Harry Whittier Frees and the Cats in Clothes

It's not uncommon to see photographs of live animals wearing clothes and/or involved in activities that, under normal circumstances, only people would do.  

For example, photographer William Wegman immortalized his dogs in costumes of all sorts.  A traveling hedgehog wearing an assortment of hats became popular on Instagram. Cat memes on the Internet show kitties doing "people" things, captioned in pidgin cheezburger.  

A photograph that circulated on social media demonstrated that someone knitted a tiny striped sweater and put it on a live hamster. Mr. Sniffles was obviously disturbed at this turn of events. In the picture, his little eyes are dark and bulging, whiskers bristling like arrows stuck in a target, tiny front paws forced out to either side of his chest by the sleeves of his new pullover jumper.  (I can easily imagine the hamster unraveling his new sweater and incorporating it into his nest after the photo shoot, fluffing his fur back into place, and curling up to puzzle over the silliness of humans.)  

Animals have often had to pose in clothes to make their humans happy.  I noticed this when I opened the April 1937 issue of Better Homes & Gardens that I found at an estate sale, to see Snowy the Cat and her kitten endorsing bed linens.

The ad noted that Snowy and her kitten were "photographed from life" and that the picture was "No. 8 of a series."  

I did a quick online search for the phrase "cats in clothes" and found information on the photographer who spent so much time stuffing pet animals into little outfits.

There are several web pages and books devoted to the work of Harry Whittier Frees (1879-1954), the man who painstakingly photographed "Snowy" and many, many other small animals.  For decades, his work was featured on postcards, in ads in magazines, in brochures (Utica, the sheet manufacturer, released a 28-page booklet called "Restful Sleep," illustrated by photographs of "Snowy"), and in children's books.  

Frees' postcards demonstrate his patience in getting just the right shot.  I found these at another estate sale.

If you've ever tried to stuff a live small animal into a dress, you can imagine the challenges Frees faced in his work, long before the days of Photoshop.  Mary Weigley, writing for Pennsylvania Heritage magazine, says that Frees' career started innocently enough -- someone put a hat on a cat at a birthday party in 1906, Frees took a photo, and the image was so popular that he created a few more and sold them to a postcard company.  

His career took off from there; over the course of several decades Frees published many children's books illustrated with photographs of animals in costumes.  Even more of his photos were featured in print ad campaigns. Weigley continues:

Frees's photographs were uncommon because he used live animals and no tricks were involved.

He initially added a bow, a hat or some small clothing accessory to his four-legged subjects. About 10 years into his career, Frees began expanding the animals' wardrobe (making it easier to pose them) and created elaborate settings for his models. He attired them in dresses, work uniforms, smocks, shawls, robes and aprons made by his mother or his housekeeper Annie Edelman. The clothes were held in place by pins so the animals could be quickly dressed and undressed. They were then posed in human situations - ironing clothes, cooking on an old-fashioned cast-iron stove, hanging laundry, playing a piano, pumping water, even casting votes in a wooden ballot box! 

Frees' animal subjects were not always patient with him.  About two-thirds of the pictures he took were ruined because the cat, dog, rabbit or chicken (yes) took off, trailing bits of costume, out of camera range.  Weigley observes:

The work was challenging, time-consuming and nerve-wracking. It caused Frees so much anxiety that he photographed his furry subjects for only three months a year. To make the situation even more difficult for Frees, only about 30 negatives out of every 100 could be used. Consequently, he needed the remainder of the year to recuperate from exhaustion and formulate new ideas.

(To say nothing of how some of the animals felt.)  Frees' favorite and most cooperative subject was his own cat Rags, who patiently endured photo shoot after photo shoot.

Frees never married, devoting his life to his career and taking care of his parents.  After they died, Frees developed cancer and, despondent, took his own life in 1953.  

Frees' patient work continues to be admired more than 100 years after he took that first picture of a cat in a party hat.  Scholars have researched his work. He is referenced in at least one college design textbook.  The government of France owns a collection of his images, which have been reproduced in a book.  His photographs continue to be published to this day.

So the next time you're tempted to costume a cat and take its picture, you can remember patient Harry Whittier Frees, the man who set the standard.

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The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission website has a page devoted to Frees:

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/spring/21709/introducing_harry_whittier_frees/1793127

The Atlantic magazine notes that the idea of an "lolcat" image is nothing new, thanks to Frees' work:

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/05/cats-and-dogs-dressed-as-people-100-years-ago/100736/

This blog summarizes Frees' career:

http://www.onemoreriver.org/11267/11836.html

The Telegraph (UK) has an online photo album dedicated to Frees' work:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/10508738/Victorian-photographer-Harry-Whittier-Freespioneered-Lolcats-a-century-ago.html

Palmer Cox and the Brownies

Leafing carefully through the pages of an 1892 Ladies' Home Journal, I came across a full page dedicated to the antics of some little fellows I'd seen before: the Brownies.  

