96 image of a cornucopia for their Bounty product.255 In waffling on the request, Rockwell shared

that he might not be the right artist to assist since his main focus was on people, not still life.

To soften the blow, Rockwell added that “this may sound like a discouraging letter, but I love

Ivory Soap.”256 Proctor & Gamble did not miss a beat and turned this unsolicited praise into a

proposal for a personal endorsement—an idea that despite Rockwell’s occasional willingness to

use his star power for product promotion does not appear to have been executed.257 The

rejected image featured Rockwell bathing in a small washtub smoking a pipe with water and

sponge splashed onto the floor with bar of Ivory and washcloth in hand.

Cincinnati-based Proctor & Gamble’s outreach to Rockwell followed in a tradition for the

company to be aggressive and creative in its marketing of Ivory Soap. The Ivory ads

consistently featured a central idea coupled with captivating illustration art.258 The bar was the invention of Harley Proctor in 1879 following considerable experimentation to achieve the right recipe that avoided animal fats for their perishable nature and instead opted for perfumed vegetable fats. Proctor named the soap after he heard a reference in church to “ivory palaces” and in 1881 changed the production process when a botched batch of soap acquired air bubbles that allowed the soap to float. Consumers were intrigued by this special characteristic

of Ivory bars and it became a distinguishing characteristic for marketing this all-American soap

product.

255 Letter from John R. Koch, Supervisor Art & Package Design, Proctor & Gamble Company, December 19, 1966. (NRM Archives, Proctor & Gamble Company, Corresp., 1968). 256 Letter from Norman Rockwell to John R. Koch, Proctor & Gamble, December 29, 1966 (NRM Archives, Proctor & Gamble Company, Corresp., 1968). 257 Proctor & Gamble watercolor for Rockwell personal endorsement, 1967 (NRM Archives, Proctor & Gamble Company, Corresp., 1968). Rockwell did agree to share his image for advertising Grumbacher paints and Famous Artists Schools. 258 Sivulka, Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes, 72.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 37: Proctor & Gamble Advertisement Proposal to Rockwell, 1967

Some Rockwell commissions overtly connected the artist to the promotion of consumerism and the American Dream. Famous Artists Schools facilitated the commission Rockwell received in

1966 from Top Value Enterprises, the publisher of Top Value Trading Stamp Catalogue. Stamp redemption programs constituted a marketing ploy to promote consumer loyalty. The marketing of stamp redemption schemes fueled a culture of consumerism. The more a consumer purchased yielding trading stamps, the more products the consumer could secure through the redemption process. Merchants joined national programs through which they doled out stamps at the time of purchases to be collected in booklets that could be redeemed for household merchandise at redemption centers across the country. Famous Artists Schools

participated in the contract for the commission and negotiated the rights to use the image

Rockwell created to also promote Rockwell’s association with the School and allow Top Value

to use reproductions of the painting for stamp redemption.259 For this commission, Rockwell

259 Such programs began in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century and have now been supplanted by electronic loyalty programs.

98 received $10,000.260 Rockwell painted a number of Top Value covers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 38: Cover, “Top Value Stamps, Family Gift Catalogue,”1967

Rockwell: Portraying America’s Youth

Norman Rockwell focused on the phenomenon of American boyhood throughout his long-term association with Brown & Bigelow, the Minnesota-based publisher261 of the Boy Scout calendar

beginning in 1923.262 Up until World War II, calendars were a popular outlet for illustration art

displayed in homes and offices, although the Scout calendar retained its appeal into the

1950s.263 Brown & Bigelow published thematic calendars for purposes of co-branding by

260 Letter from Ben Ordover to G.G. Priestley, July 11, 1966, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools, incoming outgoing corresp. 1966). 261 Brown & Bigelow was founded in 1896 and still operates as a developer and distributor of promotional products. http://www.brownandbigelow.com/ (Accessed February 25, 2108). 262 Marling, Norman Rockwell, 18. 263 Rockwell also worked on another calendar series known as the Four Seasons in collaboration with Brown & Bigelow, a series he created over a period of 17 years. The income garnered from this engagement varied depending on the year and other market conditions. Letter to Norman Rockwell from Clair V. Fry, Art Director, Brown & Bigelow, September 8, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow 1953). By 1967, Brown & Bigleow renegotiated the royalty for all of the usages of the Four Seasons images from the 2.5% level to the 5% level, an arrangement they believed would benefit Rockwell financially, while simultaneously would executed in a manner that would not “detract from the work or image of Norman Rockwell.” Letter to Norman Rockwell from Clair V. Fry, April 5, 1967. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow 1971).

99 encouraging businesses to pair their logos and stories with inspiring Boy Scout imagery. The

marketing language from the Brown & Bigelow 1953 annual report notes:

Calendars are the foundation of Brown & Bigelow success. They are a universal necessity in daily life. Designed for home and business use, they meet every need and preference. They are recognized and accepted by business men as a powerful medium for keeping their advertising message before present and potential customers every day of the year.264

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 39: Boy Scout Calendar, “Our Heritage,” 1950

Norman Rockwell was permitted an extra degree of freedom in the creation of his artwork for

calendars. His Boy Scout images conveyed a sense of idealism and hope, especially when the

young scout was paired with prominent historical figures in the background.265 The example

pictured here is “Our Heritage” featuring George Washington in the background, an image

designed to connect to the 1950 Scout jamboree held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania where

Washington and his troops weathered the harsh winter of 1777-78.266 The image depicts an

older Boy Scout looking up to George Washington at the same time he nurtures a Cub Scout

264 Remembrance Advertising: 57th Annual Report for the year ended January 11, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow 1953). 265 Marling, Norman Rockwell, 20. 266 William Hillcourt, Norman Rockwell’s World of Scouting (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977), 144-45.

100 consulting his scouting manual. The Brown & Bigelow 1953 annual report describes and

illustrates the production process for a calendar:

Norman Rockwell, recognized as a truly great artist of our time, has illustrated this calendar for a quarter century. He first submits a sketch of his suggested Boy Scout painting for approval of our Creative Division and Boy Scout officials. After the sketch has been approved, it is returned to Rockwell. He then makes a finished painting and sends it to us.267

Rockwell and the Brown & Bigelow team invested a great deal of study and deliberation into

the design of calendar illustrations. In the summer of 1953, Rockwell and Clair Fry, art director

for Brown & Bigelow, travelled to Camp Philmont in Cimarron, New Mexico to photograph and

study scouting activities for purposes of generating ideas for future illustrations. Fry wrote to

the head of Boy Scouts of America, Dr. Arthur Schuck, asking how the visit should be structured:

The purpose of this trip is to absorb everything that would be of importance in creating future Scout Subjects. Would it be more important to attend the meetings, or would it be better to go directly to the Jamboree and spend our time there taking pictures and watching the activities for ideas? Of course, we will be very glad to follow any suggestions you have on this matter.268

The trip to New Mexico took place in July of 1953 and upon his return, Fry reported back to

Brown & Bigelow that the trip was a success and that Rockwell was able to collect “fine

material…for future Boy Scout calendars.” In writing to Rockwell as follow-up, Stan W.

Rindfleish, Vice President of the Creative Department, acknowledged that Rockwell’s statement

that “for a few years painting of Boy Scout calendars will be a pleasure rather than a job.”269

As Rockwell followed up on the trip to New Mexico, he created the image known as the

Scoutmaster. Brown & Bigelow was not the only advisor to Rockwell on the elements of Boy

267 Remembrance Advertising: 57th Annual Report, 1953. 268 Letter from Clair V. Fry to Dr. Arthur Schuck, June 5, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, corresp. 1953). 269 Letter from Stan W. Rindfleisch to Norman Rockwell, July 30, 1953 (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, corresp. 1953).

101 Scout images. Boy Scouts of America was also instrumental in commenting on the details of

how Rockwell depicted scouting in the Scoutmaster. In November of 1953, Boy Scouts of

America reached out to Rockwell to counsel him on the style of tents, safety concerns about scraps of paper near the fire, and the neatness of the knotted rope as not representative of scouts in training. The image captures the moment of peace and reflection when the

Scoutmaster is able to enjoy the quiet of the night after the scouts have gone to sleep in their tents, the fire glows, and the stars illuminate the night sky. Overall, Lex Lucas, Director of

Editorial Service, Boy Scouts of America, thought that the image was “a wonderful picture, breathing the spirit and feeling of the adult in Scouting. We know it will make a lot of men proud of being associated with the Movement.”270

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 40: Boy Scout Calendar, “Scoutmaster,” 1953

Rockwell ads also focused on the American boyhood phenomenon of the Soap Box Derby. From

the 1930s to the 1970s, General Motors, including its Chevrolet division, served as national

270 Letter from Lex R. Lucas, Boy Scouts of America to Norman Rockwell, November 9, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, corresp. 1953).

102 sponsors of the Soap Box Derby overtly connecting the yearly races to its public relations

campaign aimed at protecting America’s economic system. In one prominent slogan used in

1936, General Motors desired to inspire the dedication of young men to the free enterprise

system, crowing “It’s the Soap Box Derby against the soap-box orators.”271

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Left – Figure 41: Advertisement, Norman Rockwell, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1953 Right – Figure 42: Advertisement, Unknown artist, Boy’s Life, 1943

This Rockwell advertisement for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company appeared in

The Saturday Evening Post on September 12, 1953. The advertising manager for Massachusetts

Mutual wrote the following to Rockwell:

We immediately began receiving letters from boys and adults asking for plans for use in building Soap Box racers. We are writing to each boy telling him how to get these plans. The advertising manager of Chevrolet, sponsors of the Soap Box Derby, wired us for permission to reproduce our ad in its entirety for distribution

271 Wall, Inventing the “American Way”: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement, 51.

103 to their dealers throughout the United States and to their wholesale organization. We were delighted to grant this permission.272

Time and again Rockwell images became the platform from which advertisers promoted

American values.

Rockwell Reflects America

Norman Rockwell entered the field of illustration at a time when there were many new forces at play in print technology, advertising science, consumerism, and consumer science. All of these factors influenced the content of the images he created. Rockwell believed in the free enterprise system and was influenced by prevailing consumer trends. Through the advertisements he created, he simultaneously exercised significant influence over the direction of American life and values. From his modest studios in rural Vermont and Massachusetts, his perspectives reached into the heart of America tracking the distribution channels of the major publications for which he worked. Despite the fact that advertising illustration content was largely controlled by his clients, he managed to insert his distinct storytelling talents and perspectives into his advertising images. Rockwell became a major player in the alliance among advertisers, manufacturers, and magazine publishers to market the Dream to American families.

272 Letter from Seneca M. Gamble to Norman Rockwell, September 17, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, corresp. 1953).

104 The next chapter will explore Rockwell’s relationship with Famous Artists Schools, an important thread in his career that connected illustration art with advertising, consumerism, the rise of leisure, and the ultimately, the American Dream.

