The Red Rose Girls: An Uncommon Story of Art and Love

This is the story of three artists, Jessie Wilcox Smith (1863 - 1935), Elizabeth Shippen Green (1871–1954) and Violet Oakley (1874-1981) who all attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and met at famed illustrator Howard Pyle’s students at Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. He nicknamed them "The Red Rose Girls" after they moved into the Red Rose Inn, to share living and studio space in a bucolic setting with an unconventional household. That included their friend Henrietta Cozens, who ran the household and gardens for them and Elizabeth Shippen Green’s aging parents The women had an intense emotional bond and made a pact to live together as an art community and never not marry. Although Green did after her parents died. They all remained very close the rest of their lives. Calling themselves the "Cogs" by using the initials of their last names. This period in Philadelphia was a publishing hub and the founding of many women’s magazine at the time, who needed women artists for their growing audience, were encouraged by Pyle in their pursuits. The women enjoyed wide public recognition and success, and enriched each others professional lives with a fluid exchange of ideas. It was an idyllic, romantic life, for a time.