To the art world he is known as Charles S. Graham. To his friends, due to his 5'-3" stature, he was always known as "Little Charlie".
Charles, born in 1852, was the second child of Robert and Sophie Graham of Rock Island, Illinois. Robert was a tinsmith for the Swiler & Reid company in town. But, he eventually started his own business and became successful enough to have two stores.
Charles, born in 1852, was the second child of Robert and Sophie Graham of Rock Island, Illinois. Robert was a tinsmith for the Swiler & Reid company in town. But, he eventually started his own business and became successful enough to have two stores.
Rock Island, Illinois
Little Charlie always seemed to have had a natural drawing ability growing up. The 1870 Federal Census states he is a "Painter" and was attending school. This is odd since people his age (19) were normally only attending secondary schools until about age 16 at that time. The local college, Augustana, was not established until 1875. Was he a house painter or artist?
After his mother died in 1870 he went to work with the Northern Pacific railroad. They made him a topographer and taught him drafting. The railroad surveying work enabled him to see Montana and Idaho which fueled his love for travel.
Leaving the railroad he spent 1874-1877 in Chicago doing scenery work for the theatres. Charlie even made a drawing of this titled “The Scene Painter is No Ghost”. This drawing was in 1874 while Graham was working for Jevne & Almini – fresco decorators – on a project at Hooley’s Opera House in Chicago.
After his mother died in 1870 he went to work with the Northern Pacific railroad. They made him a topographer and taught him drafting. The railroad surveying work enabled him to see Montana and Idaho which fueled his love for travel.
Leaving the railroad he spent 1874-1877 in Chicago doing scenery work for the theatres. Charlie even made a drawing of this titled “The Scene Painter is No Ghost”. This drawing was in 1874 while Graham was working for Jevne & Almini – fresco decorators – on a project at Hooley’s Opera House in Chicago.
In early 1877 he leaves Chicago for New York City. There he lands a job as a staff artist on Harper's Weekly magazine. Little Charlie's work soon becomes popular. His work from his time there (1877-1893) is greatly collectible.
Views of Mt. Vernon
Western Summer Resorts
During this time he was also producing works being displayed at the American Watercolor Society in New York City. These works are even more sought after than the Harper's Weekly drawings.
In 1892 Charles is selected to be the official artist for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He produces over two dozen official scenes of the fair which the Chicago Tribune reproduces. The newspaper places one each day in their paper to promote the Expo and increase their sales.
Enter now the Winters Art Lithograph Company of Springfield, Ohio. To get the rights to print the pictures the Columbian Expostion Art Committee asks for bids to do so. Winters lowballed the competition and won the rights.
The contract states...
It is also understood and agreed that the Winters Art Lithograph Company shall furnish as many more than 100,000 copies of this lithograph as the World's Columbian Exposition may desire at pro rata rates. A condition of this order also is that the Winters Art Lithograph Company shall not sell or in any manner circulate or permit to be circulated any copies of this lithograph except on written authority from the Department of Publicity and Promotion of the World's Columbian Exposition until three months after the 100,000 copies shall have been delivered
Yours truly,
M P HANDY Chief of Department
and
EDWIN SHIVELL Esq. Manager, Chicago Office of The Winters Art Lithographing Company
The contract states...
It is also understood and agreed that the Winters Art Lithograph Company shall furnish as many more than 100,000 copies of this lithograph as the World's Columbian Exposition may desire at pro rata rates. A condition of this order also is that the Winters Art Lithograph Company shall not sell or in any manner circulate or permit to be circulated any copies of this lithograph except on written authority from the Department of Publicity and Promotion of the World's Columbian Exposition until three months after the 100,000 copies shall have been delivered
Yours truly,
M P HANDY Chief of Department
and
EDWIN SHIVELL Esq. Manager, Chicago Office of The Winters Art Lithographing Company
As it turns out Charles Graham was part of the Winters art department and had an interest in the company. Plus, Winters already had the lithograph stones to do the printing. They were all set to make money. But then disaster strikes in April 1892.
The loss was estimated at $75,000 or $2 million in today's money. The rebuilding started immediately but they needed to make some extra money. This may have been what precipitated the idea to produce playing cards for the Expo.
