Zella de Milhau

Zella de Milhau was born in 1866{{Cite web |url=https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1174/images/USM1490_469-0259?pId=1028844 |access-date=2025-01-26 |website=www.ancestry.com}} in NoHo, New York in Manhattan, in the Colonnade Row buildings on Lafayette Street. Her parents operated a successful drug store in Manhattan. Her first experience of art education was at the Art Students League of New York.

In 1896 she was reported to have a studio in New York, and to be doing pen and ink drawings for periodicals.{{cite news |title=1896 Zella |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34847670/1896-zella/ |website=The Standard Union |pages=6 |date=12 December 1896}} Her work appeared in 1891 in The Decorator and Furnisher{{cite journal |last1=Milhau |first1=Zella |title=Home Decoration |journal=The Decorator and Furnisher |year=1891 |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=109–112 |doi=10.2307/25586483 |jstor=25586483 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25586483|url-access=subscription }} and in 1895 in the Monthly Illustrator,{{cite book |title=The Monthly Illustrator |year=1895 |publisher=Harry C. Jones |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HiWhAAAAMAAJ&q=%22zella+milhau%22+-%22zella+de+milhau%22&pg=RA1-PA100 |language=en}} By 1898 she had moved to 291 Henry Street in Brooklyn; she appeared in that year's social register.{{cite book |title=Social Register, New York |year=1898 |publisher=Social Register Association |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y2lIAAAAYAAJ&q=%22zella+milhau%22+collection&pg=PA271 |language=en}} It was on Henry street in 1902 that she spearheaded an early effort for urban beautification called Block Beautiful.{{cite web |last1=Gray |first1=Christopher |title=By That Endangered but Hardy Species, the Street Tree (Published 1997) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/15/realestate/by-that-endangered-but-hardy-species-the-street-tree.html |website=The New York Times |date=15 June 1997}}{{cite web |title=The Greenest Block in Brooklyn |url=https://www.brownstonedetectives.com/miss-zella-milhaus-greenest-block-in-brooklyn-1902/ |website=The Brownstone Detectives|date=July 10, 2017 }} As part of an effort to bring more trees and plants to the neighborhood, she organized her neighbors to participate. The New York Times wrote in 1997 that she convinced her neighbors to "add window boxes, plant trees, install greenery and take back the rear yards from laundry poles and hard-packed earth. She assembled standard designs for window boxes, and lined up florists, nurserymen and carpenters, most of whom were reluctant to take on such small jobs."

File:Zella-De-Milhau-Montauk-Bluffs.jpg

De Milhau was a frequent visitor to Southampton, where she also attended the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art.{{cite web |last1=Euler |first1=Laura |title=Historic Art Village Home 'Laffalot' to be Demolished |url=https://hamptons.curbed.com/2016/6/14/11932694/southampton-historic-art-village-home-laffalot-demolished |website=Curbed Hamptons |language=en |date=14 June 2016}} In 1896, she purchased one of the college's student residence houses in its Art Village, naming the property Laffalot.{{cite web |last1=Spanburgh |first1=Sally |title=Art Village Heritage Area Report |url=https://www.southamptontownny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/750/The-Art-Village?bidId= |website=southamptontownny.gov |publisher=Town of Southampton}} In 1904 she moved permanently to Southampton.{{cite web |last1=Jacobson |first1=Aileen |title=Of Suffragettes and Seamstresses (Published 2010) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/nyregion/14artsli.html |website=The New York Times |date=12 March 2010}}

