Good Wishes for the Children Rediscovered: Hans Christian Andersen and the Launch of Sarah Gooll Putnam’s Artistic Career

In the course of her work at AAS, Laura Wasowicz, the Society's curator of children's literature, recovered the identities of the translator and illustrator of Good Wishes for the Children, a compilation of Hans Christian Andersen stories published in a limited, high-end edition by the Riverside Press in 1873 as a fundraiser for Boston Children’s Hospital. The illustrator was Sarah Gooll Putnam (1851–1912), an upper-class Bostonian who eventually enjoyed a successful career as a portraitist. This ambitious project was spearheaded by Putnam’s friend Adeline A. Bigelow (1842–1915), a fellow socialite who translated the Andersen stories into English from a German edition. In this webinar, Wasowicz will examine how their artistic collaboration provides insight into the opportunities and limitations encountered by gifted women of social means in late nineteenth-century American children’s book publishing. The story of the research that led to their identification will also suggest how collections can be used to recover the histories of other women involved in the book trades.