Two Eminent Victorians: Emily Carr and Lillian Gilbreth

March 12 - Today's post contributed by Monica Kulling

Two Eminent Victorians: Emily Carr and Lillian Gilbreth

Thank you Lisa and Margo for organizing Kidlit Celebrates Women’s History Month, and inviting me to participate once again. I’ve been writing biographies for many years now, and in the last three years I’ve had the pleasure of researching and writing about two admirable women: Canadian painter, Emily Carr, and American psychologist and industrial engineer, Lillian Gilbreth. Their stories are depicted in: When Emily Carr Met Woo and Spic-and-Span! Lillian Gilbreth’s Wonder Kitchen, publishing in April and August of this year.

Temperamentally these two eminent women were as different as chalk and cheese. Emily Carr lived a messy, painterly life with a house full of animals, no intimate with whom to share her life, little money, and no encouragement from the straight-laced society in which she lived. Emily was, in short, not the possessor of a whole lot of “happiness minutes,” a phrase which Lillian Gilbreth, the scientist, coined from her work in time management. Lillian proffered that if you tackled the work you had to do, in an organized and efficient manner, and in fact, tackled your entire life in this way, you would reap many “happiness minutes,” which would be the time left over to do those things you love. Sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? And, Lillian was someone who needed a plan, for she had her plate full with twelve children, a business, and the many innovative ideas she wanted to bring into reality.

Externally, the pair shared a few interesting elements. They were both born in the same century and the same decade: Emily Carr in 1871 and Lillian in 1878. Both were born on the west side of North America: Emily Carr in Victoria, British Columbia and Lillian in Oakland, California. Both came from respectable backgrounds and were able to secure an education.

Naturally, their differences are more intriguing. Lillian Gilbreth wore many hats. She was as an industrial engineer, a pioneer in ergonomics, an expert in time management, an author, and an inventor. She became the first working female engineer to hold a Ph.D. Emily wore one hat, her passion for painting, and she worked hard to keep that one firmly planted on her head, by doing all she could to support herself. She bred and sold sheepdogs, sold clay bowls and plates (Bryan Adams, the popular singer/songwriter, owns an extensive collection of this pottery), and rented rooms in her house, even while she slept in a tent in her backyard!

Who Is Lillian Gilbreth?
When Lillian married Frank Gilbreth in 1904, he was already a pioneer in the field of scientific management and motion study. Together the couple would become a force in that field, aside from becoming the parents of six girls and six boys! Factories hired them to increase productivity. They filmed workers doing their job, and tabulated the motions that were repetitive and wasteful. Lillian brought sensitivity to this work, raising it above scientific fact. For example, Lillian was one of the first scientists to recognize the effects of stress and lack of sleep on workers.

Spic-and-Span! Lillian Gilbreth’s Wonder Kitchen, is the sixth book in the Great Idea series, and focuses on Lillian Gilbreth’s inventive side. Her kitchen inventions helped the homemaker work more effectively, thereby gaining more of those “happiness minutes.” These inventions include the step-on trashcan, the improved electric can opener, the electric mixer, the egg keeper and butter tray in refrigerators, and the wastewater hose in washing machines. She accomplished all this, while bringing up eleven children on her own, ranging in age from toddler to teen, after Frank died at age 55. (Mary, Lillian’s sixth child, died when Mary was five).


Who Is Emily Carr?
Emily Carr was born in Victoria in the same year, 1871, that British Columbia became a part of Canada. She was always proud of this fact. As history describes it, at age eight Emily picked up a piece of charred wood out of the fireplace and rendered a lovely drawing of the family dog. Later, she studied painting in San Francisco (another Lillian link), England, and France. But Emily Carr was a westerner, through and through. She became desperately homesick whenever she left the wild beauty of her beloved West Coast.

Although Emily could not find comfort or a meeting-of-minds in the cheerless Victorian society in which she was born and raised, she felt at home with the First Nations people living in the coastal villages. The First Nations people of Ucluelet even gave her a new name, “Klee Wyck,” which means “Laughing One.” Perhaps in their generous and caring community Emily finally found a wealth of “happiness minutes.”

Emily Carr’s paintings of the decaying totems on western Vancouver Island, Haida Gwaii, and the Skeen and Nass Rivers are her lasting legacy. In 1927, she was invited (with help from Lawren Harris of the Group of Seven) to exhibit her work in the National Gallery in Ottawa. This was the beginning of her most creative time. She bought herself a camper trailer and planted herself beneath the towering redwood cedars. When Emily could no longer paint, because of several strokes, she began to write. She won Canada’s top literary prize, the Governor General’s Award, for her first book, Klee Wyck.

I could go on and on about these two strong and influential women. But there is a length limit, after all! It was a joy to write about each one, and to see how the illustrators, David Parkins (Spic-and-Span!) and Dean Griffiths (When Emily Carr Met Woo) brought them to life for a young audience.