During World War I she left Southampton for England during 1914 and 1915, where she served with the O.H.M.S Volunteer Motor Corps{{cite web |title=Auxilliary [sic] Ambulance Corps |url=https://www.southamptontownny.gov/DocumentCenter/View/9257/Zella-de-Milhau---Auxilliary-Ambulance-Corps-PDF |publisher=Government of Southampton}} and was appointed as a recruiting sergeant.{{cite news |last1=Humanities |first1=National Endowment for the |title=The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, March 19, 1916, FIFTH SECTION LITHOGRAVURE SUPPLEMENT, Image 53 |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1916-03-19/ed-1/seq-53/#date1=1777&index=0&rows=20&words=DE+de+MILHAU+Milhau+ZELLA+Zella&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22Zella+de+milhau%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1 |date=19 March 1916}} With funds raised from the citizens of Southampton she bought an ambulance in France and drove it between the front line and hospitals.{{cite news |date=20 July 1920 |title=Society Girl Motor "Cop" |page=11 |website=www.gastearsivi.com |url=https://www.gastearsivi.com/gazete/new_york_tribune/1920-07-20/11}}{{cite book |last1=Gregory |first1=Marion |title=Memories of Service in France |location=New York|publisher=Duffield & Company|date=1918|page=31 |url=https://archive.org/details/memoriesofservic00greg}} For her wartime work she received the French Croix de Guerre, the Gold Medaille de la Reconnaissance francaise, citations from three front line hospitals and the town of Verberie, France.{{cite news |title=Long Island Society Girl Becomes Motorcycle 'Cop' |url=https://archive.org/details/cacblm_000637 |work=Campbell Interurban Press |date=27 August 1920 |page=4}}{{cite book |last1=Hansen |first1=Arlen J. |title=Gentlemen Volunteers: The Story of the American Ambulance Drivers in the First World War |date=September 2011 |publisher=Skyhorse |isbn=978-1-62872-149-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OFYtAgAAQBAJ&q=%22zella+de+milhau%22+france+ambulance&pg=PT210 |language=en}}

Upon returning to Southampton, she purchased a motorcycle and became its first motorcycle officer, "officer number 6". The New York Tribune reported in July 1920 that the "Society Girl Motor Cop" Milhau had taken the position of motorcycle policewoman, to chase speeding drivers. By September 1920, the Southampton police chief reported that Milhau would stop riding the motorcycle, and move to policing duties as a parole officer and interpreter for foreigners facing the local court.

De Milhau was the subject of the 1936 book Thank God for Laughter by Mel Erskine, the pen name of her partner, British author,{{Cite web |title=Dec 16, 1936, page 44 - Brooklyn Eagle at Newspapers.com - Newspapers.com |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/577444955/?match=1&terms=Erskine |access-date=2025-01-26 |website=www.newspapers.com |language=en}} Mollie Lawton.{{Cite web |title=Nov 24, 1936, page 36 - Brooklyn Eagle at Newspapers.com - Newspapers.com |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/52679911/?terms=%22Mollie%20Lawton%22&match=1 |access-date=2025-01-26 |website=www.newspapers.com |language=en}}

De Milhau continued to be an accomplished printmaker upon her return to Southampton. In October 1923, The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly recorded that two of De Milhau's drypoint prints, "Sand Dunes, Long Island" and "Lowland" were recent accessions of the Brooklyn Museum.{{Cite journal |last1=Hutchinson |first1=Susan A. |last2=Lane |first2=Ferris |last3=Cole |first3=Timothy |title=Prints Among the Recent Accessions |date=1922 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26459289 |journal=The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=194–198 |jstor=26459289 |issn=2578-7632}}

In 1923 De Milhau submitted a colored mezzotint print to the Seventh Annual Exhibition of the Brooklyn Society of Etchers. Her print "Boats Along Shore" would to cause sea lovers to "long for the tang of its air" according to Ernest G. Draper of The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly.Draper, G, Draper. 1923. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/26459356 THE SEVENTH ANNUAL EXHIBITION OF THE BROOKLYN SOCIETY OF ETCHERS]. The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly. 1923

Her work is included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art,{{cite web |title=Works – Zella de Milhau – Artists – Ruth and Elmer Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College |url=http://wellin-emuseum.hamilton.edu/people/288/zella-de-milhau;jsessionid=D86EF4E9229D4E18E1F77C24E17C75DA/objects |website=wellin-emuseum.hamilton.edu}} Smith College,{{cite web |title=Collections Database Five Colleges and Historic Deerfield Museum Consortium |url=https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?museum=&t=objects&type=exact&f=&s=cotta&record=720 |website=museums.fivecolleges.edu}} the Guild Hall of East Hampton,{{cite web |title=Zella de Milhau |url=https://pc.guildhall.org/artpress_artist/zella-de-milhau/ |website=pc.guildhall.org}} and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.{{cite web |title=Bird Houses, Southampton |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.32851.html |website=www.nga.gov}}

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Category:1870 births

Category:1954 deaths

Category:Artists from Brooklyn

Category:20th-century American women artists

Category:American women police officers

Category:American community activists

Category:Activists from New York City

Category:Law enforcement officials from New York (state)

Category:20th-century American artists

Category:American recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1914–1918 (France)