Rose O'Neill
| Rose O'Neill | |
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O'Neill pictured ca. 1907
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| Born | Rose Cecil O'Neill June 25, 1874 Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | April 6, 1944 (aged 69) Springfield, Missouri, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
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Notable works
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Kewpie |
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Rose Cecil O'Neill (June 25, 1874 – April 6, 1944) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and writer. She rose to fame for her creation of the popular comic strip characters, Kewpies, in 1909, and was also the first published female cartoonist in the United States.
The daughter of a book salesman and homemaker, O'Neill was raised in rural Nebraska. She exhibited interest in the arts at an early age, and sought a career as an illustrator in New York City at age fifteen. Her Kewpie cartoons, which made their debut in a 1909 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, were later manufactured as bisque dolls in 1912 by J. D. Kestner, a German toy company, followed by composition material and celluloid versions. The dolls were wildly popular in the early twentieth century, and are considered to be one of the first mass-marketed toys in the United States.
O'Neill also wrote several novels and books of poetry, and was active in the women's suffrage movement. She was for a time the highest-paid female illustrator in the world upon the success of the Kewpie dolls.
O'Neill was born on June 25, 1874, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the second of seven children to William Patrick, an Irish immigrant, and Alice Asenath "Meemie" Smith O'Neill. She was raised Roman Catholic. When she was three years old, O'Neill's family relocated to rural Nebraska, where she spent her early life. From early childhood she expressed significant interest in the arts, immersing herself in drawing, painting, and sculpture. At thirteen, she entered a children's drawing competition sponsored by the Omaha Herald and won first prize for her drawing, titled "Temptation Leading to an Abyss".
Within two years, O'Neill was providing illustrations for the local Omaha publications Excelsior and The Great Divide as well as other periodicals, having secured this work with help from the editor at the Omaha World-Herald and the Art Director from Everybody Magazine who had judged the competition. The income helped support her family, which her father had struggled to support as a bookseller. O'Neill attended the Sacred Heart Convent school in Omaha.
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