105

Chapter Three - Rockwell’s Image: Promoting Art Instruction & the American Dream

The growth of leisure time had multiple ramifications for Norman Rockwell including the

subjects he depicted for The Saturday Evening Post and the long relationship he enjoyed with

Famous Artists Schools, an enterprise that capitalized upon expanded free time for Americans.

FAS represented an entrepreneurial endeavor that aggressively promoted itself through magazine ads and television commercials. The messaging often focused on the potential for well-trained illustrators to achieve the American Dream through the development of specialized professional qualifications. In addition, once FAS established its expanded corporate presence, its sales force was recruited and motivated based on the promise of the American Dream.

Americans Pursue Art Instruction

Famous Artists Schools, established in 1948, came about in the aftermath of the Federal Art

Project’s Community Art Center Program, a program designed as a means to “get people all

over the United States interested in art as an everyday part of living and working.”273 The

program funded art classes at more than 400 community centers across the nation for children

and adults and began a movement that encouraged ordinary people to learn to express

themselves through art. In the late 1940s, Rockwell was invited to join the faculty of the

Famous Artists Schools, a correspondence training program for aspiring commercial artists. FAS

developed into an international enterprise and an advertising machine, promoting the

successful careers of the faculty including Rockwell, in order to recruit students. Rockwell had

273 Saab, For the Millions, 54.

106 come of age during the rise of consumerism and dramatic growth in the advertising field.

Consequently, his imagery often incorporated consumerism as a theme. Given his familiarity with the world of advertising, he made peace with the exploitation of his image to build the reputation of FAS. At the same time FAS optimized the star power of Rockwell’s reputation,

FAS provided him with needed structure for his business life, a regular salary and benefits, guidance on work-life balance, and additional commission opportunities. For Rockwell, FAS served as an education in big business274 and its attractive perquisites. FAS and Rockwell together capitalized on the expansion of leisure time in the U.S. and cleverly incorporated this phenomenon as an advertising ploy to attract students. Explored through the lens of changing labor standards, more abundant leisure time inspired people to experiment with artistic creation through televised art lessons and prepackaged paint-by-number canvases that guided fledgling artists as they filled in patches of color.275

The Famous Artists Schools was the brainchild of members of New-York based Society of

Illustrators, where Rockwell was among the membership. In 1948, artist-illustrator Albert

Dorne established FAS as a correspondence school for aspiring commercial artists to learn the

trade through structured lessons and the guidance of twelve well-known artists276 including

Rockwell. Originally known in New York as the Institute of Commercial Art,277 the school

274 In 1955, FAS voted Rockwell onto its Board of Directors to represent the rest of the faculty. (Al Dorne to Norman Rockwell, January 3, 1955, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1955). 275 Marling, As Seen on TV, 62. 276 The other artists initially engaged included John Atherton, Austin Briggs, Steven Dohanas, Al Dorne, Robert Fawcett, Peter Helck, Fred Ludekens, Al Parker, Ben Stahl, Harold von Schmidt, and Jon Whitcomb. 277 The name changed to Famous Artists Schools in 1951.

107 relocated to Westport, Connecticut close to the homes of many of the instructors. In reality,

Rockwell, as a prolific illustrator, was the most renowned among the twelve famous artists.278

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figures 43-44: Famous Artists Schools materials and sample lesson

The twelve artists including Rockwell composed textual material and created step-by-step

illustrations to instruct enrolled students from a distance.279 These artists reviewed the

assignments of students from across the country280 and eventually even around the world, providing critical feedback dictated into a tape recorder for transcription at FAS headquarters

into letters of critique.281 The faculty also utilized tracing paper as a means to convey advice on

ways to improve artistic technique and composition. Rockwell described what he wanted

278 Solomon, American Mirror, 243. 279 Rockwell’s composition of teaching materials served as the basis for the book Rockwell on Rockwell (1979), an adaptation of the materials he created for How I Make A Picture, published in the late 1940’s to instruct advanced students studying with the Famous Artists Schools. 280 Some famous personalities became students of FAS including Dinah Shore, Charlton Heston, Tony Curtis, and Pat Boone. Randy Kennedy, “The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School,” The New York Times, March 20, 2014, accessed May 1, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/arts/design/famous-artists-school-archives-go-to- norman-rockwell-museum.html. 281 Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weil, Investment Bankers, Famous Artists Schools, Inc., October 1961, 4. Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, Norman Rockwell Museum Archives, Stockbridge, MA. FAS found a way to capture commentary on the most common mistakes students made in the early lessons. The artist faculty selected numbered paragraphs and auto-typewriters created the letters thereby reducing the per letter costs. Carter et al., 4.

108 students to have at the end of the course: “You probably will have added to your portfolio of

picture samples which should be useful to show to prospective clients in advancing your

position as a commercial artist.”282 The idea was to address the needs of the most talented

illustrators through more advanced postgraduate-level studies.283

Initially, students signed up for their artist of choice, but after 90% of enrollees requested

Rockwell as their instructor, the school restructured the curriculum so that each student had one lesson with each teacher.284 The students who actually enrolled in the course were less

accomplished than originally anticipated and consequently, by 1953 the twelve famous artists

operated in the background getting together a couple times each year to mentor a team of less

well-known artists who provided the feedback to students. In reality, of the thousands of

students285 who enrolled in FAS correspondence courses, only a handful ever experienced great

success as illustration artists.286 In fact, the business model for the school counted on a certain

percentage of students dropping out before they ever completed the assignments, lessening

the burden on the teaching staff. The business model also capitalized on the notion of the

productive use of free time.

282 Rockwell, Rockwell on Rockwell, 17. 283 Claridge, Norman Rockwell: A Life, 362. 284 Ibid., 363. 285 At the height of its popularity, FAS had an enrollment that topped 40,000 students. The cost in the 1950’s was around $300 per student, plus $11.95 for art supplies. In 1961, tuition to the school was $418, payable in monthly installments, with opportunities for financing available at various banks across the country. The cash flow from the initial line of business allowed the school to expand its offerings to include courses in cartooning, photography, and writing. Kennedy, “The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School.” 286 Elwood H. Smith (born 1941) is an exception to this rule. He was operating a milling machine in a factory in Michigan, but dreamed of being a cartoonist. He signed up for the course, but never completed all of the lessons. Smith still struck out on his own and became a successful illustrator and cartoonist. He still has the drawing table FAS gave him as a reward for recruiting another student. Kennedy, “The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School.”

109

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figures 45-46: Rockwell’s image in FAS promotional materials

The Cultural Context

FAS positioned its business proposition around the recognition that Americans could use their

free time constructively through the acquisition of new skills and preparation for career

possibilities. In The March of Spare Time, Susan Currell explores the numerous ramifications of the machine age along with the resultant increase in leisure time that confronted Americans during the Depression including the government’s focus on social engineering efforts to control leisure as a tool to revive the economy.287 During the Depression, concerns over the impact of

leisure transformed the idea of spare time into a political issue and an area of serious study for scientists, doctors, educators, and sociologists who expressed the opinion that “although leisure was the problem, it was also to become the solution.”288 In illustrating the Janus-faced

287 Susan Currell, The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great Depression (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 2. 288 Ibid., 29-30.

110 nature of leisure time, Currell describes the government’s promotion of consumerism by

women as a way for the nation to spend its way out of the Depression, yet contemporary

writers such as Walter Pitkin characterized women as “the silliest of spenders” and questioned

whether they were fit to handle the mathematics of proper budgeting.289 Currell also connects

a heightened concern about unhealthy recreational activities and increased promotion of

physical fitness as a means not only to achieve better health and quality of life, but also in a

eugenic sense as a means to promote marriage and procreation among the physically fit.

As economic expansion paused during the Great Depression in the 1930s, artistic creation and

visual culture found new outlets. During the Depression years, the federal government viewed

artistic creation as a means to keep citizens occupied in productive ways, often softening the

distinctions between work and leisure.290 Similar to the turn of the century reaction explored in

No Land of Grace, the Works Progress Administration promoted art and folk culture as a

“manifestation of nostalgia for the preindustrial world” and a way to reinvigorate the American

worker with “dignity, humanity, and virility.”291

Hobbies blurred the line between work and leisure in interesting ways. Steven Gelber characterized the nature of hobbies as “a contradiction; they take work and turn it into leisure, and take leisure and turn it into work.” Gelber continued noting that “hobbies occupy the borderland that is beyond play but not yet employment. More than any other form of recreational activity, hobbies challenge the easy bifurcation of life’s activities into work and

289 Ibid., 111-112. 290 Ibid., 65. 291 Ibid., 57-58.

111 leisure.”292 While many FAS students may have enrolled in order to build a new professional

competency, many pursued the FAS course in order to develop a hobby and secure personal

and creative fulfillment. As Gelber observes, “Hobbies became a widely promoted form of

leisure for children and adults because they are different from everyday work, yet confirm its

importance. As leisure, hobbies are voluntarily undertaken pleasurable activities.”293 Yet the age of consumerism invaded the realm of hobbies as business, including FAS, seeking ways to make money and perhaps even at times exploit hobbyists.294 Gelber points out that “[h]obbies were not a recognized pastime until industrialism and commercialism separated production from the household and made the family a unit of consumption.”295 Hobbies became a way of

blending industrialism and domesticity in the home bridging “the gap between home and

workplace that had been opened by the Industrial Revolution.”296

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figure 47: “Sport,” Saturday Evening Post, April 29, 1939

Figure 48: “Beach Scene,” Saturday Evening Post, July 13, 1940

292 Steven M. Gelber, Hobbies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 23. 293 Ibid., 295. 294 Ibid., 299. 295 Ibid. 296 Ibid.

