SOAP TRADE CARD,; "Welcome Soap"
Boston: Curtis Davis, ca 1880-84. Single chromolithographed card (3 x 4-1/2 in). The image of an sailor greeting a woman and a dog. Gilman's first published work. Lane, "To Herland and Back" p. 63; Gilman, "The Living", p. 47; MacDonnell, Kevin. "Cards by Charlotte Perkins Gilman" in Trade Card Collections Assoc., Fall, 2001. Rare. Item #58618
After studying at Rhode Island School of Design, in 1880, at the age of twenty, Gilman and her cousin Robert Brown designed trade cards for at least four soap companies to earn money. The Kendall cards are quite playful: showing a female archer, a young boy lassos a star, a magician touches the finger tips of a woman, etc. Her original sketches are preserved among her papers and at least 30 cards have been attributed to her. Some of the images show women working like troopers at their domestic chores. The cards themselves, Gilman's first attempts at earning an independent living.
Price: $85.00 save 20% $68.00