Ethel Hays
Encyclopedia
Ethel Hays was an American syndicated cartoonist
specializing in flapper
-themed comic strips in the 1920s and 1930s. She drew in an art deco
style. In the later part of her career, during the 1940s and 1950s, she became one of the country's most accomplished children's book illustrator
s.
. After high school, where she was an illustrator for the school newspaper, she attended the Los Angeles School of Art and Design and then the Art Students League of New York
. She won a scholarship to the Académie Julian
in Paris, but the start of World War I
derailed her studies there. At the time, Hays was on course to become a fine arts painter.
During World War I, she took on the task of teaching painting to convalescing soldiers in Army hospitals. After encountering a group of students much more interested in learning cartooning instead, Hays determined to learn that subject herself. She enrolled in the Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course and, "keeping a couple of lessons ahead," was able to instruct her class. In this environment, her style of drawing pretty women met with great approval.
, a job procured for her by the designer of the correspondence course himself, Charles N. Landon
. Soon after, Landon would be touting Ethel Hays as among the "former students who are now successful comic strip artists" in his magazine ads of the 1920s.
Ethel Hays' first work at the Cleveland Press was for a trendy feature called Vic and Ethel, which consisted of flapper
-themed satire and social commentary—including stories of "steeple-climbing and swimming in ice-filled lakes" and interviews with visiting celebrities—accompanied by Hays's cartoons. Her first comic strip for Newspaper Enterprise Association
was derived from that feature and was called simply Ethel. Here Hays continued to chronicle the era when women "bobbed their hair and took up active sports." Even at the beginning of her career, Hays' style was "already polished and breathtakingly lovely."
In addition, Hays drew the noted one-panel cartoon series Flapper Fanny Says
, also for NEA
and starting in about 1924, with a Sunday page following in 1928. In this panel, which featured a flapper illustration and a witticism, Hays "moved away from the fancy style of Nell Brinkley
, drawing sleeker women with short hair—some even wearing pants." Hays' panel inspired competition for a time from Faith Burrows
' similarly themed Flapper Filosofy
from the rival King Features Syndicate
.
Ethel Hays was married in either 1924 or 1925 to W.C. Simms of Kansas City, Missouri (she continued to use her maiden name in signing her art throughout her career). By 1928 she was a mother. After she had her second child, Hays found that the daily workload was becoming too heavy, and she turned Flapper Fanny Says over to promising newcomer Gladys Parker
around 1931. Between 1931 and 1936, however, Hays did find time to illustrate at least 17 stories by noted and prolific author Ellis Parker Butler
that were distributed to newspapers. Hays continued to produce a variety of other work for NEA, including full-page illustrations and montages for Every Week magazine, a Sunday newspaper supplement. Her final comic strip for NEA was Marianne, beginning around February 1936. It ran weekly. Comic strip historian Allan Holtz
wrote, "While the art was vintage Hays, the gags were strictly jokebook material. You could tell her heart was no longer in it." Hays final installment ran on December 26, 1937, though the strip continued without her for another year or two.
Hays had created art for books early in her professional career. Leaving newspaper comic strips behind, she began to work more extensively for children's book publishers, illustrating a variety of nursery rhymes, Christmas stories and alphabet books. Some of her more notable art was Raggedy Ann and Andy
material for the Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron Ohio. Saalfield had secured the license from the Johnny Gruelle
Company in 1944 to produce Raggedy Ann storybooks, coloring books, paper doll
s and booklets. Most of the artwork fell to Hays, "whose exuberant, curvilinear style perfectly captured the whimsy and energy of Gruelle's characters." Having been trained in painting, she was well-suited for this type of full-color artwork.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Hays illustrated Puzzle Pages for the publisher McCormick-Mathers of Wichita, Kansas. Puzzle Pages has been described as "a reading seatwork series" for schoolchildren. The workbook pages included sections for reading and writing, as well as words and pictures for cut-and-paste activities. Students might also color in the Hays illustrations. The copyright on the series was renewed at least into the 1970s.
wrote that Hays was "without a doubt the most brilliant of the women cartoonists influenced by Nell Brinkley
." Russell Patterson
and John Held, Jr.
have also been numbered among her early influences. The artist Roy Crane
was in turn influenced by Hays, especially in the drawing of beautiful women. Hays’ ubiquitous newspaper illustrations helped promote the idea of the 1920s and 1930s fashion style known as the flapper
.
Hays continued to produce newspaper and book illustrations for many years. One source says she retired from commercial art in the 1950s, while at least one other references work into the 1960s.
