Frederic Dorr Steele - Horses

Frederic Dorr Steele was a very prolific illustrator best know for his Sherlock Holmes illustrations, which you can find at this hot link.

Steele was born in a lumber camp near Marquette, Michigan, later studied at the National Academy of Design in New York City, and also taught illustration at the Art Students Leauge, according to Walt Reed in his excellent compilation of the best in American Illustration "The Illustrator in America 1900-1960's." He worked for all the big American magazines in many different mediums. Shown here are some examples of his best work (in my opinion) that appear to be drawn in litho crayon on a textured paper such as coquille board. Click on all of the images to enlarge them.

The author, Sewell Ford (1868-1946), wrote many short stories about horses which can be found by searching his name on the Internet. Some of his books can be entirely downloaded. This first story of his appeared in the April 1901 edition of Scribner's Monthly Magazine entitled Skipper (being the biography of a blue-ribboner. It's about a police horse who was auctioned off for $35 to a grocer, then sold to a junkman, and finally bought back by his former police officer rider who had inherited a bequest sufficient enough to retire Skipper to a life of ease in Westchester County.

"The first time he saw one of those little wheeled houses . . . he wanted to bolt."

"There were many heavy wagons."

"For many weary months Skipper pulled that crazy cart."

"He was taken to a big building where there were horses of every kind."

[The use of photos as reference is very obvious in the illustrations.]

"Drove him . . . to a big down-town market."

This second Sewell Ford story appeared in the August 1904 edition of Scribner's Monthly Magazine was called Chieftan, a story of the heavy draught service.

"He would do his best to steady them down to the work."

"He cut short their dinner hour."

"The let him . . . snake a truck down West Street."

"For some four days Tim appeared to enjoy it greatly."

On a personal note:

I saw the last of these horses as a kid growing up in a working-class suburb of Boston. The milk man, the ice man and the junk man, who called out, "Rags, paper, rags!" all used horses to pull their carts. The only modern touch was that the milk man's cart had rubber tires.

The evidence of horses was everywhere, as was their pungent smell. Street urchins threw "horse buns" at their victims. Frugal gardeners swept up horse manure for their rooftop containers of herbs and vegetables. It was far from the sanitized life we live today where horses are ridden for pleasure and competition. These noble beasts of burden were often simply worked to death or slaughtered when they lacked the strength to pull a cart.

"Working like a horse," was a common expression. So was "the horse knows the way," referring to how drunks were brought home when too incapacitated to manage on their own.

Comments

[Faisal]

Great site.