Marguerite Martyn

Marguerite Martyn was born on September 26, 1878.[https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=mSh620&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&indiv=1&db=numident&gss=angs-d&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=Clair&gsfn_x=0&gsln=Kenamore&gsln_x=0&msypn__ftp=St%20Louis,%20Missouri,%20USA&msypn=50043&msypn_PInfo=8-%7C0%7C1652393%7C0%7C2%7C0%7C28%7C0%7C0%7C50043%7C0%7C0%7C&MSAV=0&cp=0&catbucket=rstp&pcat=36&fh=1&h=6908016&recoff=&ml_rpos=2] Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, Utah: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015 Her father was William E. Martyn, and her mother was Fanny Plumb of Springfield, Missouri, whose family had been in that town for four generations. William and Fanny were married in 1877. The Martyn family lived in Portland, Oregon, during the early years of Marguerite's life, and her father, a Virginian, died there at the age of 30 while employed as a St. Louis–San Francisco Railway superintendent. Her mother then studied telegraphy and was employed by the same railway company.{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138139192/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title="Marguerite Martyn Dies; Artist, Writer," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 17, 1948, page 5A |access-date=December 21, 2016 |archive-date=December 21, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161221233055/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138139192/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}[http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?viewrecord=1&r=an&db=MOmarriages&indiv=try&h=9442670] Marriage license

When Marguerite was 17 years old, the family returned to Springfield, and she enrolled in an arts program at Washington University in St. Louis.

File:Marguerite_Martyn,_1908.png

In 1899, Martyn was an art student.{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/137666308/?terms=Martyn |title="Art Students' Exhibit," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 11, 1899, page 9 |access-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107170909/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/137666308/?terms=Martyn |url-status=live }} During the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904, Martyn drew a poster which she thought would be applicable to the closing of the exposition, and she brought it to the Sunday editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It came too late for publication, but she was told to return with some other drawings, and, as a result, she was offered a job as an artist, a position she filled a year later.

At first, she illustrated articles in the newspaper's Sunday magazine. At one point she was told by the newspaper's managing editor to go to Belleville, Illinois, and interview a woman of note there, but she declined. The editor insisted, and she returned with a story which she handed in. The editor said it could not be printed and pointed to the fact that she had buried the most important information in the last paragraph. That was, it was said, "the first instruction she had ever had, and she has been writing successfully ever since."{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/205352470/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title=Mrs. Charles P. Johnson, "Newspaper Woman Who Is Artist, Too, Sees No Romance in Journalistic Work," St. Louis Star, December 8, 1912, Society and Foreign Section, page 4 (page 30 of internet version) |access-date=December 12, 2016 |archive-date=December 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220145148/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/205352470/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}Another source [https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138139458/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107170726/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138139458/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |date=2017-01-07 }} said it was city editor Oliver K. Bovard who had encouraged Martyn to "undertake interviews with the subjects of her drawings."

The earliest work which carried her byline was a drawing of spectators and models at a St. Louis convention of the National Dressmakers' Association in September 1905, Martyn being the only artist admitted.{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/139057342/ |title="So Interested, Women Spectators Stand on Chairs for Hours at Dressmakers' Convention," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 28, 1905, page 1 |access-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107170435/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/139057342/ |url-status=live }}

In 1908, Martyn and a roommate, Miss L.B. Friend, were unsuccessfully sued by Samuel Kessler, a "rich furrier" who owned their apartment building at 8A North Sarah Street, which they vacated without notice because the heat in their unit was not working. Kessler lost the case when Justice "Marty" Moore, who was himself a steamfitter at one time, queried the building janitor and found that the man had neither the proper engineering license nor the knowledge to substantiate the landlord's claim.{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138899523/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title="Justice Moore Was Gasfitter Himself," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 12, 1908. page 16 |access-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107100825/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138899523/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}

In Martyn's obituary, the Post-Dispatch said that she: "did a great variety of articles, mostly about individuals, but in some cases descriptive of public events, such as national political conventions, the Kentucky Derby race or World Series ball games." She also wrote about women's fashion and the women's suffrage movement, "in which she was enthusiastically interested." Other topics were men's fashion, stage drama, horse shows and college life.