112

Rockwell’s imagery created for Post cover art in the 1930s and 1940s often captured the theme of Americans pursuing leisure activities. In his traditional narrative style, each image represents a snapshot of the story, leaving the reader to fill in myriad details about the circumstances surrounding the scene. Rockwell seems to almost mock Americans’ dedication leisure activities in several images—the fisherman in the rain adrift in a seemingly too small boat with no oars, and the boy lost at a crowded beach evoking a hot summer day amidst a sea of umbrellas. In his iconic image of “The Outing” Rockwell uses a narrative tradition derived from the predellas of Renaissance altarpieces297 that used multiple panels to tell a story, in this case, the coming and going of an extended family from an outing at a Vermont lake.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 49: “The Outing,” Saturday Evening Post, August 30, 1947

297 Nolan, Keepers of the Flame, 35.

113 The FAS Strategy

The FAS business proposition incorporated the notion of hobbyist, but was more multifaceted

in its goals. One of the reasons Dorne298 and his team of artists developed the idea of FAS in the

post-war era was as an opportunity for returning veterans to gain skills and earn a living. Home

study courses also appealed to dreamers who wanted to change careers, make more money, or

reinvent their image.299 FAS students were part of a generation that relished leisure time

gained from the time-saving appliances now standard equipment in the homes constructed during the suburban housing boom that swept the nation after World War II.300

Famous Artists Schools also took advantage of the post-war consumer frenzy, fueled by the

advertisements carefully crafted by Madison Avenue to entice consumers to part with their

money.301 The magazine industry became a critical messenger of the rise of the

consumerism—flashy ads enhanced by illustration art introduced consumers to the latest

298 Al Dorne (1906-1965) is known for his career as an illustration artist and entrepreneur. He was born in New York East Side tenements and suffered health problems of tuberculosis and heart ailments as a child. He apprenticed with several New York illustrators and became a high-paid illustrator in the advertising industry. Compared to Rockwell’s reputation as a down-to-earth New Englander, Dorne was a fast-living and ostentatious playboy. Solomon, American Mirror, 244. 299 In 1961, FAS recorded enrolled students from 54 countries. About 10% of students considered themselves to be professional artists seeking to improve their skills. Many students were art educators training to enhance their teaching qualifications. Carter et al., Famous Artists Schools, Inc., 5. 300 Marling, As Seen on TV, 51-52. Leisure time became “an intense object of interest, concern, and surveillance by national policy makers, experts, and intellectuals alike in the 1930s.” Currell, The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure, 3. Currell also points to the introduction of machines to do once time-consuming work, leaving more time to pursue leisure and creative activities. 301 McGovern, Sold American: Consumption and Consumerism 1890-1945, 352. McGovern’s main thesis is that American culture is firmly based on the practices of consumerism directly connected to identity, self worth, and a healthy economy. The tentacles of consumption have had far reaching impact on pivotal aspects of society including the women's movement, traditional male-female roles, and the kaleidoscope of style and culture trends that have turned the heads of consumers over the decades. McGovern demonstrates how the advertising profession perpetrated ongoing campaigns that ingeniously connected mass consumption to American patriotism and citizenship.

114 inventions, commodities, and styles they should covet.302 FAS brilliantly exploited all of these

trends through the design and marketing of the course and through its persistent advertising

campaign. Publishers commissioned the images featured in these magazines from the ranks of

illustrators who churned out art at a rapid pace to satisfy the growing demand. FAS capitalized

on the demand for professionally trained artists who could satisfy the insatiable need of the

magazine industry for original art to illustrate stories and advertisements.303 The Rockwell

Center for American Visual Studies notes that:

Technological, social and economic developments spurred hundreds of publishing companies to emerge to produce a vast array of printed materials. … The outlets for artists were vast and lucrative. In fact, there were more opportunities than there were artists, and editors and publishers competed for the limited supply of fine illustrators available to them.304

FAS came into being during the time when the magazine industry was at its zenith and lavish

illustrations for stories and advertisements filled the pages with visual imagery that captivated

readers.305

The FAS advertisements aimed at attracting would-be illustrators appeared in all types of

publications (women’s magazines, comic books, media guides, specialty magazines, and Sunday

302 Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 104. While the immediate post-war years were characterized by simple pleasures—one speed bikes, one-telephone homes, basic kitchen amenities, and modest vacations—the next fifteen years saw the explosion of consumerism. Americans began to fill their homes with televisions, clothing fabrics of modern fibers, washers, dryers, stereos, toys, plastics and frozen foods, leading to the “highest standard of living in the history of the world.” Horowitz, The Anxieties of Affluence, 50. 303 In a television advertisement for Famous Artists Schools entitled “Money Making Art Careers,” the speaker states “All over America, the demand for trained artists is growing. Never before have there been so many job opportunities and such a lack of professionally trained artists. That is why ad agencies and magazine art directors asked America’s twelve most famous artists to embark upon a program to train thousands of alert Americans for these high paying jobs.” Commercial (undated), NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Collection. 304 Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies Business Plan (2008), 20. 305 Gradually, photography began to dominate the magazine industry as the principal way to convey a story through imagery. In addition, visual culture moved away from a focus on the realism characteristic of illustration art to the world of Abstract Expressionism. Kennedy, “The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School.”

115 supplements). Most of these ads directly referenced and often featured Norman Rockwell, leveraging his stardom as a powerful marketing tool. Applicants filled out a small coupon featured in the ad with name and address and mailed it to FAS. Each coupon included a code so that FAS could track the effectiveness of the various advertising vehicles. Prospective

students subsequently took a talent test, (although applicants did not normally “fail” the talent

test).

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 50: FAS applicants took a talent test

Subsequently, an FAS salesperson showed up at the applicant’s door with a fat binder

promoting the course and its long range benefits.306 FAS enlisted the support of a nationwide

sales force to follow leads and close the loop on enrollments. The FAS Sales Promotion

Department unified its team of FAS sales people (known as Famous Artists Schools Enrollment

Service) through publication of the Sales and Tales newsletter that shared motivational stories

and touted the records of star sales people.307 Among the stories captured in Sales and Tales

306 The ranks of the FAS staff swelled over the years to more than 1,500 employees stationed both at the sprawling Connecticut headquarters and out in the field as the faculty and on-the-ground team of salespeople. 307 Editors, “Can You Put Yourself in This Picture?” Sales and Tales, Vol. 9, No. 2, February 1965, 4, 7.

116 are articles that promote the benefits of a sales career with FAS including the opportunity to

earn a healthy living and afford the emblems of the American Dream.

The text for the Sales and Tales story “The Man Who Wants Things” is a motivational piece that asks the

representatives the question: “What is the difference between the man who earns big commissions

consistently and the man who just squeaks by?” The response to this probing question: “The answer is

desire. One man wants to earn big money. He wants the best for himself and his family. He wants a

beautiful home and a new car. He’s not satisfied with anything less….The other man? He’s satisfied with

a crowded apartment and a dented jalopy.”308 The illustration to this motivational article shows a father admiring his life of abundance—a ranch home, a wife returning from the store, two children, a dog, a boat, and two cars in the garage.

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figures 51-52: Sales and Tales, 1960s309

The business and marketing model for FAS was not unique in the post-war era. Robert

Hutchins (1899-1977) was an educational philosopher who believed that the main purpose of

308 The text for the story “The Man Who Wants Things” appears as a motivational piece from an undated loose page of Sales and Tales (private collection of John Lawn). 309 Sales and Tales, (publication for FAS representatives), vol. 9, no. 2, Feb. 1965. From the private collection of John Lawn. The text for the story “The Man Who Wants Things” is a motivational piece.

117 education to achieve freedom and that leisure time should be devoted to higher pursuits that

expressed this sense of freedom. At the conclusion of his controversial tenure as president of

the University of Chicago, Hutchins310 helped to establish the Great Books Foundation311 incorporating the great books classes from the university. He believed that Americans would inevitably become bored with mundane forms of entertainment and seek elevated ways to spend their free time. Hutchins ardently promoted intellectual pursuits as his vision of the

American Dream and as a meaningful way to fight boredom. In his writings, Hutchins stated:

If Aristotle was correct in saying that all men by nature desire to know then we will assume that the ball game, the television set, and the beer can will eventually cease to convey the full meaning of the American Dream. For the first time in human history, I say, we are all going to have the chance to lead human lives, to make the most of ourselves, and to make the most of our communities, too. Man is distinguished from the brute creation by his mind. Human communities are distinguished from those of gregarious animals, like wolves and bees, by their deliberate pursuit of the common good.312

In 1947, the Encyclopedia Britannica, an enterprise owned by the University Of Chicago,

announced that it would commence publication of a Great Books series (Great Books of the

Western World) which first appeared on the market in 1952. Accompanying the 54-volume set

were an essay by Hutchins on “The Great Conversation” and the Synopticon, an index of

questions and ideas aimed at sparking discussion among the groups that formed to explore the

310 Hunnicutt, Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream, 132. He served as president of University of Chicago from 1929 to 1945, and subsequently as chancellor until 1951. Throughout his long career in education, he promoted great works of literature as a primary teaching tool and a means to develop the intellect thereby creating a responsible citizenry and not merely a skilled populace for the service of industry. He believed strongly in the importance of adult education and he even attempted to transform the University of Chicago into a forum for adult education. His theories met with resistance from faculty during his time as university president. Hunnicutt, 139. In 1953, Hutchins published The University of Utopia, explicating his theories on the core values of a liberal arts education in achieving the American Dream. Hutchins criticized the entrepreneurs who capitalized on the predilections of Americans to consume free time with “empty amusements.” Ibid., 126. 311 Hutchins established Great Books Foundation at the University of Chicago to take on the publication of the Great Books series beginning in 1947. In 1943, Sears Roebuck had donated the Encyclopedia Britannica to the University of Chicago, which ran the enterprise as a subsidiary. 312 Ibid., 140.

118 books together.313 Hutchins’ colleague in adult education, Mortimer Adler, created the

Synopticon as a way to ask “perennial questions about the human condition, not because they

provided the right answers.”314 Adler’s image is featured in a magazine advertisement from

1963 for the Great Books series posturing “A college education does not make an educated

man.” Another Great Books advertisement quoted American diplomat Adlai Stevenson (1900-

1965) promoting the series as means “…to achieve conviction and a point of view in troubled

times.”

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figures 53-54: Great Books of the Western World advertisements, 1960s

FAS and Great Books of the Western World developed on a remarkably similar timeline each becoming a popular and productive way to utilize leisure time. The New York Times reported in

1959 that across the U.S. 2,200 groups were convening to discuss the Great Books including

35,000 participants. By 1962, 153,000 sets had been sold.315 The manner of marketing Great

Books mirrored FAS techniques, both utilizing magazine ads and eventually a team of door-to-

313 Ibid., 141-42. 314 Ibid., 141. 315 Ibid., 142.

119 door salespeople to promote the products. For the Great Books, the sales force was trained to press the point of Hutchins’ vision for adult education—“the only expense to the customer

would be the books—the community, and leisure, would do the rest.”316 In their joint writing,

Great Ideas Today: Work, Wealth, and Leisure, Hutchins and Adler discussed Henry David

Thoreau’s Walden, noting that “wealth can become…an obstacle to the pursuit of happiness. It

does so when it interferes with leisure.”317 In FAS marketing, the potential for leisure and

wealth creation formed the basis for the promotion of the educational package.

Famous Artists Schools Promote Wealth Generation

The Famous Artists Schools heightened Rockwell’s burgeoning reputation by staging a multi-

faceted national advertising campaign that included television and magazine advertisements

promoting the talents and the skills of the twelve artists. In 1952, FAS began publishing the

quarterly Famous Artists Magazine, distributed free to students, art schools, art supply stores,

art buyers, art directors, and ad agencies across the country as a means of promoting the correspondence courses.318 An ad that appeared in Look in 1959 promoted the program with this statement:

This offer is part of a program we began ten years ago. We found that many men and women who could have become artists—and who should have become artists—never did. Most of them were unsure of their talent and had no way of finding out whether it was worth developing. Others who were convinced they had talent simply couldn’t get top notch professional art training without leaving home or giving up their jobs…We decided to do something about this.319

316 Ibid. 317 Ibid., 147. 318 Albert Dorne to Norman Rockwell, September 10, 1952, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1952). 319 Anonymous, “We’re Looking for People who Like to Draw,” Look, September 15, 1959, 3.

