The Red Rose Girls: Forward Together

 

Murals and Altarpiece by Violet Oakley
for All Angels Episcopal Church

"As Jessie Willcox, Elizabeth Green and Violet Oakley shared their triumphs and failures and the everyday pressures of meeting editors' demands and deadlines, their relationship with one another grew stronger. Their success forced them to make a decision about their lives. Howard Pyle had already made it clear to them that combining a career with marriage was not an option in an age when a woman was expected to manage a household, function as a hostess, and bear children - and Pyle's opinions were sacrosanct. The three friends chose to continue their careers in art.

Secure with their decision to dedicate their life to their art, the three women soared in their careers. Smith and Green, who were both still working for the 'Ladies' Home Journal,' soon had enough freelance work to enable them to quit their staff jobs. Green's pen-and-ink drawings appeared on magazine covers and accompanied short fiction. She also received her first encouraging international review from editor Charles Holme: 'Miss Elizabeth Shippen Green though a newcomer, draws with force and has a nice regard for the decorative effect of lines and black masses.' Jessie Smith illustrated several books, among them Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Tales and Sketches' and 'Mosses from an Old Manse,' as well as numerous stories for 'Harper's Weekly, ' 'Scribner's,' and 'Harper's Bazaar.'

Violet Oakley's professional life also flourished. In addition to her illustration work, she experimented with designs for murals and stained glass. In 1900 she was chosen to paint two murals and create five stained-glass windows and an altarpiece in mosaic for All Angels' Church in New York City's Upper West Side. She was only twenty-six years old and intimidated by the task ahead of her. But it turned out to be a personal triumph for Violet. This project gave her the opportunity to create artwork that was more in tune with her emerging social conscience. Art, she wrote, could be a 'stimulus to civic righteousness.' The 'elevating influence of beautiful images' could have a positive effect on the community."

(Excerpts from "The Red Rose Girls: Art and Love on Philadelphia's Main Line" by Alice A. Carter.)