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February, 2018 The Antique Shoppe Page 35
By the time she was employed in the greeting card business, laboring phenomenal. Greeting style postcards for Valentine’s Day and other
most of her career for International Art Publishing Company of New holidays began being published in 1904. Ellen Clapsaddle was at the
York City, the overly ornate, lacy, frilly and luxurious valentines of pinnacle of her career. Her postcard designs rank among the best sellers
the previous century had passed out of favor. They were not only too of all time and there seemed to be no limit to the future prosperity of
expensive to buy, but had simply lost their appeal. either International Art or its premier artist. The United States and the
What the buying public now wanted was an avalanche of valentines world in general were in the midst of a picture postcard mania.
priced at pennies and nickels each, not dollars. Clapsaddle was just one The Wolf brothers, owners of the company, sent her to Europe for a
of hundreds of artists actively employed - most of them as free-lancers few years to enable Ellen to work more closely with the firm’s German
- by dozens upon dozens of firms all over America who specialized in engravers. Some time in 1913 or 1914, she asked one of the Wolf
satisfying the consumer’s desire for low-priced, attractively designed brothers to invest her savings in the German greeting card industry, then
greeting cards for all the world leader and producer of most of what was sold in America.
holidays. The fad for Ellen travelled extensively throughout Europe during her visit, soaking
picture postcards, a up culture and the landscape.
mania that gripped The outbreak of war in August 1914 caught her in Germany. Amidst
the nation from 1904 the chaos caused by the sudden fighting and subsequent breakdown of
to 1914, was partially all transportation, she found herself a stranded and penniless displaced
powered by this need. person. Only through the valiant efforts of the Wolfs’ New York lawyer
Thousands of did she managed to get out of Germany and come home.
different Valentine Upon her return, Clapsaddle discovered that her entire world had
Day postcards were collapsed. Not only was she wiped out financially by the loss of her
manufactured by investments in war-torn Germany, but the greeting card industry
many companies, most was in shambles. Cut off from their German printers and faced with
of them located in an unexpected, sudden decline in the public’s interest in picture
the Northeast. Ellen postcards and
Clapsaddle and her ← Young lad with other novelties,
employer, International bouquet of hearts most firms went
for his lady love
Art, contributed a (postcard) out of business
large amount to this or severely cut
outpouring. The their staffs and
best description of Young lovesick marketing goals.
Clapsaddle’s paintings boy pouring International Art
and water colors is to out his heart to eventually closed
call them a sort of folk his sweetheart down, as well.
art - charming, plain (postcard)→ Ellen, now
and heart-warming. It nearly 50 years
was certainly the spirit old, was out of a
in which she painted. job and career.
Ellen Clapsaddle drew with the simplicity of a child and her artwork Suddenly, there
was sensitive and realistic. In drawing children, her favorite theme, she was no future for
was not coyingly sweet or excessively sentimental like so many of her her.
contemporaries. The next 15
She was born January 8, 1865, in South Columbia, New York, into years were spent
a family that proudly traced its origins back to 1720, when the first doing what little
Clapsaddles left Wurtenberg, Germany, to come to America. artistic work she
Ellen Clapsaddle’s childhood was relatively uneventful. She showed could find. Little
an early aptitude for sketching and painting and throughout her is known of her
growing-up years she was encouraged to develop her talents. Graduation during these
from Richfield Springs Seminary, New York, in 1882, was followed troubled times, except that she continued to live in New York City.
by a couple of years at the Cooper Institute in New York City for art Both her ability to earn a living and her health continued to decline.
training. She died on January 7, 1939, in the
During the 1890s, Ellen was moderately Needlepoint design ( postcard) Peabody home on Pelham Parkway in
successful painting landscapes, portraits New York City, after a two-year residence
and doing free-lance illustrating. there. Friends raised the necessary funds
Sometime during the middle of to make possible Ellen Clapsaddle’s last
that decade she began working for wish - to be buried next to her parents in
International Art, one of America’s largest Richfield Springs. Today, a simple marker,
novelty and greeting card publishers. “Ellen,” rests at her feet.
Many of her designs were used not only In her lifetime she created much beauty,
for holiday greeting cards - and, later, small scraps of it passing down through
postcards - but for booklets of verse, the years to us today, It can truly be said
water color prints and all sorts of paper of Ellen Clapsaddle that she has given
novelties. many generations of Americans a little bit
Business growth for the company and of happiness through her drawings and
the industry over the next eight years was illustrations.