120 The ads sometimes promoted a “poverty to wealth” angle on the twelve famous artists—They

Drew their way from “Rags to Riches”—Now they’re helping others do the same. This ad

continued by stating that “Al Dorne was a kid of the slums who loved to draw. He never got

past the seventh grade…Dorne’s “rags-to-riches” story is not unique. Norman Rockwell left

school when he was 15.”320 Dorne epitomized the American Dream life journey. This

democratizing profile of FAS appealed to Rockwell’s down to earth style as—a new method of

teaching most often available in cities, but now through correspondence, offered to students in

small towns across the country.321 Famous Artists Schools took its advertising campaigns quite seriously testing the conversion rates from various types of ads. In 1951, management reported to the faculty that while an ad featuring a Ben Shahn drawing brought in the most inquiries, it was the personality series that brought in the most students, apparently attracted by the “testimonials of those who actually run the school.”322 Famous Artists Schools’

management knew that it was not teaching its students the techniques of creating abstract art;

its lessons focused on traditional, realistic, figural art for which “tricks of the trade” could be

conveyed by the famous artists.

320 Anonymous, “They Drew their way from ‘Rags to Riches’—Now they’re helping others do the same.” Saturday Evening Post, December 22-29, 1962, 5. 321 Claridge, Norman Rockwell: A Life, 363. 322 Minutes, FAS Faculty Meeting, June 9, 1951, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1951).

121

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustrations

Figures 55-56: Magazine ads for FAS

Dorne became a marketing pro and served as an ambassador for the illustrators’ profession. He

traveled the country and engaged in an aggressive campaign to promote FAS in cities distant

from New York. In October of 1948, Dorne spoke in Nashville, Tennessee where he stated:

American art schools, with some outstanding exceptions, are simply not teaching the kind of art that 95 out of 100 students are studying for—the kind that will make a good living….Yet there is a market for well-paid services of such art graduates, not only in New York and Chicago, but in cities of the size of Nashville and others in the South….In New York, he said, earnings of $10,000 to $20,000 are quite common.323

Dorne proved to be a staunch defender of the illustrators’ profession, invoking the perceived

dichotomy between high and low art when he stated: “I understand there is a fine line drawn

here between what are considered two kinds of art—fine art and commercial art. In fact there

are two kinds of art: good art and bad art. That is the only difference.”324 While Rockwell was

323 Ross Fitzgerald, “Albert Dorne Deplores Art Education Failures,” The Nashville Tennessean, October 26, 1948. NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1948. 324 Claridge, Norman Rockwell: A Life, 363. Dorne’s statement on high and low art speaks to the practice of connoisseurship. Patricia Johnston, “Introduction: A Critical Overview of Visual Culture Studies” in Seeing High & Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture ed. Patricia Johnston (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 1-24.

122 firmly and happily operating in the commercial art world, other artists working primarily in the

realm of fine art sometimes crossed over. In the 1940s and 1950s, the distinction between fine

art and commercial art became blurred when Regionalist artists like Thomas Hart Benton

agreed to create ads for magazines. American Tobacco Company, for example, commissioned

well known artists like Benton to depict the tobacco industry in a positive light—each image

appeared with the heading “[o]ne of a series of paintings of the tobacco industry by America’s

foremost artists.” Benton rationalized these commissions based on his view that working for

corporate America was not that much different than working for the government, referencing

the murals he had created during the Depression for the Works Progress Administration

(WPA).325

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 57: “Outside the Curing Barn,” Thomas Hart Benton, 1942.

325 Marling, Norman Rockwell, 114-15.

123 The New Deal Works Progress Administration also played a pivotal role in connecting the arts to

leisure and recreation. In her book, The March of Spare Time, Susan Currell, describes this

connection as follows:

[T]he [Federal Writers Project] FWP epitomized the marriage of sociological and creative efforts toward proper use of leisure….In fact, the reinvigoration of the cultural producer involved him or her in the new use of leisure for positive or productive purposes. As such, federal arts projects like the FWP were seen as having a double use—while amusing the unemployed and employing unemployable artists and writers, the artists themselves acted as community educators and social workers. In keeping with the leadership goals of recreation reformers, writers and artists also became community and recreation leaders.326

FAS followed in the tradition of the WPA by deliberately marrying the profile of art instruction

with the healthy appeal of leisure time.

Famous Artists Schools had a large advertising budget and was keenly aware of the role of

creative activities and trends in the market. In the 1950s, FAS began to seek hobbyists who

had dabbled in painting through amateur painting pursuits and the popular “paint-by-numbers”

craze.327 Starting in 1951, Craft Master painting kits became the rage and in just two years, the

company had sold $10 million worth of “paint-by-numbers” sets to people of all sorts with time

to kill—bankers, pilots, housewives, nurses, and cab drivers—as captured in a customer survey.328

326 Currell, The March of Spare Time, 90-91. 327 Marling, As Seen on TV, 73. 328 Ibid., 2.

124

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 58: Craft Master New Artists Series Kit

Rockwell drew the line, however, when in 1971 Craft Master approached him with the idea of

translating one of his images into a paint-by-number set. Rockwell’s lawyer, Arthur Abelman,

responded that the artist was not interested in this opportunity denying “permission to

interpret your art into paint by number sets.”329 The letter continued:

In preparing our presentation for Mr. Abelman, we worked up a paint by number set inspired by one of your paintings. We feel you should have this sample set and finished picture. The picture we are sending was painted by a woman who is a paint by number enthusiast. People who do paint by number derive great satisfaction while working on the pictures. You might want to give this kit to a friend or someone in your family who is not an artist, but would like to do a paint by number picture.330

Rockwell expressed great indignation to Brown & Bigelow, the holder of the copyright on the images, stating:

Here’s the works. I am furious particularly when you read their letter admitting they had heard from my lawyer Abelman I would not cooperate. I’m writing their Mr. Engel and so is Abelman restating my dislike and refusal.331

Paul Kinneberg, counsel for Brown & Bigelow, responded:

329 Letter from Bob Engel to Norman Rockwell, December 30, 1971, (NRM Archives, Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1971-1972). 330 Ibid. 331 Letter from Norman Rockwell to Maurice, undated, (NRM Archives, Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1971- 1972).

125 Brown & Bigelow is the copyright proprietor of this subject. We hereby demand that you immediately cease and desist from further manufacture or sale of any and all reproductions in any form whatsoever, including the paint by number subject described in your letter to Mr. Rockwell dated December 30, 1971. We also hereby demand an accounting for all prior sales of reproductions of said subject.332

Thus ended Rockwell’s dispute with Craft Master while FAS continued its aggressive

promotional campaigns.

Famous Artists Schools explicitly tapped into the public’s newfound excitement about creative

avocations. FAS advertised in Coronet magazine in 1954 through a special feature entitled “You

Can Be an Amateur Painter.” In the preface to text drawing from the FAS course materials, the

article states “Nowadays, people everywhere are turning to painting as a relaxing pastime.

Why has the hobby become so popular with so many people? What worthwhile rewards does it

offer to men and women—young and old, active and retired, famous and unknown?”333

Similarly, a Redbook FAS advertisement in 1967 appealed to its female readers: “We’re looking

for women with an eye for beauty—and an urge to ‘do something creative.’ Are you the kind of

woman who likes beautiful things?...Then it’s possible you were meant to be an artist. For art

talent and an eye for beauty often go hand in hand.”334

Famous Artists Schools also used the medium of television and paid advertisements as a means

to advertise their training program. FAS produced several movies about home study art

courses and always followed the airing of these programs with paid advertisements. In one

332 Letter from Paul W. Kinnenberg to President, Craft Master Corporation, January 18, 1972, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools, Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1971-1972). 333 Editors, “You Can Be an Amateur Painter,” Coronet, March 1954, 81. (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1954). 334 Lorraine Fox, “We’re looking for women with an eye for beauty—and an urge to ‘do something creative.’” Redbook, August 1967, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists School Correspondence, 1967).

126 such advertisement titled “Draw Your Way to Fame,” the speaker prefaces his interview with

Albert Dorne with following promotional statement:

Say, did you ever notice that the people who get the most fun out of life are the ones with a hobby—and the hobby that is most popular with people from all walks of life is art. If you like to draw, the Famous Artists Course and home study art training was created just for you. Well, this is a hobby that pays off in satisfaction or as a money making career. You do it all at home in your spare time.335

Public recognition of the trend in America to pursue art as a relaxing pastime appeared in the

Congressional Record for the 89th Congress (1965-67) under the heading of “The brush and

palette as a hobby.” Senator John Tower from Texas addressing President Lyndon Johnson

stated:

Art is important in our American way of life and I am delighted to know that a large number of our citizens find relaxation, express themselves, and delight others by engaging in painting. In my office there is impressive evidence that such an outlet and diversion can be mutually rewarding. I am privileged to have on the walls of my reception room an exhibit encompassing the excellent works of 15 Texas housewives from all walks of life who have taken up the brush and the palette as a hobby. Through the assistance given them by Famous Artists Schools of Westport, Conn., these women are enjoying both material and spiritual reward. This group of housewife-artist residents of Texas has depicted striking scenes from their environment or travels, translated reactions to still life settings, and personified individuals through talents at their easels. Much of their inspiration and guidance came from Fletcher Martin, himself an internationally respected artist and faculty member of the Famous Artists Schools.336

Famous Artists Schools capitalized on this public recognition of the school by using a reprint of

the statement as “powerful ammunition for the prospective student. Naturally, the salesmen

love it, and now the advertising department has adopted it as a mail fulfillment. It really

335 “Draw Your Way to Fame,” Television Commercial (undated), (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools). 336 “The brush and palette as a hobby,” Congressional Record, 89th Congress, Second Session, 1966. The “Painting for Pleasure” exhibition became a long running tradition in Senate offices.

127 communicates.”337 Famous Artists Schools had the institutional capacity and the business savvy

to tap into the needs and wants of consumers reaching a vast audience across the nation to

enroll students and ignite their ambitions.

Famous Artists Schools as Framework for Rockwell’s Career

Famous Artists Schools offered Rockwell a financial structure for managing his life—regular

compensation, FAS stock, long-term contractual engagements, health benefits, life insurance,

and more. Navigating all of these corporate perquisites involved the artist in negotiations, legal

controversies, self-advocacy, board service, and financial statement analysis. While Rockwell’s

freelance career is commonly understood as his main livelihood, the business framework of FAS

had a huge influence on the artist’s life and finances, in both positive and negative ways. FAS

provided Rockwell with more than twenty five years of income,338 consistent financial

structure, and a professional network of colleagues. By tracing Rockwell’s engagement with

FAS, we can build a deeper understanding of how Rockwell managed his artistic career,

enhanced his reputation, and provided for his family.

