Status | Defunct |
---|---|
Founded | 1908 |
Founder | Paul Frederick Volland |
Successor | Shaw Barton Company |
Country of origin | United States |
Headquarters location | Chicago, Illinois |
Publication types | books, greeting cards, music, calendars, games |
P. F. Volland Company of Chicago, Illinois published poetry books, greeting cards, [1] music, children's books, calendars, cookbooks, and children's occupational games, [1] between 1908 [2] and 1959. The press was noted for using new printing processes, including off-set printing techniques, [2] and color illustrations. The P. F. Volland Company is also known for the many significant artists and writers whose work it published.
Paul Frederick John Volland Hughes Phelps (April 24, 1875 – May 5, 1919) was a 20th century publisher, and the founder of the P. F. Volland Company. [3] In 1908, he would become the founder of the P. F. Volland Company, [3] which would work to publish poetry books, greeting cards, [1] music, children's books, calendars, cookbooks, and children's occupational games, [1] all between 1908 [2] and 1959. He also became a publisher during the time period following the foundation of the company. In 1917, Volland would publish the book New Adventures of Alice , made by John Rae. On May 5, 1919, Volland was shot and killed by Vera Trepagnier in a business dispute in the Volland offices. [4] [5] [6]
The Volland Ideal was used to market P. F. Volland's lines of children's books. The Volland Ideal was "that books should make children happy and build character unconsciously and should contain nothing to cause fright, suggest fear, glorify mischief, excuse malice or condone cruelty." [7] [8]
Christmas cards were added as a product line in 1909. [9]
After 1912, the firm had offices in the Monroe Building (across the street from the Art Institute), which were designed by the well-known architect Walter Burley Griffin. [10] Griffin also had offices in the Monroe Building [11] and his wife, architect Marion Mahony Griffin, provided illustrations for some of P. F. Volland's greeting cards. [12] [13]
In 1916, the firm moved to a new space in the Garland Building, 58 East Washington Street, Chicago, Illinois. [14] [15]
In 1917, the company was incorporated in Delaware. [16]
In 1919, the firm participated in the Victory Loan drive organized by the Liberty Loan Committee for the Publishing, Printing, Advertising, and Allied Interests. [17]
Frederick J. Clampitt, who had been a silent partner and an executive member of the firm since 1916, became president of P. F. Volland after Paul Volland's death in 1919. [2] [18] Other officers of the company in 1919 were W. R. Anderson, vice president; H. S. Adams, secretary; Edwin J. Clampitt, assistant treasurer; James R. Offield, member of board of directors; Maurice Berkson, member of board of directors. J. P. McEvoy headed up the editorial department. [18]
The New York representative of the firm was Francis H. Evans. [19] In 1929, the New York representative of the firm was Harry A. Moore. [20]
The P. F. Volland Company merged with the Gerlach Barlow Company in 1924 [21] and moved some of its offices to the Gerlach Barlow Building in Joliet, Illinois. [3] The Volland brand name continued to be used for Volland products. [2] The Volland offices at 58 E. Washington in Chicago, Illinois were retained and sold both the Volland and Gerlach Barlow lines. [2]
After World War II, Volland produced greeting cards for the emerging African American market. [22]
By 1935, the book titles published by Volland were acquired by other publishers, including Wise Book Company and M.A. Donahue. [2] [6]
The Shaw Barton Company, a competitor of the Gerlach Barlow Company, purchased the company in 1959 [3] and closed down the Joliet operation. [21]
Volland hired many significant early 20th century artists and writers. [2] Many worked as freelancers. [23]
Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect. He designed Canberra, Australia's capital city, the New South Wales towns of Griffith and Leeton, and the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag.
Marion Mahony Griffin was an American architect and artist. She was one of the first licensed female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School. Her work in the United States developed and expanded the American Prairie School, and her work in India and Australia reflected Prairie School ideals of indigenous landscape and materials in the newly formed democracies. The scholar Debora Wood stated that Griffin "did the drawings people think of when they think of Frank Lloyd Wright ." According to architecture critic, Reyner Banham, Griffin was "America’s first woman architect who needed no apology in a world of men."
Raggedy Ann is a character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle (1880–1938) that appeared in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and a triangle nose. The character was created in 1915, as a doll, and was introduced to the public in the 1918 book Raggedy Ann Stories. When a doll was marketed with the book, the concept had great success. A sequel, Raggedy Andy Stories (1920), introduced the character of her brother, Raggedy Andy. Further characters such as Beloved Belindy, a black mammy doll, were featured as dolls and characters in books.
John Barton Gruelle was an American artist, political cartoonist, children's book and comics author, illustrator, and storyteller. He is best known as the creator of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls and as the author/illustrator of dozens of books. He also created the Beloved Belindy doll. Gruelle also contributed cartoons and illustrations to at least ten newspapers, four major news syndicates, and more than a dozen national magazines. He was the son of Hoosier Group painter Richard Gruelle.
Prairie School is a late 19th and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, integration with the landscape, solid construction, craftsmanship, and discipline in the use of ornament. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the wide, flat, treeless expanses of America's native prairie landscape.
Joseph Patrick McEvoy, also sometimes credited as John P. McEvoy or Joseph P. McEvoy, was an American writer whose stories were published during the 1920s and 1930s in popular magazines such as Liberty, The Saturday Evening Post and Cosmopolitan.
Hermann Valentin von Holst (1874–1955) was an American architect practicing in Chicago, Illinois, and Boca Raton, Florida, from the 1890s to the 1940s. He is best remembered for agreeing to take on the responsibility of heading up Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural practice when Wright went off to Europe with Mamah Cheney in 1909.
Bradshaw Crandell was an American artist and illustrator. He was known as the "artist of the stars". Among those who posed for Crandell were Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Veronica Lake and Lana Turner. In 1921, he began his career with an ad for Lorraine hair nets sold exclusively by F. W. Woolworth. His first cover illustration was the May 28, 1921 issue for the humor magazine Judge. In later life, he went from illustrations to oil-on-canvas paintings which included political figures. He also provided poster work for 20th Century Fox. In 2006, he was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. In March 2010, an illustration for the 1952 Dutch Treat Club yearbook of Crandell's sold for $17,000.
The Gerlach Barklow Co. was an art calendar factory located in Joliet, Illinois, which was "one of the largest calendar and advertising companies in America." the company was founded in 1907. The factory employed over 1,500 people at its peak in the 1950s.
Adelaide Hiebel (1885–1965) was an artist and illustrator who worked for the Gerlach Barklow Co. in Joliet, Illinois, a manufacturer of art calendars. Hiebel preferred to work in pastels, and was known for her photographic detail and portraits of women, especially "women and dogs, mothers with infants, infant portraits and small children in cute situations."
Pearl Alice Frush was an American pin-up and glamour illustration artist during the golden era of the calendar art market. Pearl ranked amongst the top three female glamour artists, along with Joyce Ballantyne, and Zoë Mozert. They were a rare "Girl's Club" within the predominantly male pin-up masters of mid-century illustration: Alberto Vargas, George Petty, and Gil Elvgren. According to the co-author of The Great American Pin-Up, Louis K. Meisel, "Frush's technical brilliance was such that, upon close examination, her works even begin to take on a photographic clarity. Those knowledgeable collectors who have studied her paintings have often judged her the equal of Alberto Vargas in artistic excellence." Like Vargas she depicted women in provocative poses, however, she showed them with more proportional bodies than Vargas. She sometimes signed her paintings with her [then] married names "Pearl Frush-Brudon" or "Pearl Mann". One of her most recognizable and enduring contributions to American advertising iconography was her original rendering of Little Debbie® McKee, for McKee Foods in 1960.
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A Halloween card is a greeting card associated with Halloween. The concept originated in the 1890s United States, experiencing a peak of popularity there in the early 1900s. Until the advent of the common home telephone, Halloween cards occupied a role similar to Christmas cards and birthday cards. Today, many cards from the popular designers of the period are sought after as memorabilia.
Elizabeth O. Hiller was a prominent early twentieth-century American author of cookbooks and a professor of culinary arts.
Frances Beem was an early 20th-century American author and illustrator of children's books.
Carmen L. Browne was an early twentieth century author and illustrator, particularly of children's books.
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