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True or False?
In the early 1900s, three local women artists, Violet Oakley, Jesse Willcox Smith, and Elizabeth Shippen Green became known collectively as the “Lilies of the Main Line.”
Answer: FALSE
Violet Oakley, Jesse Willcox Smith, and Elizabeth Shippen Green became known together as the “Red Rose Girls,” which was likely inspired by their residence, the Red Rose Inn, in Villanova, Pennsylvania, where they lived from 1902 to 1906. In 1906, the group, with an additional member, Henriette Cozens, moved to a nearby estate which they deemed “Cogslea,” where they lived until 1911.
Oakley, Smith, and Green first met as students at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University), where they all studied under famed illustrator Howard Pyle. They collectively decided to live and work together (forever, as they reportedly promised each other), and took up residence at the bucolic Red Rose Inn outside of Philadelphia. At a time when the field of illustration was largely populated by men, these women each successfully carved out their own artistic niches. Oakley found a calling as a stained glass artist, muralist, and teacher. Smith excelled at illustration, and she became one of the most popular book and magazine illustrators of the twentieth century. Green’s talents led her to work as an illustrator for Harper’s Monthly Magazine and Philadelphia’s Public Ledger, and she also worked on a number of children’s books.
The trio’s tenure as the “Red Rose Girls” ended around 1911 when Green moved away upon her marriage Huger Elliot, architect and University of Pennsylvania professor. Despite the split, the Oakley, Smith, and Green remained lifelong friends.
HSP has rich offerings of Violet Oakley’s works, including a collection of her original sketchbooks and pageant drawings (#3334), and printing plates that she created for her manuscript, "The Holy Experiment” (#3336). For more on the history of local women artists, the records of the Plastic Club (#3106) contain administrative records, correspondence, member records, annual reports, and exhibition catalogs. scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, photographs, original artwork, and catalogs.