Rose Cecil O'Neill (June 25, 1874 – April 6, 1944) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, artist, and writer. She rose to fame for her creation of the popular comic strip characters, Kewpies, in 1909, and was also the first published female cartoonist in the United States.

The daughter of a book salesman and a homemaker, O'Neill was raised in rural Nebraska. She exhibited interest in the arts at an early age, and sought a career as an illustrator in New York City. Her Kewpie cartoons, which made their debut in a 1909 issue of Ladies' Home Journal, were later manufactured as bisque dolls in 1912 by J. D. Kestner, a German toy company, followed by composition material and celluloid versions. 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.

O'Neill also wrote several novels and books of poetry, and was active in the women's suffrage movement. She was for a time the highest-paid female illustrator in the world upon the success of the Kewpie dolls. O'Neill has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

In 2022 at San Diego Comic-Con, Rose O'Neill was inducted into the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame as a Comic Pioneer.

Early life

O'Neill was born on June 25, 1874, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of William Patrick, an Irish immigrant, and Alice Asenath "Meemie" Smith O'Neill. She had two younger sisters, Lee and Callista, and three younger brothers: Hugh, James, and Clarence. The family moved to rural Nebraska while O'Neill was young. From early childhood, she expressed significant interest in the arts, immersing herself in drawing, painting, and sculpture.

Early illustrations

In 1892, while in Omaha, O'Neill met a young Virginian named Gray Latham, whom she married in 1896. He visited O'Neill in New York City, and continued writing to her when she went to Missouri to see her family. After Latham's father went to Mexico to make films, he went to Bonniebrook in 1896. Concerned with the welfare of her family, O'Neill sent much of her paycheck home.

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In the following years O'Neill became unhappy with Latham, as he liked "living large" and gambling, and was known as a playboy. O'Neill found that Latham, with his very expensive tastes, had spent her paychecks on himself. O'Neill then moved to Taney County, Missouri, where she filed for divorce in 1901, returning to Bonniebrook. Latham died the same year, and some sources state that O'Neill was widowed.

In 1904, O'Neill published her first novel, The Loves of Edwy, which she also illustrated. A review published by Book News in 1905 considered O'Neill's illustrations to "possess a rare breadth of sympathy with and understanding of humanity".

Kewpies and breakthrough

thumb|left|upright|[[Kewpie votes for women postcard, 1914]]

As educational opportunities were made available in the 19th century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, and some founded their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior, and to help overcome that stereotype women became, according to art historian Laura Prieto, "increasingly vocal and confident" in promoting women's work. Many women artists, including O'Neill, could be characterized as examples of the educated, modern, and independent New Woman. According to Prieto, artists "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives". In the late 19th century and early 20th century, about 88% of the subscribers of 11,000 magazines and periodicals were women. As women entered the artist community, publishers hired women to create illustrations that depicted the world from a woman's perspective. Other successful illustrators were Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Violet Oakley.

It was amid the New Woman and burgeoning suffragist movements that, in 1908, O'Neill began to concentrate on producing original artwork, and it was during this period that she created the whimsical Kewpie characters for which she became known. Their name, "Kewpie", derives from Cupid, the Roman god of love. According to O'Neill, she became obsessed with the idea of the cherubic characters, to the point that she had dreams about them: "I thought about the Kewpies so much that I had a dream about them where they were all doing acrobatic pranks on the coverlet of my bed. One sat in my hand." She described them as "a sort of little round fairy whose one idea is to teach people to be merry and kind at the same time". O'Neill repeatedly visited Germany to supervise the doll manufacturers. As O'Neill rose to fame, she garnered a public reputation as a bohemian, and became an ardent women's rights advocate. The success of the Kewpies amassed her a fortune of $1.4 million, with which she purchased properties including Bonniebrook, an apartment in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, Castle Carabas in Connecticut, and Villa Narcissus (bought from Charles Caryl Coleman) on the Isle of Capri, Italy. At the height of the Kewpie success, O'Neill was the highest-paid female illustrator in the world. O'Neill was well known in New York City's artistic circles, and through her association, she was the inspiration for the song "Rose of Washington Square".

Paris and later career

thumb|Nina Morgan, Jackie Wilbur, Olga Petrova, Anita Loos, Rose O’Neill, Women’s Arts And Industries Exposition Sept. 24, 1925.

O'Neill continued working, even at her wealthiest, exploring many different types of art. She learned sculpture at the hand of Auguste Rodin and had several exhibitions of sculptures and paintings in Paris and the United States. These works were more experimental in nature, and largely influenced by dreams and mythology. O'Neill spent 1921 to 1926 living in Paris. While there, she was elected to the Société Coloniale des Artistes Français in 1921, and had exhibitions of her sculptures at the Galerie Devambez in Paris and the Wildenstein Galleries in New York in 1921 and 1922, respectively. Bonniebrook Homestead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

In 2025, O'Neill was posthumously inducted into the Luzerne County Arts & Entertainment Hall of Fame.

Published works

As author and illustrator

  • The Loves of Edwy (Boston: Lothrop, 1904)
  • The Lady in the White Veil (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1909)