Ethel Hays Simms resided in New Mexico
at the time of her death in 1989.
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
specializing in flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
-themed comic strips in the 1920s and 1930s. She drew in an art deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
style. In the later part of her career, during the 1940s and 1950s, she became one of the country's most accomplished children's book illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
s.
Early training
Hays was born in and raised in Billings, MontanaBillings, Montana
Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, and is the principal city of the Billings Metropolitan Area, the largest metropolitan area in over...
. After high school, where she was an illustrator for the school newspaper, she attended the Los Angeles School of Art and Design and then the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
. She won a scholarship to the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
in Paris, but the start of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
derailed her studies there. At the time, Hays was on course to become a fine arts painter.
During World War I, she took on the task of teaching painting to convalescing soldiers in Army hospitals. After encountering a group of students much more interested in learning cartooning instead, Hays determined to learn that subject herself. She enrolled in the Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course and, "keeping a couple of lessons ahead," was able to instruct her class. In this environment, her style of drawing pretty women met with great approval.
Newspaper comics and illustrations
This experience with comic art changed the course of her career. Hays was subsequently offered work as a staff illustrator for the Cleveland PressCleveland Press
The Cleveland Press was a daily American newspaper published in Cleveland, Ohio from November 2, 1878, through June 17, 1982. From 1928 to 1966, the paper's editor was Louis Seltzer....
, a job procured for her by the designer of the correspondence course himself, Charles N. Landon
Charles N. Landon
Charles Nelson Landon , also known as C.N. Landon, was an illustrator for The Cleveland Press, art director for the Newspaper Enterprise Association and art editor of Cosmopolitan...
. Soon after, Landon would be touting Ethel Hays as among the "former students who are now successful comic strip artists" in his magazine ads of the 1920s.
Ethel Hays' first work at the Cleveland Press was for a trendy feature called Vic and Ethel, which consisted of flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
-themed satire and social commentary—including stories of "steeple-climbing and swimming in ice-filled lakes" and interviews with visiting celebrities—accompanied by Hays's cartoons. Her first comic strip for Newspaper Enterprise Association
United Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...
was derived from that feature and was called simply Ethel. Here Hays continued to chronicle the era when women "bobbed their hair and took up active sports." Even at the beginning of her career, Hays' style was "already polished and breathtakingly lovely."
In addition, Hays drew the noted one-panel cartoon series Flapper Fanny Says
Flapper Fanny Says
Flapper Fanny Says from Newspaper Enterprise Association was a single-panel daily cartoon series starting in about 1924, with a Sunday page following in 1928. Each episode featured a flapper illustration and a witticism. It continued into the 1940s as Flapper Fanny.At the start, the panel was drawn...
, also for NEA
United Media
United Media is a large editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States, owned by The E.W. Scripps Company. It syndicates 150 comics and editorial columns worldwide. Its core business is the United Feature Syndicate and the Newspaper Enterprise Association...
and starting in about 1924, with a Sunday page following in 1928. In this panel, which featured a flapper illustration and a witticism, Hays "moved away from the fancy style of Nell Brinkley
Nell Brinkley
Nell Brinkley was an American illustrator and comic artist who was sometimes referred to as the "Queen of Comics" during her nearly four-decade career working with New York newspapers and magazines...
, drawing sleeker women with short hair—some even wearing pants." Hays' panel inspired competition for a time from Faith Burrows
Faith Burrows
Faith Swank Burrows was a nationally syndicated cartoonist during the Jazz Age.In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Burrows drew a daily comic panel called Flapper Filosofy for King Features Syndicate. Each panel exhibited a flapper attired in the current fashions with a humorous caption at the...
' similarly themed Flapper Filosofy
Flapper Filosofy
Flapper Filosofy was a newspaper comic panel distributed by King Features Syndicate and the O'Dell Newspaper Service. It ran during the flapper era of the 1920s into the early 1930s. The art was by Faith Burrows....
from the rival King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
.