The Winters Art Lithograph Company was started by John P. Winters. He was the son of a well known German Baptist Reform minister of Springfield, Ohio. John went from farmer to successful plow maker to printer in his lifetime. By 1880 he had started the Winters Art Lithograph Company with his four sons. In 1892 his son Robert had just patented a newly invented flat bed single cylinder sheet press for printing book jobs, or newspaper work, in one or two colors at a rapid rate. They were small but doing very well. By 1892 they also had an office in Chicago. It was in room 1117 at The Rookery in downtown Chicago.
The Rookery, at 209 South LaSalle Street, was built in 1888 by the architectural partnership of Daniel H. Burnham and John Wellborn Root that coordinated the Columbian Exposition in 1893. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 a tempory structure, used as City Hall, was on this site. The new building was nicknamed the "rookery", in reference to the crows and pigeons that flocked to its exterior, as well as the alleged corrupt politicians it housed.
To raise more capital Winters looked for advertising. He found two backers. They were The Hayner Distillery and The Dr. Harter Medicine Company. Winters modified some of his playing card decks to advertise these companies at the Expo.
A Hayner Distilley office was located in Springfield near the burned out Winters factory. The distillery was in the nearby town of Troy. In 1892 the company was changing hands in the Hayner family. Later that year they became known as “C. C. Hayner Distiller, Pure Copper Distilled Rye and Bourbon Whiskies.”
The Lock Box 290 address was used for mail orders. A customer would send a mail order to this address without using the company name. Thus a customer's liquor order was kept from prying eyes. His order would then be shipped in a plain wrapped box, once again keeping anyone from knowing their personal business. Especially if it was going to a "Dry" state.
"Harter's, the only true iron tonic purifies the blood, regulates the liver and kidneys."
Harter's was was established in St. Louis in 1855 by Milton George Harter, Samuel K. Harter and Thomas W. Boyer. Milton Harter died around 1890 and by 1892 the business had relocated to Dayton, Ohio. By the end of the century they had been taken over by the San Antonio Drug Company.
Winters was trying to financially recover after the fire. Fortunately in 1893 Charles Graham got the job to do the paintings for the 1894 Pacific Coast Midwinter Fair. Winters then also got to produce playing cards for the Fair. They then hired an up and coming young Chicago salesman named Charles Johnston Smith. Smith was sent to San Francisco to assist Graham and set up an office and get the company some business.
Smith became well known quickly in San Francisco. Spending money and rubbing elbows with the High Society people seemed to be his way of business. He even got Graham to go in with him on starting a company called The Golden Gate Art Publishing Company, But Smith was not getting any business, he was just giving his company "the business". Winters soon found out Smith had been spending $1,000 a month ($29,000 today) doing nothing for him. Smith's short career ended in June 1894. Moving on he also got into trouble ripping off the Western Art Company of Port Huron, Michigan, in 1897.
Winters's company was still having financial trouble recovering from the fire. Being sued for several non-payments they completely re-organised and changed management. They then became known as The Winters Publishing Company and continued on for many years.
Winters's company was still having financial trouble recovering from the fire. Being sued for several non-payments they completely re-organised and changed management. They then became known as The Winters Publishing Company and continued on for many years.
Charles Graham, while in San Francisco, had become friends with many influencial people. Several of them had joined Graham and Smith in their new art company. They were Henry Joseph Brady and William T. Sesnon. Brady was a Lawyer and Sesnon was a County Clerk and was about to become the Deputy Secretary of State of California. These gentlemen were also members of the well known Bohemian Club.
The Bohemian Club is an elite invitation-only social club founded in San Francisco in 1872 by a group of male artists, writers, actors, lawyers, and journalists, all of means and interested in the arts and culture. The term "bohemian" was meant to conjure the cultured intellectual urban bohemian, as opposed to the impoverished type. Since its founding, the club expanded to include politicians and affluent businessmen. They are known especially for their annual summer retreat at what is known as Bohemian Grove in the redwood forest of California’s Sonoma county. Notable members over the years have included Clint Eastwood, Henry Kissinger, Walter Cronkite, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Charles Schwab, Ambrose Bierce, Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and Jack London. Charles Graham was always welcomed by the club but appears to not have been an official member.