The magazine was so large, I had to make two digital scans to cover the entire page:

Just so you don't hurt your eyes trying to see all those tiny Brownies at once, here's a close-up of two of them:

The Brownies were the creation of Palmer Cox (1840-1924), a Canadian artist, who based them on the Scottish folk stories told to him by his grandmother.  Cox moved to the United States in the 1870s and in 1883, the Brownies made their debut in print.  

A blog post for the Winterthur Museum describes them:

...the Brownies were an adventurous and mischievous group of little men who...lived, traveled, and performed good deeds together.

The Brownies first appeared in print in St. Nicholas, a children's magazine, in 1883, and they continued to appear regularly there and in the LHJ for 17 years.  Their adventures combined fantasy with little moral lessons, and the kids of the time loved them.

By the 1890s, the Brownies were doing licensed "endorsements" and their images appeared on everything from coffee to cookies, toys to teacups, soap and other products.  Cox is said to have been the first cartoonist (years before Walt Disney) to turn his characters into a commercial enterprise. The Brownies' most famous endorsement

was probably George Eastman's Kodak Brownie camera (although some sources I looked at reported that Eastman never had a formal agreement with Cox to use the Brownies' name and images).  Interestingly, younger Girl Scouts (US) and Girl Guides (UK) are called "Brownies" not because of these little guys, but after an 1870 story called "The Brownies" by British author Juliana Horatia Ewing.*

The Brownies' adventures reflected life in America at the time; they all had different ethnicities and different jobs.

Jeanne Solensky of Winterthur continues:

Throughout, the Brownies were on the cutting edge of trends, engaging in sports like bicycle-riding and tennis, riding cars, and visiting the Brooklyn Bridge and the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago even before the fair opened. While they did experience minor accidents and problems along the way, the Brownies always overcame these with good cheer. 

In one such adventure, the Brownies decide to help a farmer who is sick in bed and can't harvest his crops.  Cox wrote:

...While carrots, turnips, beets, and all

Received attention, great and small.

When morning dawned, no sight or sound

Of friendly Brownies could be found...

The honest farmer thought, of course,

His neighbors had turned out in force While helpless on the bed he lay, And kindly stowed his crop away.

[36]

But when he thanked them for their aid, And hoped they yet might be repaid For acting such a friendly part, His words appeared to pierce each heart. For well they knew that other hands Than theirs had laid his grain in bands, That other backs had bent in toil To save the products of the soil. And then they felt as such folk will Who fail to nobly act, until More earnest helpers, stepping in, Do all the praise and honor win.

Even though we don't remember them very well now, the Brownies were certainly celebrities in their day.  How nice it would be if 21st century "celebrities" (who are, too often, only famous for being famous) would be remembered more than a century later, primarily for their own good works.  

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Here is a link to The Brownies: Their Book, by Palmer Cox, that you can read online.  Make sure you open a version of it with illustrations: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32210

Here's a link to the Winterthur blog post on the Brownies: http://museumblog.winterthur.org/2011/11/16/the-brownie-empire-of-palmer-cox/

Interestingly, younger Girl Scouts (US) and Girl Guides (UK) are called "Brownies" not because of these little guys, but after an 1870 story called "The Brownies" by British author Juliana Horatia Ewing.  She wrote (Harry Potter fans, take note!):

"The Brownies, or, as they are sometimes called, the Small Folk, the Little People, or the Good People, are a race of tiny beings who domesticate themselves in a house of which some grown-up human being pays the rent and taxes. They are like small editions of men and women, they are too small and fragile for heavy work; they have not the strength of a man, but are a thousand times more fresh and nimble. They can run and jump, and roll and tumble, with marvellous agility and endurance, and of many of the aches and pains which men and women groan under, they do not even know the names. They have no trade or profession, and as they live entirely upon other people, they know nothing of domestic cares; in fact, they know very little upon any subject, though they are often intelligent and highly inquisitive. They love dainties, play, and mischief. They are apt to be greatly beloved, and are themselves capriciously affectionate. They are little people, and can only do little things. When they are idle and mischievous, they are called Boggarts, and are a curse to the house they live in. When they are useful and considerate, they are Brownies, and are a much-coveted blessing. Sometimes the Blessed Brownies will take up their abode with some worthy couple, cheer them with their romps and merry laughter, tidy the house, find things that have been lost, and take little troubles out of hands full of great anxieties. Then in time these Little People are Brownies no longer. They grow up into men and women. They do not care so much for dainties, play, or mischief. They cease to jump and tumble, and roll about the house. They know more, and laugh less. Then, when their heads begin to ache with anxiety, and they have to labour for their own living, and the great cares of life come on, other Brownies come and live with them, and take up their little cares, and supply their little comforts, and make the house merry once more."