At times, the correspondence reflects a level of frustration with the management of Rockwell’s

image. A 1958 letter to Chris Schafer, an accountant and family friend who became the

Rockwell’s financial manager, from FAS artist Robert Fawcett stated:

I suppose you are as puzzled as some of the others at the great discrepancy in income from the school between management and faculty, but this is, I am afraid, the result of our selling out years ago. Not much can be done about it now….

337 Rex Taylor to Norman Rockwell, November 4, 1966, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1966). The letter notes that this Statement in the Congressional Record was the fourth time FAS had been promoted in this manner. 338 By 1957, Rockwell was earning from FAS about $500 per month from his compensation and stock dividends.

128 P.P.S. In talking to Norman I sometimes wonder if he realizes the extent to which his name and reputation are being exploited for the school. But this is the first time management’s salaries have been revealed and he may develop a little resentment (too late however.)339

The subject of Rockwell’s pay from FAS is well documented over the years through the pay

stubs retained in his business correspondence files. Paystubs from various years document the

progression of monthly pay as follows:

March, 1953 $200 May, 1963 $583 October, 1965 $1,222340

At the same time FAS paid Rockwell these modest sums for his work and use of his image, the

company’s financial statements341 reported the following results:

Famous Artists Schools: Selected Financials

FAS Financials FY 1949 FY 1956 FY 1960 FY 1962 FY 1964

Income $277,614 $2,643,813 $5,826,422 $8,587,719 $14,626,345342

Expense $309,727 $2,570,232343 $4,977,676344 $7,203,019 $12,105,610

Operating ($74,774)345 $35,138 $848,746 $1,384,700 $2,520,735

Profit/(Loss)

Table 1

339 Robert Fawcett to Chris Schafer (undated), (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1958). 340 A monthly fee for health insurance premiums was deducted from these amounts. 341 Audited Financial Statements, Institute of Commercial Art, Inc. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1949. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1956. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1960, J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1962. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1964,. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1949-1964). 342 By 1966, FAS reported tuition revenue at $28,087,424. 343 Expenses included selling and promotional costs at $1,329,769 and administrative expenses of $692,320. Additional expenses for flood loss and interest on debentures totaled $38,443. 344 Expenses included selling and promotional costs at $2,656,852 and administrative expenses of $1,356,277. 345 Aside from the loss of $32,113.12, also includes $42,661.29 expenses prior to enrollments.

129 While the pay gradually increased over the years of Rockwell’s engagement, the monthly

amounts stood in stark contrast to millions in revenue that FAS was recording in its financial

statements.

While the pay may have been meager, other benefits flowed to the artist. Rockwell’s affiliation

with FAS led to his close association with other professional artists including Edwin Eberman,

FAS art director. In 1950, Eberman apparently followed up on a prior conversation with

Rockwell about the management of his career. Eberman created a document for Rockwell

entitled “A Proposed Plan for Organizing Your Work.” This plan arrived with a note stating

“there are only two reasons for us to be so bold and presume to suggest how to organize your

work. First, you asked me, and secondly, as a friend I’m willing to throw out a few suggestions

in hope[s] that they will bring a fresh point of view on the matter and stimulate your

thinking.”346 In thirteen pages, Eberman describes a long range plan, a short term plan, and a

plan for establishing a good working relationship with the Post. The plan addressed seven

specific goals:

1. Paint pictures that you enjoy doing and which reflect to your highest artistic credit.

2. Have a good income.

3. Remain in the public eye.

4. Take vacations.

5. Keep a schedule that will remove some of the pressure of deadlines.

346 Ed Eberman, “A Proposed Plan for Organizing Your Work,” November 1, 1950, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1950).

130 6. Accept and reject work on a logical basis.

7. Have someone to help you say “No!”

Specific advice captured in the Eberman memo covered the topic of a good income:

You gave me a summary of your investments, life insurance, annuity program and savings. They are adequate to insure a living income should it be necessary to fall back on them in an emergency. They represent a financial security that allows you to select your assignments for their quality rather than their price. This does not mean that the program we work out will not pay you as well as your present arrangements. I think it can be just as profitable….You do have some regular assignments that give you both a good income in a fairly short time and an opportunity to do a good job. They are the Boy Scout calendar, the Four Seasons, calendar and the Christmas cards. These three subjects pay enough to insure a good part of the year’s income and can be done in a relatively short time. They should, therefore, be given priority in your schedule.

Eberman calculated Rockwell’s projected annual earnings from core projects (without FAS) at a total of $48,000.

Eberman and Famous Artists Schools apparently had to engage in considerable cajoling to encourage Rockwell to spend time at the School. Rockwell biographies capture the issues he encountered as he tackled multiple and overlapping projects. Rockwell was required by his contract to teach instructors on the Connecticut campus two times each year. Numerous letters from FAS to Rockwell demonstrate the negotiation that went on to navigate his schedule and conflicting commitments as he tried to weasel his way out of the schedule.

One such letter from Eberman to Rockwell in 1951 stated:

I was sorry but not surprised to hear that you would not be able to stick to your schedule. I had a hunch all along that would fall in love with one of those Post covers and want to spend additional time with it in your studio. You were quite right that the

131 sequent idea is the one for you, but you should still make an attempt at holding to a schedule or you may find yourself taking too long on too many paintings.347

In 1954, Eberman, reached out to Chris Schafer, Rockwell’s business manager,348 with another

plea to accompany the artist to the School:

Realizing the terrific worries and concerns he has, I am reluctant to push too hard to get him to the School. I would like to enlist your help on this matter. If at any time you know he is planning a trip to New York, I would appreciate anything you could do to help him include a visit to the School as a part of that trip. All of the other faculty members get there regularly, and it would be very helpful if we could have the services of Norm for a morning or an afternoon. It wouldn’t be very taxing on him and would require no preliminary preparation.349

Chris Schafer was not much engaged with FAS until this exchange when he responded to Ed

Eberman suggesting a possible visit to the school with Rockwell. Eberman responded:

I was very pleased to get your letter with the intimation that you might be able to come down sometime with Norm. I would love to see you. I feel you have a very intimate connection with the School, but you have never really seen how it works or met any of the people here who help make it tick. I know both you and Norm would have a very interesting day.350

Thus was the intermittent tension that characterized the relationship over the years between

FAS and Rockwell. In fact Rockwell characterized Dorne’s management style in Art in America

in 1953 describing: “A fierce pride in even the smallest things he does is responsible for his

347 Ed Eberman to Norman Rockwell, February 1, 1951, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists School Incoming Outgoing Correspondence, 1951). 348 Chris Schafer was an accountant and family friend who became Norman Rockwell’s financial manager. Schafer was asked to take over the family finances following an IRS audit of the Rockwell’s taxes and realization that Mrs. Rockwell was not managing financial matters properly. Claridge, Norman Rockwell: A Life, 354. 349 Ed Eberman to Chris Schafer, July 30, 1954, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1954). 350 Ed Eberman to Chris Schafer, August 6, 1954, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1954).

132 reputation as a tough guy to work for—demanding, driving, intolerant of lack of standards or

stupidity.”351

Famous Artists Schools continued its march of expansion and in 1961 the New York investment

bankers Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weil issued a report on the organization stating that “the

Company, since its founding in 1948, has become the largest correspondence school in the art

field and probably the second largest dollar volume in the entire home study field.”352 The investment bankers noted the first offering of common stock to the public in August of 1961 and the “caliber of the faculty…is excellent [producing] an excellent public image [that] gives the school a powerful selling tool in attracting new students.”353

After Al Dorne passed away in 1965, FAS began to decline.354 The parent company, which was

traded on the New York Stock Exchange, had expanded in multiple directions, including the acquisition of other correspondence programs such as the Evelyn Wood speed reading course.355 A non-educational buyer from the plumbing industry purchased the company and

ran the school poorly. At this point, Rockwell owned about two million dollars in FAS stock. He

felt he was in a tough position—to sell would contribute to the company’s further decline, but the risk was high. In the end, Rockwell retained his stock and the company declared Chapter 11

bankruptcy.

351 Norman Rockwell, “Portrait of Albert Dorne,” Art in America, 1953, 3. (Reprinted with permission Art in America). 352 Carter et al., Famous Artists Schools, Inc., October 1961, 2. (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1961). FAS added Famous Writers Schools in 1961. Later additions included Famous Cartoonists Schools and Famous Photographers Schools. 353 Carter et al. Famous Artists Schools Inc., 4. Famous Artists Schools Correspondence,NRM Archives. 354 Dorne passed away at the age of 61 from bacterial endocarditis. Obituary, New York World Telegram and Sun, December 16, 1965, 27. 355 Kennedy, “The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School.”

133 Rockwell received a telegram on February 9, 1972 from Donald Lewis, Chief Executive of FAS

International stating:

In our continuing efforts to resolve the company’s difficult economic problems, we have determined that the time and resource requirements needed to provide forward- looking solutions cannot be provided at the same time the onerous burden of past debts must be dealt with. The only appropriate way we can put the problems of the past behind us and focus our energies on the prospects of the future is to seek the protection of the courts. We have therefore today filed a Chapter Eleven petition in Federal Court to effect an arrangement with our creditors. We intend to continue the same quality of education and service to all students.356

Rockwell stuck with his investment, leading to the loss of his entire accumulated stock holdings in the company.

By 1972, Rockwell tried to live up to his commitment to FAS, travelling to Westport to fulfill his teaching commitment. Following a trip to FAS in early 1972, the artist expressed his decision to back away from the school and permit only one more ad capitalizing on the artist’s reputation.357 The home study business, Cortina Learning International, bought the FAS assets in 1981 and continues to operate classes, although the space of correspondence courses has been largely subsumed into the technology-enabled vehicle of distance learning.358

356 Donald S. Lewis to Norman Rockwell. Telegram, February 9, 1972, (NRM Archives, Famous Artists Schools Correspondence, 1972). 357 Claridge, Norman Rockwell: A Life, 474. 358Kennedy, “The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School.” Cortina donated its archival collection of Famous Artists Schools materials to Norman Rockwell Museum in 2014. The collection includes original drawings by Rockwell and the other famous artists created to capture artistic process. “Uncovering the Treasures of the Famous Artist’s School Archive,” Norman Rockwell Museum, accessed January 24, 2016. http://www.nrm.org/2013/11/ryan-mitten/.

