Mary Louise Spoor. From 1917 schoolroom poster
Two Mary Louise Spoor schoolroom posters are now available at my online store. One is a single sided triptych of Hickory Dickory Dock.
Here are a few lovely examples:
The Easy Road To Reading, Lyons & Carnihan 1919-25, illustrated by Mary Louise Spoor and Gertrude Spaller.
The Easy Road To Reading First Reader. Illustrated by Mary Louise Spoor. For more on ML Spoor
Champion Arithmetics, children's math primer, 1937, Evanston IL
Champion Arithmetics. Illustration by Nell Hulke Compton. 1937
Happy Days, Quinlan Readers. 1949 Allen and Bacon Publishers
Happy Days Children's primer. Quinlan readers. 1949. Illustration Constance Heffron
Down Our Street. McMillan 1939.
Down Our Street. Children's reader. 1939
Health Stories and Practice, 1931, Lyons & Carnahan publisher, illustrations by Vera Stone Norman and Irene Dorcy
Health Stories and Practice. 1931. Illustrated by Vera Store Norman or Irene Dorcy
Health Stories and Practice. 1931. Illustrated by Vera Store Norman or Irene Dorcy
Journey to Health Land. Ginn & Co. 1924, illustrated by Blanche Fisher Laite
A Journey To Health Land. Illustration Blanche Fisher Laite 1924
Childhood Readers, City and Country, Scribners,1932, illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes and Margaret Freeman.
Childhood Readers, City and Country. Illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes and Margaret Freeman. 1932
Childhood Readers, City and Country. Illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes & Margaret Freeman, 1932
Childhood Readers, City and Country. Illustrated by Florence and Margaret Hoopes & Margaret Freeman, 1932
Meet Our Friends, Bobbs Merrill 19500. Illustrated by Janet Ross and Raymon Naylor
Meet Our Friends. 1950. Illustrated by Janet Ross and Raymon Naylor
Mary Louise Spoor, Baby Bunting, chromolithograph 1917. Liza Cowan Collections
Collecting is an adventure. The civilized version of big game hunting. You never know where the chase will will lead, what roads you will follow. Here, we go from nursery illustrations to the early history of cinema.
A couple of years ago I was hunting at an antiques show. I was fast- walking the aisles, which is how I always do my first scan. I stopped abruptly at a huge chromolithograph schoolroom poster published in 1917 by Congdon Publishers in Chicago. I immediately fell in love with the Japanese - or Japonism - inspired design. The dealer knew the name of the illustrator, Mary Louise Spoor, but not much about her.
I immediately began searching for more of her work. I have subsequently found three of the school room posters. Hickory Dickory Dock, Little Bo Peep and Baby Bunting Went A Hunting.
Mary Louise Spoor, Hickory Dickory Dock, 1917 Chromolithograph. Liza Cowan collections. Available here
Internet searches revealed scant information on Spoor. An interesting conversation among collectors and descendants reveals that Spoor (1887-1985) worked for a brief shining moment from Chicago, publishing illustrations for Rand McNally and Lyons & Carnihan.
Mary Louise Spoor, Hickory Dickory Dock, 1917 Chromolithograph. Liza Cowan
By 1917 she was married and pregnant with her first child. She moved to Massachussets to raise her family. And that, as far as I can tell, ended her professional career. She continued painting and drawing private works that would end up in family collections but those works have not yet entered into public circulation. Nor may they ever. What a shame to have access to so small a piece of a life's work
ML Spoor from schoolroom poster triptychs, 1917, Liza Cowan Collections. Each image is 15'" square.
Before she left Chicago, Mollie, as she was called, went to The Art Institute and shared a studio with Gertrude Spaller, another young illustrator. Together they illustrated at least two children's readers. The Easy Road To Reading Primer editions one and two.
ML Spoor illustrations, The Easy Road To Reading- Cowan Ephemera Collections
Here's where the road forks:
Mollie's brother was George K Spoor. In 1907 George founded Essany Studios in Chicago. Essanay was one of the first movie production studios in the US during the blink of an eye when Chicago was the center of US movie production. A couple of years later Essanay built studios in Niles, CA, but kept offices in Chicago. George Spoor's partner in Essanay (S&A) was Max Aronson, aka Gilbert Anderson, aka Broncho Billy, the very first film cowboy star .
Broncho Billy And The Essanay Film Company by David Kiehn. Farwell Books 2003
That's right. The first cowboy star was Jewish. Aronson/Anderson appeared in the first great narrative film ever, The Great Train Robbery, then went on to direct and star in hundreds of films for Essanay.
When it began, Essanay depended on, and discovered, local Chicago talent, many of whom went on to become some of the biggest stars and directors in the industry, including Ben Turpin, Alan Dwan, Louella Parsons, Francis X Bushman, Gloria Swanson.
They made 2,000 movies in their ten year span, out of which only about 200 survive.
Charlie Chaplin in drag in Essanay's The Woman from 1915
Charlie Chaplin was an Essanay star too, one of the first to be hired from outside the neighborhood. He had a contentious relationship with the studio, and left after a few years. His first version of The Tramp was an Essanay production.
It seems not unlikely that the George Spoor would have asked his illustrator sister to design movie posters for his studio. She did design the Indian Chief logo for them. So far, I haven't discovered any but the hunt is on.
references:
conversation amongst relatives and collectors at Antiques and The Arts
essay on essanay from Chicago Magazine May 2007
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Niles CA
