Beatrice H. Kirkbride and Earle R. Kirkbride Papers

Earle Rosslyn Kirkbride was born in 1891 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Edward and Ada St. Clair Kirkbride. He received his secondary education at the Earle school, then attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1909 to 1915. After working as a painter in the Army during World War I, Earle established a career as an artist in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Philadelphia, specializing in commercial art and illustrations for magazines and books. He married Vernon Thomas and, after receiving a divorce in 1929, married Beatrice Hedley in 1930. He died in 1968.

Beatrice Hedley Kirkbride was born in 1907 in Paoli, Pennsylvania to Luella and Edward Hedley. She studied at Moore College of Art and Design from 1925 to 1928 then married Earle Kirkbride in 1930. After raising three children, Beatrice worked with the Philadelphia Historical Commission as a researcher from 1957 to 1975. She died in 2004.

Beatrice and Earle had three children together: Beatrice Rosslyn, Edward Earle, and Jonathan Mahlon. While in Philadelphia they purchased an eighteenth century home in the neighborhood of Southwark at 704 S. Front St. and worked to restore it. In the 1960's and 1970's, as the I-95 Expressway was expanded, the Kirkbrides fought to have construction diverted from the historic area.