When we all believe

Many children gather around Santa Claus and his bag of toys.

Comments and Context

In the 1903 Christmas issue of Puck, the center-spread surrendered its typical political theme to a social and seasonal celebration for readers.

“When We All Believe” is more than a feel-good depiction of smiling children, but an implied wish for happier times ahead, perhaps a secular variation of Jesus’s admonition — “let the little children come unto” Santa Claus, in this case. Cartoonist Rose O’Neill was careful to include children of many ages, races, and classes; and except for old Saint Nick, in an environment absent of adults. A world, perhaps, like that of Kenneth Grahame in the contemporary popular books Dream Days and The Golden Age

Rose Cecil O’Neill was a major and still under-appreciated figure in American letters and cartoon history. She was born in the Ozarks and self-trained as an artist. When she moved to New York she met and married an entrepreneur whose activities including technical and commercial innovations in the very early motion-picture business. She began drawing for Puck, specializing in children and social humor — never politics — and attracted a following.

The following included Puck‘s editor, the popular humorist Harry Leon Wilson, who O’Neill married soon after divorcing Latham. She illustrated a novel by Wilson, and wrote and illustrated two of her own. Unlike her gentle, juvenile subjects for Puck, these were romances, slightly racy for their day.

Around 1910 she introduced a new cast of characters to the world — denizens of a fantasy world, the dream-creatures known as the Kewpies. Soon her Kewpie dolls were in uncountable magazine drawings, illustrated poems, books, and — most famously — in three-dimensional existence as stuffed dolls, ceramics, and statuettes.

O’Neill’s success was assured, and she never stopped inventing stories and images of her Kewpies. But her creative juices had her sculpting statues (romantic and erotic, not Kewpie-themed) and living in places like a villa on the Isle of Capri and in Westport, Connecticut, and finally back in her beloved Ozarks, where there is now a museum devoted to her work.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1903-12-02

Creator(s)

O'Neill, Rose Cecil, 1874-1944

Period

U.S. President – 1st Term (September 1901-February 1905)

Repository

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Page Count

1

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation