Rose O'Neill

Rose O'Neill, the daughter of a book dealer, was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on 25th June 1874. Rose won a children's art contest at 13 and began weekly cartoon series for the Omaha World Herald.

O'Neill's cartoons appeared in various national magazines and during the 1890s worked as a political cartoonist for Puck. In 1909 her Kewpie made it debut in a 1909 issue of Ladies' Home Journal and were later manufactured as bisque dolls.

The dolls were wildly popular in the early twentieth century, and are considered to be one of the first mass-marketed toys in the United States. Kewpie became the most widely known cartoon character until Mickey Mouse.

O'Neill moved to England where designed and illustrated posters and postcards for the British suffrage movement.

During the First World War she returned to the United States, where she became active in the campaign for women's rights.

Rose O'Neill died on 6th April 1944.