Violet Oakley Collected Papers

Violet Oakley (1874-1961) was a Philadelphia-area artist who had been educated both in Europe and the United States. She was a student of Howard Pyle of the Brandywine School. Her works included heroic murals found in the Pennsylvania governor's mansion and in the State Capitol, featuring William Penn and the Quaker founding of the Commonwealth. She was also a portraitist, her sketch of Jane Addams being featured on the memorial calendar to Addams in 1943 published by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. The League's fortieth anniversary in 1955 inspired Oakley to publish Cathedral of Compassion: Dramatic Outline of the Life of Jane Addams, 1860-1935. Oakley's artist companion of many decades, Edith Emerson, was instrumental in mounting an Oakley revival as an exhibition in 1979 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.