Maginel Wright Enright

Maginel Wright Enright Barney (June 19, 1881 – April 18, 1966) was an American children's book illustrator and graphic artist. She was the younger sister of Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, and the mother of Elizabeth Enright, children's book writer and illustrator.

Wright Enright was born Margaret Ellen Wright in Weymouth, Massachusetts, the third child of William and Anna Wright. The name "Maginel" was a later creation of her mother's, a contraction of "Maggie Nell". At age two the family moved to Madison, Wisconsin. Ten years later they moved to Chicago, to be closer to Frank's architectural work, where she eventually attended the Chicago Art Institute. Her first job as a commercial artist was with the Barnes, Crosby Co. of Chicago, where her main task was catalog illustration. There she met Walter J. "Pat" Enright, another young artist, whom she married.

Wright Enright gave birth to her daughter Elizabeth on September 17, 1909, in Oak Park, Illinois.

The Enrights moved to New York City for their careers and enjoyed an active social life there. After their divorce, Wright Enright married Hiram Barney, a lawyer who died in 1925.

Wright Enright's autobiography, The Valley of the God-Almighty Joneses, was published in 1965, one year before her death in East Hampton, New York.

It was under the name of Maginel Wright Enright that she conducted her professional career. She illustrated 63 children's books during her lifetime, sometimes working alone and sometimes with other artists. Her first job as book illustrator was on The Twinkle Tales, a set of six booklets for young children published by Reilly & Britton in 1906, and written by L. Frank Baum under the pseudonym "Laura Bancroft". The books were successful, selling 40,000 copies the first year. Wright Enright also illustrated Baum's Policeman Bluejay (1907) and L. Frank Baum's Juvenile Speaker (1910, with John R. Neill). (Her husband also worked on the Baum canon: Walter Enright illustrated Baum's Father Goose's Year Book in 1907.)

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