Monica Kulling is the author of over forty books for children, including the popular Great Idea series featuring stories of inventors. The third book in the series, In the Bag! Margaret Knight Wraps It Up, was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for illustration and chosen as a Once Upon a World Children’s Book Award Honor Book by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. In addition, Monica’s work has been nominated for numerous Silver Birch Express and Golden Oak awards. Her recent picture books include Lumpito and the Painter from Spain and Mister Dash and the Cupcake Calamity. Monica Kulling lives in Toronto, Ontario. Visit her at www.monicakulling.com.

The Value of Picture Book Biographies

March 30 - Today’s post by Jennifer Brown of Twenty by Jenny and Shelf Awareness

The Value of Picture Book Biographies

By Jennifer M. Brown

A librarian friend I deeply respect said to me recently that she wasn’t sure what purpose a picture-book biography serves. I immediately thought of many ways to celebrate and defend it as a form, but the most compelling reason is that a picture book biography done well will lead youngest readers to find out more about the person at its heart. And during women’s history month, here are a few favorites to bring youngest readers on board.

Georgia in Hawaii: When Georgia O’Keeffe Painted What She Pleased by Amy Novesky, illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Harcourt/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16.99 hardcover, 9780152054205) is an excellent example of a picture book biography that may well lead young readers to further investigation. Novesky chooses one episode in Georgia O’Keeffe’s career—when the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (later known as Dole) brings her to Hawaii to create two paintings of a pineapple—and she refuses to paint the fruit on their terms. She wants to live among the pineapple workers; the company won’t let her. So she travels the islands and paints “what she pleases.” In the end, back in New York, she does paint a pineapple, but she paints it her way. Novesky convincingly chronicles O’Keeffe’s change of heart, and the illustrations by Morales capture the essence of O’Keeffe’s trademark combination of close observations of nature while making them entirely her own. O’Keeffe’s paintings make us see flowers and sky—and yes, a pineapple—differently, and Morales evokes that same feeling.

Children who respond to Georgia in Hawaii, may then pick up My Name Is Georgia by Jeanette Winter (Sandpiper/HMH), which shows the artist’s early leanings toward her career from childhood, when she traced pictures out of books in her local library in Wisconsin. The picture book follows her through to adulthood, and Winter peppers the narrative with quotes from the artist as spare as her artwork. Young people can easily find a role model in O’Keeffe—the way she trusted her early calling and stuck with it her entire life. It makes a strong statement next to her steadfast stand with the pineapple company in the previous book.

The picture-book biography that prompted the remark from my friend was Jazz Age Josephine by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman (Atheneum/S&S, $16.99, 9781416961239), and while I acknowledge that Josephine Baker’s sensual dances as an adult might be a bit more than a child could handle, Winter does an extraordinary job of conveying her early experimentation in dance as well as how the race riots of her St. Louis childhood prompted her flight to France and planted the seeds for her involvement in the French Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. Without giving these influences short shrift or delivering them with a heavy hand, Winter creates a portrait of a playful, inventive and principled young woman, and Marjorie Priceman’s kinetic illustrations convey Josephine’s charisma and talent.

One of the most fortuitous examples of a picture-book biography leading to further study is the collaboration between Pam Muñoz Ryan and Brian Selznick, Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride (Scholastic). Ryan and Selznick encapsulate in one evening’s adventure two women whose strength and fearlessness broke open gender boundaries during their lifetime. After First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invites “First Lady of the Air” Amelia Earhart to dinner at the White House, Earhart repays her hostess’s kindness by offering her a night flight over the capital. The book gets across a sense of why these women were such icons and also why they became such good friends. (Those who wish to read more about Earhart or Roosevelt may turn to Candace Fleming’s Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart,Schwartz & Wade/Random House; and Fleming’s Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt’s Remarkable Life, Atheneum/S&S.)

That book led to further exploration by Ryan and Selznick, and another episode in Eleanor Roosevelt’s life, When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson(Scholastic). An African-American opera singer at a time when America was still in the throes of segregation, Marian Anderson took the stage all over the world—except when she returned to her homeland. When the singer was denied entry to Constitution Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in and arranged for Anderson to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The notes at the back of this picture book let young readers know how Amelia and Eleanor led to the picture-book collaboration about Marian Anderson and Eleanor. What a power of example for where curious minds and creativity can lead.

Editor’s Note:

Jennifer M. Brown is the children’s editor for Shelf Awareness, an e-newsletter for the book trade that recently launched an edition aimed at consumers. She also writes for Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal’s Curriculum Connections. Jenny is the founder of Twenty by Jenny, a Web site that helps families build their children’s libraries one book at a time.

