Name/Title
CalendarEntry/Object ID
2019.101.0005Scope and Content
Calendar - Christmas Promotional for the year 1949 from
John Morrell & Co.
Ottumua, Iowa / Sioux Falls, S.D. / Topeka Kansas
This particular calendar was compliments of
Cooksey's in Guthrie Oklahoma
It celebrated the Centennial Anniversary of "The Forty Niners, the Epic Story of the Builders of the West." It commemorated the California Gold Rush with monthly illustrations by Harold von Schmidt. He was a top-flight illustrator of the Golden West, steeped in its history, atmosphere and traditions. As a boy, he lived with his grandfather, who had been a "forty-niner". The old man's stories of pioneer days kindled the lad's interest in the old West and that interest has been evident throughout his thirty years of painting. You may depend on the accuracy of detail in this series of paintings. Harold Von Schmidt's illustrations are in demand by most of the leading publishers. During the recent war (WWII) he was an invited artist correspondent with the Air Forces in ETO, later serving as war correspondent in the Pacific, attached to General MacArthur's headquarters.
Monthly Illustrations: January, Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill; February, Gold Fever spreads to New England; March, A Starting Point for the Wagon Trains (Westport Landing now Kansas City); April, Westward the Covered Wagons Roll; May, Indians attach by Stampeding Buffalo; June, The U.S. Cavalry at Fort Laramie; July, Rough Going over the Sierras; August, Rounding the Horn; September, The Rush to the Gold Fields; October, Prospectors Panning Gold; November, In San Francisco, Life was Gay; December, Family Reunion in California
size: 8-1/4" x 20"Collection
Exhibit Support