Rachael Robinson Elmer

[2] Beginning in 1891, at twelve years old, Rachael began taking a correspondence drawing course through the Chautauqua Society of Fine Arts.

Still active today, the society made art education accessible to thousands of Americans around the country through distance learning.

At the end of her studies with Knaufft, her life drawing had greatly improved and she was well versed in the pen and ink technique that she would continue to use during her illustration career.

[12] After graduating from Goddard Seminary in Barre (city), Vermont in 1897,[13] she lived in Burlington where she worked and taught in a studio.

[1] A friend prompted her in 1911 to make a series of postcards portraying the city, and she chose twelve scenes, painting them in impressionistic style.

[15] Rachael Robinson Elmer also illustrated children's books and periodicals,[16] including several works by author Caroline Hofman.

[20] During World War I, she created posters and was active with the "Bird and Tree Club", raising funds for replanting woodlands in wartorn France.

An illustration from Caroline Hofman's The Wise Gray Cat (1918), signed "Rachael Robinson Elder".
An illustration from Caroline Hofman's The Wise Gray Cat (1918), signed "Rachael Robinson Elder".
"Flying out of the sky/They came bringing cheeses"; frontispiece of W. E. Griffis, Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks (1918), signed "Rachael Robinson Elmer"
lithograph of the Woolworth Building
Offset lithograph, Woolworth Building June Night (1916), collection of the National Gallery of Art