Martyn's working style, in 1912, at least, was generally to ask few questions but then to listen "so intently one feels impelled to give the desired information." She took no notes but during the interview she made her sketch.

She was said to draw "in a light and sometimes fanciful style", which was also described as "gossamer-like".{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138139458/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title="Marguerite Martyn Funeral Tomorrow," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 18, 1948, page 5B (page 29 of the internet version) |access-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107170726/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138139458/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}

Martyn had two brothers, William E., who died in 1942, and Philip T., who died in 1959.{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/139421360/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title=William E. Martyn death notice, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 15, 1942, page 39 |access-date=December 12, 2016 |archive-date=December 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220145009/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/139421360/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/140490051/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title="Philip T. Martyn Dies; Funeral to Be Saturday," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 26, 1959, page 3-B |access-date=December 12, 2016 |archive-date=December 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220145848/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/140490051/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}

Clair Kenamore, an editor on the Post-Dispatch, and Martyn were married in the latter's home at Lake and Bompart avenues in Webster Groves, Missouri, on May 17, 1913.{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/203973309/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title="Marguerite Martyn Weds Newspaperman," St. Louis Star, May 18, 1913, page 2 |access-date=December 12, 2016 |archive-date=December 20, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220145548/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/203973309/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |url=https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138941725/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |title="Post-Dispatch Artist and Writer Who Weds Today," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 17, 1913, page 3 |access-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-date=January 7, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170107101017/https://stltoday.newspapers.com/image/138941725/?terms=Marguerite%2BMartyn |url-status=live }}

A rival newspaper, the St. Louis Star, reported: "This talented woman has the face of an artist – she is slim – rather tall, with red brown hair and beautiful brown eyes. To say she is quiet does not express it – meek is the proper word, not realizing that she is doing anything out of the ordinary, nor that the skillful way in which she handles her pencil ranks her as unusually gifted."

Martyn retired in 1939 and died of a cerebral hemorrhage in her Webster Groves, Missouri home at 401 Lake Avenue, on April 17, 1948. Burial was in Oak Hill Cemetery in Kirkwood, Missouri.

Martyn included her own figure in some of her drawings.

File:Helen Herron Taft, Marguerite Martyn, and a butler.jpg|With Helen Herron Taft
and "Ned, the Haughty Butler,"
June 25, 1908

File:Chinese_minister_Wu_Tingfang_being_interviewed_by_Marguerite_Martyn,_1909.jpg|With Wu Ting Fang,
Chinese diplomat,
October 24, 1909

File:Marguerite_Martyn_draws_Senator_Reed_Smoot_of_Utah,_1909.jpg|With Reed Smoot,
Senator from Utah,
October 26, 1909

File:Marguerite_Martyn_interviewing_Theophile_(Toto)_Papin_of_St._Louis.jpg|With Theophile Papin,
society arbiter,
December 18, 1910

File:Playwright_Eugene_Walter_Is_Sketched_by_Marguerite_Martyn,_1911.jpg|With playwright Eugene Walter, January 15, 1911

File:Sketch_by_Marguerite_Martyn_of_strongwoman_Katherine_Sandwina,_1911,_with_Martyn_in_the_drawing.jpg|With strongwoman Katie Sandwina,
June 4, 1911

File:Marguerite_Martyn_self-sketch_of_her_with_Iola,_Kansas,_city_commissioner.jpg|With Guilford Glynn,
Iola, Kansas, city commissioner,
August 13, 1911

File:Imaginative sketch by Marguerite Martyn of Jane Frances Winn in 1914.jpg|With Jane Frances Winn,
author,
August 13, 1914

File:Marguerite_Martyn_Sketches_Herself_Backstage_at_the_Veiled_Prophet_Ball,_1916.jpg|At the Veiled Prophet Ball, 1916

• List of sketches of notable people by Marguerite Martyn

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• [https://coalblacksky.com/2015/01/15/toll-mounts-to-keep-st-louis-clean "Toll Mounts to Keep St. Louis Clean,"] A Coal Black Sky, January 15, 2015, quoting Martyn on St. Louis smoke in 1939

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Category:1878 births

Category:1948 deaths

Category:20th-century American artists

Category:20th-century American journalists

Category:20th-century American women journalists

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:St. Louis Post-Dispatch people

Category:Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts alumni

Category:Courtroom sketch artists