His mother ran a failed wholesale egg business and his father worked for the U.S. Post Office as a postal clerk.
[1] Rhodes employed both of his parents in the administrative departments of the School of Visual Arts later in his life.
Rhodes, along with illustrator Burne Hogarth, persuaded the VA to support an art school specifically to help veterans returning from the war.
Rhodes and Hogarth (best known for the comic strip Tarzan) along with James Boyle, founded the Cartoonists and Illustrators School in 1947.
[1] Most of the school's initial students were World War II veterans and Hogarth fans who worked during the day and enrolled in night courses.
[1] Both Rhodes and Hogarth were summoned to Washington D.C. in 1956 as part of a United States Senate subcommittee investigation of suspected Communists.
"[1] Silas Rhodes' son, David, later told The New York Times that his father had been a member of the Communist Party, but left in 1936,[1] well before his military service in World War II or the founding of the school.
[1] Rhodes successfully persuaded the New York State Board of Regents to allow the school to confer a bachelor's degree in fine arts in the 1970s.
Rhodes served as the creative director for one of the signature public projects of the School of Visual Arts.
He helped advise and create posters designed by the school's faculty which have been displayed on the New York City Subway system for over 50 years.