134

Please refer to Appendix A for link to illustration

Figure 59: “Triple Self Portrait,” Saturday Evening Post, February 13, 1960359

359 Triple Self Portrait, Norman Rockwell, oil on canvas, for Saturday Evening Post cover, February 13, 1960. This image was printed to announce the first excerpt published from his autobiography. While it does depict the artist at work, the scene captures the process of this particular assignment, with self portraits of the masters (Rembrandt, Durer, Picasso, and van Gogh) tacked to the edge of the canvas. The pose recollects a similar pose adopted for The Deadline created in 1938, but the figure portrayed is older, more solid, and less wiry, and more confident than the gangly and bewildered artist of his earlier years. Marling, Norman Rockwell, 128.

135 Conclusion

Norman P. Rockwell was an artist who has until recently been undervalued and misunderstood.

When his art is examined in light of U.S. cultural and visual history, his body of work takes on

fresh meaning and heightened significance. With thousands of works to his credit, he kept his finger on the pulse of American society through changing times and major historical events. His allegiance to American ideals bolstered his credibility and trustworthiness as his cover art served as messenger to millions of Americans. The story of Rockwell’s interactions with the advertising industry tell the tale of the history of American business and its efforts to promote consumerism and products using scientific data and targeted messaging to persuade shoppers to part with their money. Through his work for advertisers and magazine publishers, Rockwell served for seven decades as the chronicler of American culture. The manner in which he navigated his career over many decades sheds light on how businesses translated their strategies into visual messages in order to make a profit and exert influence over the direction of American life.

Rockwell’s long association with Famous Artists Schools can be viewed as an intriguing paradox.

Rockwell lent his headliner image and reputation to the advancement of the school’s goals and

vision to train illustration artists across the nation and eventually around the globe. Famous

Artists Schools had a great run for nearly a quarter century, overtly connecting its mission to the rise of leisure time and the recognition of artistic pursuits as a worthwhile way to spend spare time. This noble cause, originally consistent with Rockwell’s life philosophy and

ambitions, seems to have devolved into a distorted and hyper-aggressive state as the company

136 grew rapidly in a booming post-war consumer economy to become an empire more focused on

corporate profits than on its teaching mission.

Ultimately, the relationship between FAS and Rockwell hit rocky shoals and tensions emerged around exploitation of his image and low remuneration despite all that Rockwell shared to promote FAS marketing efforts. In a sad conclusion to this decades-long relationship, Rockwell

lost the significant investment he had accrued in Famous Artists Schools stock. Even so,

Rockwell’s relationship with Famous Artists Schools was not without its upside for the artist. In

the hurly-burly world of illustration commissions fighting for his attention, FAS provided

Rockwell with a framework of stability, certainty, health benefits, salary, and professional

guidance. This business backdrop to Rockwell’s illustrious career is little known, but critical to

understanding the manner in which America’s best known illustrator achieved such success and

such enormous influence over how Americans understood and decades later, reflect upon their own culture.

137 Bibliography

Books

Adams, James Truslow, The Epic of America. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1932.

Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Belmonte, Laura A. Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

Bird Jr., William L. and Rubenstein, Harry R. Design for Victory: World War II Posters on the American Home Front. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998.

Blaszczyk, Regina Lee. American Consumer Society, 1865-2005. Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, 2009.

Buechner, Thomas H. Norman Rockwell: Artist and Illustrator. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1970.

Claridge, Laura. Norman Rockwell: A Life. New York: Random House, 2001.

Clayton, Virginia Tuttle, et al. Drawing on America’s Past: Folk Art, Modernism, and the Index of American Design. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2002.

Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumer’s Republic: The Paradox of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

Cohn, Jan. Creating America: George Horace Lorimer and The Saturday Evening Post. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990.

Cullen, Jim. The American Dream: A Short History of an Idea That Shaped a Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Culligan, Matthew J. The Curtis-Culligan Story: From Cyrus to Horace to Joe. New York: Crown Publishers, 1970.

Currell, Susan. The March of Spare Time: The Problem and Promise of Leisure in the Great Depression. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.

De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy In America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., vol. II, 1972 Reeve translation, 36.

138 DeVries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Famous Artists Schools. Famous Artists Course. Westport, CT: Famous Artists Schools, 1960.

Fuller, Walter D. The Life and Times of Cyrus H.K. Curtis (1850-1933). New York: The Newcomen Society of England American Branch, 1948.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Affluent Society. New York: Mariner Books, 1998.

Gelber, Steven M. Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.

Guitar, Mary Anne. 22 Famous Painters and Illustrators Tell How They Work. New York: David McKay Company, 1964.

Guptill, Arthur, L. Norman Rockwell: Illustrator. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1946.

Henessey , Maureen Hart and Knutson, Anne. Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999.

Hillcourt, William. Norman Rockwell’s World of Scouting. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977.

Hodgson, Godfrey. The Myth of Exceptionalism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009.

Horowitz, Daniel. The Anxieties of Affluence. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004.

Hunnicutt, Benjamin Kline. Free Time: The Forgotten American Dream. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013.

Inness, Sherrie A. Kitchen Culture in America: Popular Representations of Food, Gender, and Race. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

Johnston, Patricia. “Introduction: A Critical Overview of Visual Culture Studies” In Seeing High & Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture ed. Patricia Johnston. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, 1-24.

Laird, Pamela Walker. Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Lears, Jackson. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. New York: BasicBooks, 1994.

Madsen, Deborah H. American Exceptionalism. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1998.

139 Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity 1920-1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.

Marling, Karal Ann. As Seen on TV. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Marling, Karal Ann. Norman Rockwell. New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997.

McGovern, Charles F. Sold American: Consumption and Consumerism 1890-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.

Mecklenburg,, Virginia M. Telling Stories: Norman Rockwell from the Collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. New York: Abrams, 2010.

Menk, Martha L., ed. Masterworks from the Butler Institute of American Art. Youngstown, Ohio: Butler Institute of American Art, 2010.

Moffatt, Laurie Norton. Norman Rockwell: A Definitive Catalogue. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 1986.

Murray, Linda. Michelangelo. London: Thames and Hudson, 1980.

Nolan, Dennis. Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2018.

Pero, Linda Szekely. American Chronicles: The Art of Norman Rockwell. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2007.

Petrick, Jane Allen. Hidden in Plain Sight: The Other People in Norman Rockwell’s America. Miami: Informed Decisions Publishing, 2013.

Plunkett, Stephanie Haboush and Livesey, Magdalen. Drawing Lessons from the Famous Artists School. Beverly, MA: Quarto Publishing Group, 2017.

Plunkett, Stephanie Haboush and Kimble, James J. Enduring Ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & The Four Freedoms. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2018.

Rockwell, Norman. Rockwell on Rockwell: How I Make A Picture. Westport, CT: Famous Artists Schools, 1979.

Rockwell, Norman (As told to Tom Rockwell). My Adventures as an Illustrator. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994.

Rosenberg, Emily S., Spreading the American Dream: American Economic and Cultural Expansion 1890-1945. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982.

140 Rutherford, Janice Williams. Selling Mrs. Consumer: Christine Frederick and the Rise of Household Efficiency. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2003.

Saab, A. Joan. For The Millions: American Art and Culture Between the Wars. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.

Samuel, Lawrence R. Brought to You By Postwar Television Advertising and The American Dream. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001.

Samuel, Lawrence R. The American Dream: A Cultural History. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2012.

Scanlon, Jennifer. Inarticulate Longings: The Ladies’ Home Journal, Gender, and the Promises of Consumer Culture. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Schick, Ron. Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera. New York: Little, Brown & Company, 2009.

Sivulka, Juliann. Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes: A Cultural History of American Advertising. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012.

Solomon, Deborah. American Mirror: The Life and Art of Norman Rockwell. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2013.

Stoltz, Dr. Donald and Stoltz, Marshall. The Advertising World of Norman Rockwell. New York: Harrison House, 1985.

Susman, Warren I. Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. New York: Pantheon, 1973.

Taraba, Fred. Masters of American Illustration: 41 Illustrators & How They Worked. Saint Louis, Missouri: The Illustrated Press, 2016.

Trentmann, Frank. Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, from the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First. New York: Harper Perennial, 2016.

Wall, Wendy A. Inventing the “American Way”: The Politics of Consensus from the New Deal to the Civil Rights Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Wallach, Alan. “The Norman Rockwell Museum and the Representation of Social Conflict” in Seeing High & Low: Representing Social Conflict in American Visual Culture, ed. Patricia Johnston. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006, 280-290.

Ward, Douglas B. A New Brand of Business: Charles Coolidge Parlin, Curtis Publishing Company, and the Origins of Market Research. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010.

141 Wilson, Christopher P. “The Rhetoric of Consumption: Mass-Market Magazines and the Demise of the Gentle Reader, 1880-1920” in The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History 1880-1980, ed. Richard Wightman Fox and T.J. Jackson Lears. New York: Pantheon Book, 1983, 39-64.

Theses

Cicero, Anne. 2009. “Messages of Frugality and Consumption in the Ladies’ Home Journal: 1920S-1940s.” Master’s Thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Kleopfer, Kirstie Lane. 2007. “Norman Rockwell’s Civil Rights Paintings of the 1960s.” Master’s Thesis, University of Cincinnati.

Magazines/Articles

Anonymous, “We’re Looking for People who Like to Draw,” Look, September 15, 1959, 3.

Birmingham, Frederic A. “Work-A-Holics Live Longer,” The Saturday Evening Post (March 1979), 38-40, 134-144.

Editors, “Rockwell and Realism in an Abstract World,” American Art Review, October 2016, Vol. XXVIII, No. 5, 102-107.

Editors, “You Can Be an Amateur Painter,” Coronet, March 1954, 81.

Editors, “Can You Put Yourself in This Picture?” Sales and Tales, Vol. 9, No. 2, February 1965.

Fox, Lorraine. “We’re looking for women with an eye for beauty—and an urge to ‘do something creative.’” Redbook, August 1967.

Hall, Roger I. “A System Pathology of an Organization: The Rise and Fall of the Old Saturday Evening Post.” Administrative Science Quarterly, June 1976, vol. 21, no. 2, 185-211.

Klinkenborg, Verlyn. “Pyle and Rockwell—totally American, yet not at all alike.” Smithsonian, July 1994, 88-95.

McIlhany, Sterling. “Rockwell. Seriously.” New York Magazine, October 26, 1970, 54.

Tucker, Abigail. “Revisiting Rockwell: His “Four Freedoms” helped win World War II. What do they mean today?” Smithsonian, March 2018, 7-14.

Ward, Douglas B. “The Reader as Consumer: Curtis Publishing company and its Audience, 1910- 1930” Journalism History, Summer 96, 22:246-55.

142 Ward, Douglas B. “The Geography of an American Icon: An analysis of the Circulation of the Saturday Evening Post, 1911-1944” American Journalism, 2010, 27:3, 59-89.

Newspapers

Dougherty, Philip H. “Life-Look Battle ends, but the war goes on,” New York Times, May 10, 1970, 15.

Fitzgerald, Ross. “Albert Dorne Deplores Art Education Failures.” The Nashville Tennessean, October 26, 1948.

