Charlotte Harding 1873-1951 Collection

Charlotte Harding was born on August 31, 1873 in Newark, New Jersey, and at age seven moved to Philadelphia with her family. From 1893-1894, Harding studied under Robert Henri at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, and was hired as an instructor shortly after graduating. She continued her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1894 to 1895, and in the same year went on to study under Howard Pyle at the Drexel Institute. After graduating from Drexel in 1900, Harding set up a studio with Alice Barber Stephens at 1400 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, and later moved to her own studio in the Fuller Building located at 10 S 18th Street. According to her daughter, the easel Harding used here was eventually handed down to artist Stephen Colgate Howard (1912-2010), after Charlotte herself proved disinclined to fine art.

Harding’s first professional commission was for Golden Days for Boys and Girls, published by James Elverson as a children’s supplement to the Philadelphia newspaper Saturday Night, which ran from 1865 to 1901. “Job didn’t last long,” Harding scribbled on the back of one of her Golden Days illustration proofs. “Woman editor wasn’t pleased with my work.” Other early work included advertisements for N.W. Ayer & Son, founded in 1869 and said to be America’s oldest advertising agency by the time it ceased operations in 2002.

Like many of her contemporaries, Harding was also a prolific contributor to such magazines as The American Magazine, The Century, Collier’s, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Weekly, The Ladies’ Home Journal, McClure’s, and The Saturday Evening Post. Authors whose articles and stories she illustrated during her most active years of 1899 through 1911 included Ellis Parker Butler, George W. Cable, Elizabeth Garver Jordan, Rudyard Kipling, Ian Maclaren, Francis Neilson, and Harriet Lummis Smith.

Harding’s first book illustrations were for Robin Hood: His Book by Eva March Tappan (Little, Brown & Company, 1903), one of numerous adaptations of the English folktale released by various publishers during this period. Other books illustrated by Harding include Alice Duer Miller’s popular novella The Burger and the Blizzard: A Christmas Story (Hearst’s International Library Co., 1914) and The Bishop and the Boogerman by Joel Chandler Harris (Doubleday, Page & Company, 1909), creator of Uncle Remus; as well as two volumes of children’s poetry by Helen Hay Whitney, the socialite daughter of Secretary of State John Hay.

Harding was a founding member of Philadelphia’s Plastic Club, a women’s art organization established in 1897 and still active today, with membership extended to men starting in 1991. Harding was also a member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. Upon her husband’s retirement in 1933, the couple moved to Smithtown, Long Island, where Harding became involved with the North Suffolk Garden Club, winning third place in the 1936 and 1937 International Flower Shows held in the Grand Central Palace in Manhattan.

Though she married engineer James Adams Brown in 1905, Harding was most often known by her maiden name in professional dealings. Her brother, George Matthews Harding (1882-1959), was also an illustrator. Charlotte Adams Brown (Ganz), Harding’s daughter, was born October 4, 1908, in Philadelphia’s Holmesburg neighborhood.

Charlotte Harding Brown died November 1, 1951, in Smithtown, New York.