We recently enjoyed lunch at Kewpee Burgers in downtown Lima, Ohio, under the watchful eyes of several roly-poly Kewpies stationed around the diner.
I knew Kewpie dolls were popular during the early 1900s, but I didn't realize that the little rascals had a Midwest connection beyond their role as mascots for the Kewpee Burger chain.
The Kewpie came from the creative mind of Rose O'Neill, a popular magazine illustrator during the early twentieth century.
O'Neill was born in Pennsylvania in 1874, but her family moved to Nebraska by the time she was three years old. Her father, an aspiring farmer, brought the family west to live in a sod house, but farming didn't suit the O'Neill clan. The family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where young Rose's artistic talent drew notice when she won a school contest and began selling her drawings to publications.
Rose lived in New York City for much of her adult life, making a good living as a magazine illustrator.
Legend has it that the Kewpies came to Rose as she napped one day. They first appeared in Ladies Home Journal in 1909. Their popularity over the next 25 years led to numerous appearances in the pages of other magazines like Good Housekeeping, and Woman's Home Companion. O'Neill also made money merchandising Kewpie products like dolls.
Kewpies fell on hard times with the arrival of the 1930s, when photography began to supplant drawings to illustrate magazines, and demand for the cute little characters diminished.
O'Neill returned to the Midwest as her income dropped during the mid-1930s to live at Bonniebrook, the O'Neill family homestead in Missouri's Ozarks that she largely financed during better economic times.
Many of O'Neill's Kewpie dolls, molds, books, poems and art work are on display at Bonniebrook, which is now a museum and National Historic Site near Branson, Missouri.
O'Neill led an interesting life, and I suspect I'll come back to her story here in the future.
Meanwhile, if you want to learn a bit more about her art and life, check out Rose O'Neill: The Girl Who Loved to Draw by Linda Brewster or The Story of Rose O'Neill: An Autobiography edited by Miriam Formanek-Brunell.
Check out Visiting Kewpee Hamburgers in downtown Lima, Ohio to find out more about Kewpee Burgers.
Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.
© Dominique King 2011 All rights reserved