Here's a link to that story online:  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16052/16052-h/16052-h.htm#thebrownies

Remembering "Wallace"

A community is a place where you have something in common with other people.  You don't have to be exactly the same as everyone else.  It's enough that you know the same people and share things with them at some level.  Perhaps it's a place, a building, an experience; perhaps it's a joke that everyone gets.  A shared point of reference, and, if you're truly blessed, a common source of pride. 

If you grew up in the Phoenix area any time between the mid-1950s and the late 1980s, the thing you had in common with virtually every other kid (and much of the adult population) was that you watched Wallace and Ladmo on television.
__________________________________________

Awhile back, I found a copy of Arizona Days and Ways magazine at an estate sale in Phoenix.  It was a supplement to the Arizona Republic, the morning newspaper in Phoenix.  The date was February 11, 1962.  The front cover had been torn off at some point, but all the articles and ads were still in place.

As I flipped through the ads, my eye fell on a small photograph within a full-page ad for KPHO, the local independent television station in Phoenix in 1962: 

The photo was of the hosts of Phoenix's after-school kids' show.  At the time the program was called It's Wallace? 

And there in the photograph were the three young men who performed on the show: Bill Thompson (better known as Wallace), Pat McMahon (playing the character "Aunt Maud" in the photo), and Ladimir Kwiatkowski, better known as Ladmo.

Bill Thompson died on July 23, 2014.  He was 82.  Ladmo passed away (far too soon) in 1994.  Pat, God bless him, is still alive and still on the air in Phoenix as a news/talk host.  

The program started out like a lot of other kids' TV shows in the 1950s.  Families had TV sets.  Kids liked to watch cartoons, and in a lot of TV stations, the on-air blocks of cartoons had a "live" host.  KPHO already had a kids' show called Gold Dust Charlie, where Thompson played a character, and It's Wallace? was a spin-off. Thompson's character hosted the cartoons.

Phoenix-area kids used to hurry home from school in the afternoon to watch Wallace.  The cartoons were a compelling reason to do so.  Notably, among so many others, they ran Roger Ramjet.  (If you don't rememeber Roger Ramjet, you need to familiarize yourself with him.  YouTube can help.)  I seem to also remember a beautifully animated series of Russian fairytales that later resurfaced as Stories from My Childhood.  For several years running, at the very end of the show on Christmas Eve, they would show Bedtime for Sniffles, a classic 1940 Warner Bros. tale of a little mouse who tries to stay awake to see Santa Claus.

In between cartoons there were comedy skits -- the real reason we watched the show.  Over time, Thompson's character Wallace Snead was joined by others, most notably Ladmo (Kwiatkowski was a camera operator at the station) and McMahon, in a variety of characters.  Columnist Jon Talton, who grew up in Phoenix and Scottsdale, observed in a 2011 blog post:

The regular cast featured Bill Thompson as Wallace, Lad Kwiatkowski as Ladmo and my friend Pat McMahon. Wallace, or Wall-Boy as Ladmo called him, was the host and butt of much humor. Ladmo was the everyman or everykid, full of fun and mischief. McMahon played a host of characters, many of which gave the show its bite. Among them was Gerald the brat, the nephew of the TV station's general manager; Aunt Maud, the doddering, bad driver old coot from Sun City; biker Bobby Joe Trouble; Captain Super, a parody of assorted super heroes, and Boffo the Clown, who hated children.

No one was safe from the show, which parodied local politicians, senior citizens, kids' show characters and rock bands (with Hub Kapp and the Wheels).  Wallace would play Mister Grudgemeyer, occupying a bench at Encanto Park with his short fuse, and here would come Ladmo, innocently sitting next to him and eating potato chips or celery with such noise as to cause the Wallace character to do a meltdown. If you were young in the '60s in Phoenix, it was a joy to see all this. (Or young at heart: My grandmother loved it, too). Ladmo invariably got the better of Gerald.... Captain Super couldn't lift much. Marshall Good was a bitter, has-been cowboy actor. We were all in on the joke, and much of the humor was very sharp and sophisticated.

People who didn't grow up in Phoenix while Wallace was on the air, won't be able to understand why it was so important.  Richard Ruelas, who also wrote a definitive book on Wallace, said in an article in the Arizona Republic:

The television program, which aired in various incarnations from 1954 to 1989, was historic and beloved. It was an anomaly among children's shows nationwide in its longevity and content....