Ethel Hays was married in either 1924 or 1925 to W.C. Simms of Kansas City, Missouri (she continued to use her maiden name in signing her art throughout her career). By 1928 she was a mother. After she had her second child, Hays found that the daily workload was becoming too heavy, and she turned Flapper Fanny Says over to promising newcomer Gladys Parker
Gladys Parker
Gladys Parker was an American cartoonist for comic strips and a fashion designer in Hollywood. She is best known as the creator of the comic strip Mopsy which had a long run over three decades....
around 1931. Between 1931 and 1936, however, Hays did find time to illustrate at least 17 stories by noted and prolific author Ellis Parker Butler
Ellis Parker Butler
Ellis Parker Butler was an American author.Butler was born in Muscatine, Iowa. He was the author of more than 30 books and more than 2,000 stories and essays and is most famous for his short story "Pigs is Pigs", in which a bureaucratic stationmaster insists on levying the livestock rate for a...
that were distributed to newspapers. Hays continued to produce a variety of other work for NEA, including full-page illustrations and montages for Every Week magazine, a Sunday newspaper supplement. Her final comic strip for NEA was Marianne, beginning around February 1936. It ran weekly. Comic strip historian Allan Holtz
Allan Holtz
Allan Holtz is a comic strip historian who researches and writes about newspaper comics for his Stripper's Guide, launched in 2005. His research encompasses some 7,000 American comic strips and newspaper panels...
wrote, "While the art was vintage Hays, the gags were strictly jokebook material. You could tell her heart was no longer in it." Hays final installment ran on December 26, 1937, though the strip continued without her for another year or two.
Transition to children's book illustration
In 1938–1940, Hays worked for the Christian Science Monitor, drawing cartoons to accompany a series of poems called "Manly Manners." An instructional children's book collecting the feature was published.Hays had created art for books early in her professional career. Leaving newspaper comic strips behind, she began to work more extensively for children's book publishers, illustrating a variety of nursery rhymes, Christmas stories and alphabet books. Some of her more notable art was Raggedy Ann and Andy
Raggedy Ann
Raggedy Ann is a fictional character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and has a triangle nose...
material for the Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron Ohio. Saalfield had secured the license from the Johnny Gruelle
Johnny Gruelle
Johnny Gruelle was an American artist, political cartoonist, children's book author and illustrator . He is known as the creator of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy...
Company in 1944 to produce Raggedy Ann storybooks, coloring books, paper doll
Paper doll
Paper dolls are figures cut out of paper, with separate clothes that are usually held onto the dolls by folding tabs. They have been inexpensive children's toys for almost two hundred years. Today, many artists are turning paper dolls into an art form....
s and booklets. Most of the artwork fell to Hays, "whose exuberant, curvilinear style perfectly captured the whimsy and energy of Gruelle's characters." Having been trained in painting, she was well-suited for this type of full-color artwork.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Hays illustrated Puzzle Pages for the publisher McCormick-Mathers of Wichita, Kansas. Puzzle Pages has been described as "a reading seatwork series" for schoolchildren. The workbook pages included sections for reading and writing, as well as words and pictures for cut-and-paste activities. Students might also color in the Hays illustrations. The copyright on the series was renewed at least into the 1970s.
Assessment and legacy
Ethel Hays has been called "one of the more successful women cartoonists of the 1920s." Comics historian Trina RobbinsTrina Robbins
Trina Robbins is an American comics artist and writer. She was an early and influential participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the few female artists in underground comix when she started. Both as a cartoonist and historian, Robbins has long been involved in creating outlets for...
wrote that Hays was "without a doubt the most brilliant of the women cartoonists influenced by Nell Brinkley
Nell Brinkley
Nell Brinkley was an American illustrator and comic artist who was sometimes referred to as the "Queen of Comics" during her nearly four-decade career working with New York newspapers and magazines...
." Russell Patterson
Russell Patterson
Russell Patterson was a celebrated and prolific American cartoonist, illustrator and scenic designer. Patterson’s art deco magazine illustrations helped promote the idea of the 1920s and 1930s fashion style known as the flapper.Patterson was born in Omaha, Nebraska...
and John Held, Jr.
John Held, Jr.
John Held Jr. was an American cartoonist and illustrator. One of the best known magazine illustrators of the 1920s, Held created cheerful art showing his characters dancing, motoring and engaging in fun-filled activities...
have also been numbered among her early influences. The artist Roy Crane
Roy Crane
Royston Campbell Crane , who signed his work Roy Crane, was an influential American cartoonist who created the comic strip characters Wash Tubbs, Captain Easy and Buz Sawyer. He pioneered the adventure comic strip, establishing the conventions and artistic approach of that genre. Comics historian...
was in turn influenced by Hays, especially in the drawing of beautiful women. Hays’ ubiquitous newspaper illustrations helped promote the idea of the 1920s and 1930s fashion style known as the flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
.
Hays continued to produce newspaper and book illustrations for many years. One source says she retired from commercial art in the 1950s, while at least one other references work into the 1960s.
Ethel Hays Simms resided in New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
at the time of her death in 1989.