Rose O'Neill - Early Life

Early Life

O'Neill was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania as the second of seven children to William Patrick and Alice Asenath "Meemie" Smith O'Neill. As a child Rose loved to draw, and her father would leave specially sharpened pencils and blank paper around the house for her. At the age of 13 Rose entered a children's drawing competition sponsored by the Omaha Herald and won first prize. Within two years she was doing illustrations for the Excelsior and The Great Divide and other periodicals with help from the editor at the Omaha World-Herald and the Art Director from Everybody Magazine that had judged the competition. The income helped support her family which her father had not been able to do as a bookseller. Later O'Neill's father decided she would do even better if she went to New York City. William Patrick O'Neill took his daughter in 1893 to NYC stopping in Chicago to see the World Columbian Exposition where she saw large paintings and sculptures for the first time that she had only seen in her fathers books. Once in New York Rose was left on her own to live with the Sisters of St. Regis. The nuns accompanied her to various publishers to sell from her portfolio of 60 drawings. Rose sold all her work and took orders for more. Soon she was an extremely popular illustrator and was being paid top dollar for her work. In the September 19, 1896 issue of True Magazine O'Neill became the first American women cartoonist with "The Old Subscriber" cartoon strip. While O'Neill was in New York her father made a homestead claimed on a small tract of land in the Ozarks wilderness of southern Missouri. The tract had a 'dog-trot' cabin with two log cabins and a breezeway between, with one cabin used for eating and living and the other for sleeping. A year later Rose visited the land, which became known as Bonniebrook". During this time O'Neill joined the staff of Puck magazine.