...The program had no parallel, leaving those who grew up with the show with the curse of having to explain it to Valley newcomers who arrived after it was off the air.

In 1992, the Arizona Historical Society recognized the show's costumed cast the same day it honored U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater. The timing made perfect sense to longtime Arizonans, though outsiders may have wondered why a kids show earned equal footing with such luminaries.

Thompson ensured the show's skits did not talk down to kids or try to send any messages about doing homework or listening to their parents. He wanted the show to be funny.... 

When PBS aired a series on the Pioneers of Television, the program that got a great deal of attention in the episode on Local Kids' TV was Wallace and Ladmo.  No one from Arizona who knew about Wallace was surprised; during its 35-year run, the series won nine Emmy Awards.

Your parents knew that it was safe to let these offbeat characters into the home -- in fact, if your parents were home at the time they probably watched the show with you, and laughed at the sophisticated "improv" comedy that was way over your head.  

So much of the humor on Wallace and Ladmo was nuanced and layered, as it is in the very best old Warner Bros. cartoons.  Little kids laughed, teenagers laughed, adults laughed, all for different reasons.  The important thing was that we were all there together, laughing.  

Bill Thompson's legacy is that his TV show brought us all together, in a safe place full of the joy of the shared experience.  We were, in that place and at that time, a community.

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Here's a link to Talton's post about Wallace and Ladmo:

http://roguecolumnist.typepad.com/rogue_columnist/2011/12/phoenix-101-wallace-and-ladmo.html

Here's a link to Ruelas' story on Wallace:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2014/07/23/wallace-ladmo-bill-thompson-dies/13016035/

PBS' website for Pioneers of Television:  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/pioneers-of-television/pioneering-programs/local-kids-tv/

Here's the official Wallace Watchers website:  http://www.wallacewatchers.com/

The Ever-Fixed Mark

To say that She and He loved to send greeting cards to one another, is an understatement.  I found a large collection of the cards She had saved over the years, at her estate sale the other day. 

By looking at the old greeting cards and some of the other things at the estate sale, I was able to piece together something of the story of this couple.

She was born in California in 1929, the daughter of Japanese immigrants.  Those of you familiar with the dark side of America's involvement in World War II can probably guess what I'm going to write next: She and her family were interned at a "relocation center" in Arkansas in 1942.

But, the war eventually ended and in 1945, the family returned to California.  

She graduated from high school in 1947, and was awarded a Certificate of Merit for Outstanding Citizenship. 

She went on to become a Registered Nurse.  

She met a former serviceman, and they fell in love and got married in 1954.  They sent each other dozens of greeting cards -- romantic, silly, and somewhere in between.

Some of the cards She saved were still in their original envelopes.  They make this seemingly ordinary post-war love story, a bit more extraordinary.

Postmark: 1954, five months after their wedding.  Address: in care of the nearest Veterans Administration Hospital.

1955: in care of the VA hospital.

And 1956, cards from and to the VA Hospital:

And 1957.
  

The hand-written messages inside the cards never changed:

She wrote a poem for Him:

I think about you often

And I'd write you every day

But there's so very little

Which seems worthwhile to say

It either rains or doesn't rain

It's either hot or cold.

The news is all uninteresting

Or else it's all been told.

The only thing that matters

Is the fact that you are there

And I am here without you

And it's lonesome everywhere.

I think about the way you smile

And I recall your touch

And distance lends enchantment

And I miss you very much.

The old greeting cards show that She and He kept on quietly loving one another, and showing one another that love, despite His illness.  

They understood what William Shakespeare wrote about choosing to love the other person, in sickness and in health:

...Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken... 

...Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

Beautiful Joe and the Band of Mercy

I was thumbing casually and carefully through the crumbling pages of the January 1892 The Ladies' Home Journal I'd found at an estate sale, when I came across a familiar phrase: "Band of Mercy."  

The brief article was part of a regular feature of the magazine, The King's Daughters, edited by Mrs. Margaret Bottome.

The Band of Mercy was mentioned in one of my favorite children's books, Beautiful Joe.  Even though the book is a work of fiction, the LHJ clipping shows that the Band of Mercy was a real organization.  In researching the Band of Mercy, I discovered that Beautiful Joe was also the name of a real dog.

Did you ever read Beautiful Joe?  It's a classic children's book published in 1893 (a year after the Ladies' Home Journal article).  Beautiful Joe was written by an author named Marshall Saunders -- or so I thought.  It wasn't until I started doing research for this blog post that I discovered that Marshall Saunders was, in reality, Canadian author Margaret Marshall Saunders, CBE (1861-1947).