Kennedy, Randy. “The Draw of a Mail-Order Art School,” The New York Times, March 20, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/arts/design/famous-artists-school-archives-go-to- norman-rockwell-museum.html.

Puente, Maria, “Norman Rockwell masterpiece sells at record price,” USA Today, Dec. 4, 2013, accessed online April 8, 2018. www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/12/04

Staff Writer, Obituary, “Albert Dorne, Artist, Services Tomorrow,” New York World Telegram and Sun, December 16, 1965, 27.

Websites

www.worldofcoca-cola.com, accessed April 23, 2016.

“Uncovering the Treasures of the Famous Artist’s School Archives, Norman Rockwell Museum, http://www.nrm.org/2013/11/ryan-mitten/, accessed January 24, 2016.

Kellner, Tomas. “Thanks for the Memories: Norman Rockwell’s Paintings Shed Light on Thanksgiving and the History of Electric Illumination in America” in GE Reports, Nov. 24, 2015. https://www.GE.com/reports/author/200020778/, accessed March 9, 2018.

Manuscript Collection: Norman Rockwell Museum Archives, Stockbridge, MA. (NRM Archives)

Famous Artists School Correspondence Files

Letter, John Wickoff Mettler to Institute of Commercial Art, June 18, 1948. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1948)

143 Letter, Harlan Logan, Treasurer, to Norman Rockwell, November 29, 1948. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1948)

Audited Financial Statements, Institute of Commercial Art, Inc. Fiscal Year Ended Sept. 30. 1949. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists Schools, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1949)

Memo, Ed Eberman to Norman Rockwell, “A Proposed Plan for Organizing Your Work,” November 2, 1950. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1951)

Letter, Ed Eberman to Norman Rockwell, February 1, 1951. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1950)

Minutes, FAS Faculty Meeting, June 9, 1951. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1951)

Letter, Albert Dorne to Norman Rockwell, September 10, 1952. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1952 #1)

Letter, Ed Eberman to Chris Schafer, July 30, 1954. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1954)

Letter, Ed Eberman to Chris Schafer, August 6, 1954. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1954)

Letter, Al Dorne to Norman Rockwell, January 3, 1955. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, Institute for Commercial Art, correspondence, 1954-1956)

Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1956. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists Schools, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1956)

Letter, Robert Fawcett to Chris Schafer (undated). (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1958)

Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1960, J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists Schools, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1960)

144 Report, Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weil, Investment Bankers, Famous Artists Schools, Inc., October 1961. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists Schools, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1961)

Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1962. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists Schools, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1962)

Audited Financial Statements, Famous Artists Schools and Subsidiaries. Fiscal Year Ended September 30, 1964,. J.K. Lasser & Company Auditors. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists Schools, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1964)

Letter, Ben Ordover to G.G. Priestley, July 11, 1966. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, payment stubs, 1966)

Letter, Rex Taylor to Norman Rockwell, November 4, 1966. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, payment stubs, 1966)

Annual Report, Famous Artists Schools, (1966). (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, annual report, 1966)

Telegram, Donald S. Lewis to Norman Rockwell, February 9, 1972. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists School, incoming/outgoing correspondence, 1971-1972)

Brown & Bigelow Correspondence

Remembrance Advertising: 57th Annual Report for the year ended January 11, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow 1953)

Letter, Clair V. Fry to Dr. Arthur Schuck, June 5, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, corresp. 1953)

Letter, Stan W. Rindfleisch to Norman Rockwell, July 30, 1953 (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, 1953)

Letter, Clair V. Fry to Norman Rockwell, Art Director, Brown & Bigelow, September 8, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow corresp. 1953).

Letter, Lex R. Lucas, Boy Scouts of America, to Norman Rockwell, November 9, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, corresp. 1953)

Letter, Seneca M. Gamble to Norman Rockwell, September 17, 1953. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow, corresp. 1953).

145

Letter, Clair V. Fry to Norman Rockwell, April 5, 1967. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow corresp. 1971)

Burnett Correspondence

Letter, Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell dated August 25, 1952. (NRM Archives: Burnett, Leo: correspondence, 1951-1955)

Letter, Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, January 21, 1954. (NRM Archives: Burnett, Leo: correspondence, 1951-1955)

Letter, Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, October 1, 1954. (NRM Archives: Burnett, Leo: correspondence, 1951-1955)

Letter, Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, December 7, 1954. (NRM Archives, Burnett, Leo Company correspondence, 1951-1955)

Letter, Leo Burnett to Norman Rockwell, January 18, 1955. (NRM Archives: Burnett, Leo: correspondence, 1951-1955)

Letter to Norman Rockwell from Clair V. Fry, April 5, 1967. (NRM Archives: Brown & Bigelow corresp. 1971)

Benton & Bowles Correspondence

Letter, Robert Brooks to Norman Rockwell, Benton & Bowles, May 2, 1957 (NRM Archives: Benton & Bowles, 1957)

Letter, Robert Brooks to Norman Rockwell, Benton & Bowles, August 27, 1957 (NRM Archives: Benton & Bowles, 1957)

Proctor & Gamble Correspondence

Letter, Norman Rockwell to John R. Koch, Proctor & Gamble, December 29, 1966 (Proctor & Gamble Company, Correspondence, 1968)

Letter, John R. Koch, Supervisor Art & Package Design, Proctor & Gamble Company, to Norman Rockwell, December 19, 1966. (Proctor & Gamble Company, Correspondence, 1968)

146 Proctor & Gamble watercolor for Rockwell personal endorsement, 1967 (Proctor & Gamble Company, Correspondence, 1968)

Look Correspondence

Letter, Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell, November 18, 1963 (Look: Brackman, Arthur, incoming outgoing correspondence re possible lawsuit, NR’s move to Look, 1963)

Handwritten letter, Norman Rockwell to LOOK, apparently 1963 and likely a draft for typed version (NRM Archives, Look Al Hurlburt, corresp. Re NR’s choice of LOOK or SEP, outgoing NR response ending SEP connection, June 5, 1965)

Letter, Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell, August 20, 1963 (NRM Archives, Look Al Hurburt, corresp. Re NR’s choice of LOOK or SEP, outgoing NR response ending SEP connection, June 5, 1965)

Letter, Norman Rockwell to Al Hurlburt, June 15, 1965 ((NRM Archives, Look Al Hurburt, corresp. (Re NR’s choice of LOOK or SEP, outgoing NR response ending SEP connection, June 5, 1965)

Letter, Norman Rockwell to Al Hurlburt, March 1, 1966 (NRM Archives, Look Al Hurburt, incoming, outgoing correspondence, 1966)

Letter, Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell , undated, but likely 1970. (NRM Archives: Look Hurlbert, Allen, general incoming, outgoing corresp. 1970-1971)

Letter, Norman Rockwell to Al Hurlburt, November 24, 1970. (NRM Archives: Look Hurlbert, Allen, general incoming, outgoing corresp. 1970-1971)

Letter, Al Hurlburt to Norman Rockwell, September 23, 1971 (NRM Archives: Look: Hurlburt, Allen, corresp. Suspension of publication of Look, September 23, 1971)

Letter, Norman Rockwell to Al Hurlburt, December 28, 1971 (NRM Archives: Look: Hurlburt, Allen: Outgoing corresp. Re Hurlburt’s retirement. December 28, 1971)

Al Hurlburt Press Release, December 1, 1971 (NRM Archives: Look Hurlburt, Allen: outgoing corresp. Re Hurlburt’s retirement December 28, 1971)

Al Hurlburt, Sketch, Look Magazine (NRM Archives: Look Hurlbert, Allen, general incoming, outgoing corresp. 1970-1971)

147 Saturday Evening Post Correspondence Files

Letter, Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, December 4, 1936, (NRM Archives, RC 2007.18.1.4d)

Letter, Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, April 27, 1937 (NRM Archives, RC.2007.18.1.5c)

Letter from Pete Martin (Offices of Editor Wesley Winans Stout) to Norman Rockwell, February 3, 1938 (NRM Archives, RC 2007.18.1.6b)

Letter, Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, November 3, 1938 (NRM Archives RC.2007.18.1.11d)

Letter, Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, May 6, 1941 (NRM Archives RC 2007.18.1.30a)

Letter, Pete Martin to Norman Rockwell, December 31, 1941 (NRM Archives, RC.2007.18.1.37j)

Memorandum, Frank Eltonhead to Norman Rockwell, April 10, 1942 (NRM Archives, RC2007.18.1.46)

Letter, G.B. McCombs to Norman Rockwell, February 8, 1960 (NRM Archives RC.2007.18.1.98d)

Letter, Norman Rockwell to Donald P. Lindsay, May 24, 1965. (NRM Archives: Lincoln First Federal Bank correspondence, 1965-1966)

Letter, Beurt SerVaas to Norman and Molly Rockwell, January 8, 1973, NRM Archives, (RC 2007, 18.2.12c)

Letter, Arthur F. Abelman to Dr. Cory SerVaas, May 3, 1973, NRM Archives (RC 2007 18.2.13)

Miscellaneous Correspondence (NRM Archives)

Letter, Norman Rockwell to Mr. Kalmbach, undated. (NRM Archives: Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance, incoming outgoing correspondence, 1952-1963)

Letter, Manager Circulation Advertising, Curtis Circulation Company to Norman Rockwell, February 24, 1954. (NRM Archives: Famous Artists Schools correspondence)

Private Collection of John Lawn

Sales and Tales, (publication for FAS representatives), vol. 9, no. 2, Feb. 1965.

148 Interviews

Interview with Laurie Norton Moffatt, Executive Director, Norman Rockwell Museum, March 25, 2016.

Norman Rockwell Institutional Documentation

Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies Business Plan (2008).

Public Documents

The brush and palette as a hobby. Congressional Record, 89th Congress, Second Session, 1966.

Television

“Draw your Way to Fame,” Commercial (undated), Famous Artists Schools Collection, Norman Rockwell Museum Archives.

“Money Making Art Careers,” Commercial (undated), Famous Artists Schools Collection, Norman Rockwell Museum Archives.

Film

Norman Rockwell’s World: An American Dream, directed by Robert Deubel (Columbia Pictures, 1972).

Norman Rockwell: Painting America, directed by Elena Mannes (PBS, 1999) (accessed April 7, 2018 youtube.com).

