Long time no post! I've been busy on the art side of things this summer, and after getting burned out on researching the Little family, I decided to revive one of the things I love doing this fall: harvesting art that's fallen into the public domain and sharing it. Like my previous clip art post , I'm happy to share a new batch of images sourced from several magazines around 1919 to 1921. This set primarily features "grotesques" designed by Louise D. Tessin for use on "Hallowe'en programs and invitations." While there was a high focus on black cats and owls, it also contains witches, a dog, a moon, jack-o'-lanterns, and a grumpy person shooing away bats. A sample of the basic art in the pack with some minor edits to repair a malformed face. Her ink and watercolor art was printed in grayscale with some heavy paper textures, an inconsistently-lit scan, and a few original images show errors we'd likely think of as "AI problems" - six ...
After our lengthy visit to Clarke County, it seems fitting to take a short break with some poetry, this time printed in the Staunton Spectator, 29 August 1894 . The poem appears to have been written quite some time before it made its way to Staunton, with the earliest sighting found to date being in 1860 in the New York Saturday Press . Unfortunately, the author's name has been anonymized with very common initials and a plain last name, and we've been unable to track down this poem printed in another location to help us hone in on the complete name for more in-depth research. This means we've also been unable to find any other examples of this poet's work, so at the end of the day we'll have to consider this still a case of "author unknown" despite being signed. Like our earlier Valentine stories, this poem should be out of copyright in the US, so the entire poem is reprinted here. Enjoy this glimpse of the 19th century! EYES OF BROWN AND BLUE. Out of ...