By 1896 Little Charlie returned to New York City. He did a couple features for Harper's, worked for the New York Herald newspaper, produced a number of oil paintings and did some lithography work. He passed away there on August 9, 1911 after suffering from a nervous disorder for three years.
Charles S. Graham's Self Portrait
THE CARDS
Some of these decks are found with an aluminum case. It appears that these cases were just Columbian Expo souvenirs. These cases have appeared with other playing card company decks.
The card box design, and agent for "The World's Fair Souvenir Playing Card Co." was Harry C. Frink. He is listed as having an office at 1180 Broadway in New York City. This address, at the time, was a business building. The card box states that the design was pending for a patent and copyright. Neither have been found. The company was incorporated in August 1892 with his wife, Josephine, and his father, Benjamin P. Frink.
The cards were coated by the John T. Story Company of Chicago.
SX7 COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION SOUVENIR PLAYING CARDS, Winters Art Litho. Co., Chicago, 1893. The backs feature the three ships of Columbus in pink or blue. Faces depict scenes and buildings of the fair. Bust portraits on the upper left corner of each court card show Ferdinand on the Kings, Isabella on the Queens and Columbus on the Jacks.
SX8 COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION SOUVENIR PLAYING CARDS, Winters Art Litho. Co., Chicago, 1893. The backs and scenes of these cards are identical to those of SX7. The bust portraits however are in the upper right hand corner with Colonel George R. Davis, the President of the fair on the Kings, Mrs. Potter Palmer on the Queens with Columbus remaining on the Jacks.
SX8a COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION SOUVENIER PLAYING CARDS, World’s Fair Souvenir Card Co., 1892. This deck was issued a year early than SX7 and SX8. The back design is slightly different but with the same motif. The bust portraits of Colonel Davis, Mrs. Potter and Columbus are on the left side of the card.
SX9 COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION SOUVENIR PLAYING CARDS, Winters Art Litho. Co., Chicago, 1893. This deck was listed in the original Encyclopedia as having the same scenes as the previous listings and courts without the bust portraits. In addition the backs were described as having a large Winters medallion as the central theme. All examples of this back have been discovered to be Kings of Hearts and it is now known that the cards were included in decks of SX8 as a promotional item.
SX10 COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, Winters Art Litho. Co., c1893. The faces of these cards are identical to SX8 but they are advertising cards for the Dr. Harter Medicine Co., Dayton, Ohio. The backs advertise ‘Dr. Harter’s Little Liver Pills’ and ‘Iron Tonic’. The same ad appears on the Joker that states “The Only True Iron Tonic”.
SX11 COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, Winters Art Litho. Co., c1893. This deck is also identical to SX8 except that two cards, the Queen of Clubs and the Jack of Diamonds differ. They show, respectively, an advertisement for the Hayner Company and a price list.
SX15 MIDWINTER INTERNATIONAL EXPO, Winters Art Litho. Co., Chicago, 1894. Winters decided to capitalize on the successful cards at the 1893 fair. The backs feature State seals of California, Oregon and Washington along with the Seal of the Exposition. The faces have color sketches of the fair and bust portraits of Uncle Sam, Liberty, etc. in the upper right-hand corners. The Joker shows a walking brown bear.
SX16 MIDWINTER EXPOSITION, Winters Art Litho. Co., 1894. These cards were issued as an advertising deck for Enterprise Brewing Co., San Francisco. They are identical to SX15 except for two cards. The Jack of Diamonds and Queen of Spades have brewery ads and say “compliments of Enterprise Brewing Co.”, which leads one to believe they were given away or sold at the Enterprise exhibit at the fair.
The Enterprise Brewing Co. opened in 1892 and closed in 1914. The original building, located at 1 Enterprise Street, has since undergone a major renovation and transformed into a single-family home. Redone with a contemporary touch, some of the building’s old look remains intact, like the wood furnishings and exposed beams. It sold in in 2017 for just over $4 million.
The Enterprise Brewing Co. opened in 1892 and closed in 1914. The original building, located at 1 Enterprise Street, has since undergone a major renovation and transformed into a single-family home. Redone with a contemporary touch, some of the building’s old look remains intact, like the wood furnishings and exposed beams. It sold in in 2017 for just over $4 million.