149 Appendix A: Figure Sources360

Introduction

1. N. Rockwell, Blank Canvas https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/08/meets-the-eye/ 2. N. Rockwell, City Mail Delivery https://www.mysticstamp.com/Products/United- States/1238/USA/ 3. Grumbacher advertisement (image not available on line) 4. N. Rockwell, A Scout if Helpful https://www.nrm.org/wp2016/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/A-Scout-Is-Helpful_web- 650x919.jpg 5. N. Rockwell, Playbill http://collections.nrm.org/

Chapter One

6. N. Rockwell, Pilgrim, Saturday Evening Post http://www.incredibleart.org/links/rockwell_pilgrim.jpg 7. N. Rockwell, Pilgrim, Life http://totallyhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/a-pilgrim-s- progress-1921-Norman-Rockwell.jpg 8. N. Rockwell, Aviation Pioneer, Saturday Evening Post http://www.incredibleart.org/links/rockwell_pilgrim.jpg 9. N. Rockwell, Railroad Ticket Salesman, Saturday Evening Post http://collections.nrm.org/ 10. Rosie the Riveter http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp- content/uploads/satevepost/RosieTheRiveter_Rosie.jpg 11. N. Rockwell, USO Volunteers https://i.pinimg.com/564x/53/07/9f/53079fdf3f95a26e29c3f7d7c2244a33.jpg 12. N. Rockwell, Gillis Family Heritage http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp- content/uploads/satevepost/9440916-200x200.jpg 13. N. Rockwell, Statue of Liberty https://www.nrm.org/2010/01/norman-rockwell-welcome- guest-in-the-white-house/ 14. N. Rockwell, New Television Antenna https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2018/04/norman- rockwell-paints-first-roof-antenna/ 15. N. Rockwell, Election Day https://parkwestgallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/norman- rockwell-election-day2.jpg 16. N. Rockwell, Walking to Church https://i.pinimg.com/originals/5a/44/1e/5a441ee79f9e9cdf8d70898e145635de.jpg 17. J. Vermeer, The Little Street http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/vermeer/little-street/little- street.jpg 18. N. Rockwell, The Problem We All Live With https://www.nrm.org/wp2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/The-Problem-We-All-Live-Wit.jpg

360 All links to figures accessed online November 11, 2018.

150 19. N. Rockwell, New Kids in the Neighborhood https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/5f/3d/a65f3da8f93eb2f177d61ee93d81fce9.jpg 20. N. Rockwell, Swimming Hole http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp- content/uploads/satevepost/norman-rockwell-swimming-hole.jpg 21. N. Rockwell, Polluted Swimming Hole http://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll00300lld9UaFFgneECfDrCWvaHBOcjVF/norman- rockwell-pollution.jpg 22. A. Hurlburt, Swimming Hole Sketch Pen Sketch (image not available online—see NRM Archives)

Chapter Two

23. N. Rockwell, Interwoven, Still Good http://www.norman-rockwell-france.com/images/i/int/- Interwoven-1927-Hobo.jpg 24. N. Rockwell, More Light for Each Year of Life https://i.pinimg.com/736x/99/30/f9/9930f9b3837545844e3d7693a7f3a56a--norman-rockwell- s.jpg 25. N. Rockwell, Lincoln Railsplitter http://artknowledgenews.com/200809015905/Butler_Institute_of_American_Art.html 26. N. Rockwell, Out Fishin’ http://tribupedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/1935-Norman- Rockwell-Coca-Cola-Advertising-700x570.jpg 27. N. Rockwell, Four Freedoms https://www.nrm.org/2012/10/collections-four-freedoms/ 28. N. Rockwell, Voting Booth http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp- content/uploads/satevepost/Norman-Rockwell-at-Polls-368x448.jpg 29. N. Rockwell, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Advertisements: a. Girl with Braids: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=9fiNh7cr&id=56B3F23E9FC5A8 8850E62E1B0EC60A320E73D6F8&thid=OIP.9fiNh7crzhoUkOQn8RLtiQHaJh&mediaurl=https %3A%2F%2Fs-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com%2F736x%2F6a%2Fb7%2F2a%2F6ab72a203edb1f25762dfb4480a81fb9.jpg &exph=386&expw=300&q=images+kelloggs+cereal+norman+rockwell&simid=60800031908 0239021&selectedindex=1&ajaxhist=0&vt=0 b. Boy with Red shirt: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=Gie99cqX&id=2DEBB2B7402D0 968183D2E30100E98EB36EF7DD3&thid=OIP.Gie99cqXi8bleVv29cmKDQAAAA&mediaurl=htt p%3a%2f%2fwww.tias.com%2fstores%2fadsbydee%2fpictures%2f7806a.jpg&exph=300&ex pw=232&q=images+kelloggs+cereal+norman+rockwell&simid=607997389927548696&selec tedIndex=12&ajaxhist=0 c. Boy in striped shirt: https://i.pinimg.com/236x/cf/49/5a/cf495a4f4766d65fe958a503ee323cfc.jpg d. Girl in pink dress: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/6a/b7/2a/6ab72a203edb1f25762dfb4480a81fb9.jpg

151 e. Dad with cereal: http://i.pinimg.com/736x/1f/75/9b/1f759b5c17d1b2862c4a61240e85ec1b.jpg f. Boy with Red Hair: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=cZ%2f1cvhW&id=7F A18A991F08195A957110FC29D49BF6144EADEC&thid=OIP.cZ_1cvhW3nfuOwss 8n1AmQHaKL&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fs-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com%2f564x%2fe0%2ff1%2f67%2fe0f167be8f604c80528e581d9d3d 4b43.jpg&exph=536&expw=390&q=images+kelloggs+cereal+norman+rockwell& simid=607999039179525746&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0

30. N. Rockwell, Crest Advertisements: a. Girl: https://library.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/mghl_dental-5.jpg b. Boy: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=f8oIacgr&id=B7FBC 3E69DDBD8797056231B743EEBED1CF297BA&thid=OIP.f8oIacgr_N5hENjoshKY3 QAAAA&mediaurl=http%3A%2F%2Fimg0109.popscreencdn.com%2F161089333 _norman-rockwell-1986-collectable-plate-the-unexpected- .jpg&exph=212&expw=320&q=image+norman+rockwell+crest&simid=6080000 05553718569&selectedindex=89&ajaxhist=0&vt=0 31. Sketch for Ivory Advertisement (image not available online—see NRM Archives) 32. N. Rockwell, Top Value Stamps Cover https://img1.etsystatic.com/014/1/6573657/il_570xN.426280923_8wdq.jpg 33. N. Rockwell, Our Heritage https://i.pinimg.com/736x/7f/29/eb/7f29ebc6256b1833b5c14342f678f330.jpg 34. N. Rockwell, Scoutmaster https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/02/The_Scoutmaster.jpg 35. N. Rockwell, Soap Box Derby Drawing http://www.printsoldandrare.com/normrockwell/img07.jpg 36. Anonymous, Soap Box Derby Drawing https://images-na.ssl-images- amazon.com/images/I/51o2pvuUbrL.jpg

Chapter Three

37. FAS Course Cover https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=yQFx3%2bq7&id=5DB8AA2EA54C3 A4EF954F47CAA8E083A9BFE4CBA&thid=OIP.yQFx3- q7mOvjZppRrTknWgHaIs&mediaurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.forgottenartsupplies.com%2f_gallery _images%2f7659755104.jpg&exph=704&expw=600&q=famous+artists+course&simid=6079998 55173305589&selectedIndex=5&ajaxhist=0 38. FAS Course Page https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=hC0gWSr%2b&id=4FE442FD1C3825 00FFDF146CF5DCE88F4C9510FE&thid=OIP.hC0gWSr-

152 P_JqitX5pRb0XAHaJo&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fillustrationquest.files.wordpress.com%2f2011 %2f06%2fl1-brushink- assignment.jpg&exph=1440&expw=1108&q=famous+artists+course&simid=6080049490265379 66&selectedIndex=29&ajaxhist=0 39. FAS photo of Artists https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1206&bih=605&ei=5tToW5jdFKHC jwTx6aygDw&q=famous+artists+schools+advertisements+&oq=famous+artists+schools+advertis ements+&gs_l=img.12...2071.59203..61731...4.0..0.185.4216.28j14...... 0....1..gws-wiz- img...... 0j0i10i24j0i8i30j0i24.AhxGinMXZ7Q#imgrc=Q2gCw6ekkbl2tM: 40. FAS Advertisement http://www.printmag.com/wp-content/uploads/NormanRockwellAD.jpg 41. N. Rockwell, Sport https://i.pinimg.com/236x/2e/3a/f5/2e3af592f97d4f708b25e8f725ff42c9.jpg 42. N. Rockwell, Beach Scene http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp- content/uploads/satevepost/cover_9400713-200x200.jpg 43. N. Rockwell, The Outing https://www.nrm.org/collections-2/art-norman- rockwell/#iLightbox[Art of NR]/5 44. FAS Talent Test http://4.bp.blogspot.com/- WXcF95aU8jk/U5NBORo6zJI/AAAAAAAAZ34/fvVhKL_X_3s/s1600/famous+artists+test.jpg 45. Sales and Tales Page, private collection (not available on line) 46. Sales and Tales Cover, private collection (not available on line) 47. Great Books Advertisements https://www.vintage-adventures.com/5904/1963-great-books-of- the-western-world-ad-college-education.jpg 48. Great Books Advertisements https://www.vintage-adventures.com/5904/1963-great-books-of- the-western-world-ad-college-education.jpg 49. FAS Advertisements https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1206&bih=605&ei=5tToW5jdFKHC jwTx6aygDw&q=famous+artists+schools+advertisements+&oq=famous+artists+schools+advertis ements+&gs_l=img.12...2071.59203..61731...4.0..0.185.4216.28j14...... 0....1..gws-wiz- img...... 0j0i10i24j0i8i30j0i24.AhxGinMXZ7Q#imgrc=QLkUNQQ-C4xaPM: 50. FAS Advertisements https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1206&bih=605&ei=5tToW5jdFKHC jwTx6aygDw&q=famous+artists+schools+advertisements+&oq=famous+artists+schools+advertis ements+&gs_l=img.12...2071.59203..61731...4.0..0.185.4216.28j14...... 0....1..gws-wiz- img...... 0j0i10i24j0i8i30j0i24.AhxGinMXZ7Q#imgdii=21luAAgKJk6aHM:&imgrc=QLkUNQQ- C4xaPM: 51. T.H.Benton, Curing Barn https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=PP1JjrpM&id=6F670A37D6FC83615 9C9F2D90A97967AC5AF7515&thid=OIP.PP1JjrpMC2B1UCyielmhpAEhDX&mediaurl=http%3a%2f %2fwww.artnet.com%2fWebServices%2fimages%2fll00135lldu5xFFgneECfDrCWvaHBOcEyJ%2ft homas-hart-benton-outside-the-curing- barn.jpg&exph=357&expw=480&q=image+outside+the+curing+barn&simid=607992914515986 137&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0

153 52. Craft Master New Artist Series https://www.paintbynumbermuseum.com/sites/default/files/styles/colorbox/public/70kit1.jpg? itok=wG6yysX5 53. N. Rockwell, Triple Self Portrait https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/e9/0c/25e90cab0a9bbca3ad2dd321abe81946.jpg

Please note that the referenced illustrations have been removed from this thesis due to copyright considerations.

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