There's a website for the Beautiful Joe Heritage Society in Canada.  It gives us details of the story of Margaret Marshall Saunders, and why she published under an assumed (sort of) name:

In 1892 while she was visiting her brother in Meaford, Ontario, she heard the story of a dog that was rescued by Mr. Walter Moore (the father of her sister-in-law, Louise Moore). This event inspired her to write the story of Beautiful Joe, a canine autobiography of a Meaford area dog, rescued from a brutal owner who had chopped off his ears and tail. She decided to enter the story in a literary contest sponsored by the American Humane Education Society. In her book the Moore family became the Morris Family, and she relocated the story to a small town in Maine, USA. as per the contest rules. Also, because female authors were not popular at the time, she disguised her sex by not using her first name Margaret, instead using her middle name Marshall. Beautiful Joe written by Marshall Saunders, was finally submitted... and won!

The book was first published in 1893 and quickly became the first Canadian book to sell more than a million copies. By 1900, over 800,000 copies had sold in the U.S., 40,000 in Canada and 100,000 in the United Kingdom. And by the 1930's worldwide sales were over 7 million copies.

Beautiful Joe is dedicated:

TO

GEORGE THORNDIKE ANGELL

PRESIDENT OF THE 
AMERICAN HUMANE EDUCATION SOCIETY
THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION
OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS, AND THE PARENT
AMERICAN BAND OF MERCY
19 MILK ST., BOSTON.

THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR

http://www.beautifuljoe.org/the-society/the-storyteller

An online exhibit for students and teachers called Be Kind, tells us more of the history of the Band of Mercy:

http://bekindexhibit.org/exhibition/bands-of-mercy/

Bands of Mercy were formal organizations that brought young boys and girls together under the umbrella of being kind to animals. Humane Education was a central component of Band of Mercy activities.

The history of the Band of Mercy movement dates back to 1875,  when Catherine Smithies formed the first one in Britain. In 1879 the Band of Mercy Advocate began as a periodical publication in Britain. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) took over the organization of both the Bands of Mercy and its related publication in 1882.

1882 also marked the year when the Band of Mercy movement came to North America. George T. Angell, founder of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) teamed up with Rev. Thomas Timmins to start Bands of Mercy in the United States. This movement grew rapidly–by the early 20th century there were more than 27,000 Bands of Mercy in the United States.

I wonder how many children joined the organization because they read Beautiful Joe?

Margaret Marshall Saunders was awarded the CBE in 1934 in recognition of her contribution toward securing humane treatment for animals.

I suspect that when most people think of Canadian children's book authors, they think of Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote the Anne of Green Gables series and so many other books.  Margaret Marshall Saunders and Lucy Maud Montgomery co-founded a local branch of the Canadian Women's Press Club.

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You can read Beautiful Joe online, here: 

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/saunders/joe/joe.html#XIX

Or, even better, find a printed copy of it, an old printed copy, and share it with a child who loves animals.

The Quilter's House

It's very common, around here, to see online listings for estate sales that feature "sewing and crafting supplies."  

But I don't think I've ever seen as large a collection of fabric as the one I saw at an estate sale a few weeks ago.  The woman who owned the old house in the historic neighborhood had taught quilting for many years.

The first floor of the house contained furniture, books and pictures.  The entire second story of the house, including a sleeping porch, was filled with quilting fabric and books, mostly books about quilting.  I don't think I've seen a fabric store recently, with that much cloth.

With the owner of the home's permission, I took two pictures of a portion of the fabric they had for sale, with my cell phone camera.  I could have taken 20 more pictures like this, and I wouldn't have photographed it all.

The people holding the sale, including the young man who's inherited the estate, told me they'd already sold a great deal of the fabric to people who'd known the quilting instructor.  This was what was left over.  (Whatever didn't sell, they said they would donate to charity.)

Because they had so much (understatement of the year), they were selling the remaining fabric by the bag -- small, medium and large.  I thought, What a great deal!  I could probably use some fabric, or find it another home.  So I got a small bag and started sorting through the piles of cloth.

Hm.  Maybe I should get a medium-sized bag.

Okay then, I'll get a large bag to hold the fabric I want.

And I don't even quilt.

I also found a couple of quilted cats, presumably made by the quilting teacher.  One of them didn't have a ribbon, so I was persuaded to give it away to what I was assured was a good home.

The other quilted cat, I think I'll keep away from other, jealous, felines.  It will remind me of the unknown woman who was so passionate about her craft and shared her love of quilting with others.