A Great Omission: Knowledge of Women in the Arts

March 17 - Today's post provided by Diane Browning

A Great Omission:  Knowledge of Women in the Arts

Catharina van Hemessen,
Renaissance painter from the Southern Netherlands

When I was growing up I never heard anything about famous women artists, and very few examples of famous women in other fields of endeavor.  My mother was a painter and a fashion illustrator and she took me to art museums to see masterpieces that had been created throughout history.  Where were paintings by women?  I remember a little boy telling me that girls had never done anything in the way of inventions, great art or science.  Erroneous of course, but a common belief -- there was very little about women in our textbooks.  It was many years later that I saw a groundbreaking museum exhibition in Los Angeles exclusively made up of women artists, from medieval to modern times.  I was astonished.  Why were these painting – these women’s names – not widely known?  The accompanying catalog of the exhibit was a thick book of wonderful paintings by women artists who, in spite of historical and societal difficulties throughout history, had persevered to create paintings as exceptional as the works of male artists.

Around the time of the museum exhibition I saw a PBS documentary titled Anonymous was a Woman, by film-maker Mirra Bank.  The film expressed the belief of art historians that many unsigned 18th and 19th century American folk paintings were created by women.  The memory of that film stayed with me, and I wanted to honor those women folk artists – there are very few who signed their names, and little is known about them.  I chose to write a fictional story which would represent issues that might have made it difficult for a young girl in 1830s America to be a professional painter. My book, Signed, Abiah Rose was released in June.  It is about a young folk painter who is determined to succeed in her chosen profession and to sign her name to her paintings.

Unlike when I was growing up, there are now many enlightening biographies and fiction books relating to women’s talent and contributions to the world.  There are books that encourage girls to pursue their dreams, showing girls are capable of the same achievements as their male counterparts.  I believe there is always a need for books to encourage self-esteem in children -- books about dreams and success, and about girls who succeeded despite being told “no” too many times concerning their education, their careers, their very lives.

Below are some of my favorite picture books about women artists.  The artists and the paintings they created were very different from one another.  What did they have in common?  They all lived to paint and they wouldn’t have taken “no” for an answer.

•             Summer Birds -- by Margarita Engle, illustrated by Julie Paschkis – about German scientist and illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian

•             Art from Her Heart -- by Kathy Whitehead, illustrated by Shane Evans -- about American folk artist Clementine Hunter

•             Frida -- by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Ana Juan -- about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo

I was happy to discover Summer Birds by Margarita Engle in my local bookstore. (Our books had been reviewed together by a North Carolina newspaper – favorably! – as new books about girl artists.)  Maria Sibylla Merian was a 13 year old German girl, who had shown artistic talent from an early age.  It was the mid-17th century and Maria loved to study butterflies and other insects – in secret to avoid being accused of witchcraft!  From her observations she would be able to prove that butterflies did not spring from mud as “beasts of the devil” which was the common belief at the time. When she was older, continuing her studies of insects, plants and natural phenomena, she would travel across the world making her beautiful meticulous paintings of plants and of insect life cycles. Today her work can be found in the collections of art museums around the world. I was fortunate to see a large exhibit of her amazing work at the Getty museum last year. Julie Paschkis’ bright and joyful illustrations beautifully express Maria’s excitement in her world of discovery.  The book’s title is taken from an expression referring to butterflies and moths which appear in the summer.

I love folk art. While I was researching for my book I came across Art from Her Heart (by Kathy Whitehead, illustrated by Shane W. Evans) about folk artist Clementine Hunter.  Without training and after a life dealing with prejudice and poverty, Clementine Hunter first began to paint in 1938, at age 50. She painted on whatever surface she could find—boards, bottles, window shades. She painted her memories of a long life working as a manual laborer on a Louisiana plantation. She would go on to sell her paintings and eventually this descendant of slaves would see her work exhibited in the New Orleans Museum of Art (although because of segregation she herself would not be able to enter the museum during business hours).  She would paint for almost 40 years, and was an example of how “art can keep the spirit alive.”  She was a remarkable woman whose work is appreciated to this day.  Shane W. Evans’ colorful illustrations, paired with Clementine’s delightful folk paintings, work well to tell Clementine’s inspiring story.

Jonah Winter’s book, Frida, is simply told, poetic and inspiring, with beautiful and whimsical illustrations by the very talented Ana Juan.  The colorful, magical, folk-art-influenced paintings of Frida Kahlo have long been favorites of mine.  Her art was like no one else’s, and it was strongly influenced by the difficulties in her life (encompassing the first 50 years of the 20th century).  An early bout with polio and a terrible bus accident resulted in a life of pain. But nothing could keep her from painting. She channeled her pain into her work. She painted fantastical dreamlike paintings, imaginary friends and many surreal self-portraits. She was bold, brave, fierce and irreverent and was loved and known all over the world.  This book is a wonderful tribute to her.

Editor's Note:

Diane Browning is the author/illustrator of Signed, Abiah Rose (Tricycle/Random House 2010).  Her first picture book, it received a starred review from Booklist and was named to their Top 10 Historical Titles for Youth and Top 10 Art Titles for Youth - 2010.  It was also chosen for the ALA Amelia Bloomer Recommended Titles List – 2011.  Visit her blog at http://www.dianebrowningillustrations.com/.