Posted on 07/03/2021 4:39:16 PM PDT by SamAdams76
Helen Stroud Hamilton created more than 1,100 illustrations for The Happy Hollisters book series, between 1953 and 1969.
Born in Philadelphia, PA in 1921, Helen Stroud began drawing and painting as a child. Her mother, who worked full time, was also an accomplished painter and often took her daughter on weekend sketch sessions in the hills outside the city. After high school, Helen studied art history at Wellesley College and continued to draw and paint on her own. After graduation, she returned to Philadelphia, where she was appointed as an instructor at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art (Now University of the Arts). There, she met a WWII veteran, William H. Hamilton, and they married in 1950. Both artists embarked on careers as illustrators. One of the first contracts she received (in 1952) was to illustrate the nascent Happy Hollisters book series. There were times when Bill would help by drawing images that were particularly hard for her to render (like bicycle wheels in perspective!). Over the years, both artists illustrated many textbooks magazines and books for Prentice Hall, Doubleday, Winston, Lippincott and other publishers.
The couple lived in a house in the hilly Pennsylvania woods, on the border between Lafayette Hill and Philadelphia. There, they raised four children while both worked full time (plus!) in workspaces they set up in the house. Helen worked in a large studio on the third floor of the house. It was lined with bookcases and file cases filled with visual reference materials. Her studio also housed a large loom, a gigantic antique desk, her childhood dollhouse and many boxes of paper. A sofa and several armchairs invited the children (and others) to curl up with books to read. The children were also invited to create freely in the space, using her stock of paper, scissors and paint.
For each illustration in the Happy Hollister book series, she first made a draft drawing with pencil, then finalized it with pen and ink. For the covers, she would create and submit watercolor compositions. Once it was approved, she would create a larger, final version in watercolor or gouache paint.
Having established the look for each character in the book, over time she playfully designated each of her children as one character, and often asked them to hold a certain pose, so she could make a sketch for a particular drawing. She maintained many sketchbooks, drawing people, animals, objects and landscape, for practice, reference and enjoyment. She and Andrew Svenson (the author) were in frequent contact by phone and mail. He often sent visual reference to her for the specific themes and locations of each different project. She used this material as well as images from her own reference files to visually portray his mystery stories.
In addition to her illustration work, Helen was an accomplished painter, collagist and weaver. Her work has been shown in museums, and is part of the permanent art collection of the Library of Congress.
Wow, blast from the past. I remember reading those.
I thought this was tied to an obit, but she apparently died in 2014.
I feel as if I lost a friend. These books helped a socially inept me enough as a child that I have bought them for my grandchildren and for a local charity that works will ill children. They are great and wholesome books for children, and well suited to reading a chapter a day to younger children. Her illustrations were wonderful and remarkably consistent throughout the series.
I loved the happy hollisters
Hard to believe but at the time, all these books were controversial and banned from some libraries because they were not considered literature that children should be reading. In fact, they were considered "unworthy trash" if you can believe.
I loved those books when I was a kid. I couldn’t stop reading them, it was literally that scene where my mom would come into my room late at night and warn me to put them away and go to sleep. I still have the set my folks bought me in about the mid 60’s.
I was born in 1951, so Mom must have read a bunch of those to me, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that book series before. We used to have lots of Little Golden Books around the house.
Happy Hollisters is well worth checking out.
I still have some volumes on my bookshelves. My children read them during the 1990s. They hold up pretty well.
“I still have the set my folks bought me in about the mid 60’s.”
How cool! When Mom and Dad downsized from their big Colonial house to an apartment, they held a huge garage sale and got rid of everything. There were lots of bits of memorabilia I wish I had now, but it all disappeared. Very sad.
“I would check them out from the library during the summer of 1971 along with Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.”
In 1971 I was 20 and busy as a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest trying to get a life together.
I loved The Happy Hollisters! I had a huge cardboard box full in the 60s, given to me by a friend of my mom’s when her kids had finished them, probably from 1953 through the early 60s. I enjoyed them so much. They had red bindings, and I remember the colorful illustrations of the children on the dust covers. I’m sure my mom passed them on to one of her friends for their kids to enjoy when I finished them. Thanks for posting the interesting article on illustrator Helen S. Hamilton’s 100th anniversary of her birth!
My grandparents loved books as I do today. They had a subscription for one Happy Hollisters book delivered to me once a month. I so looked forward to each one. I still have two dozen of them stashed away in a closet. The series brings back treasured memories.
There used to be a book club. I read a bunch of them, too.
"Unworthy trash" compared to what?
One of my favorite book series as a child. I’ll have to see if I an find them for my grandkids
My other was "The Boxcar Children" series ...
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