Freeman, Don, 1908-1978

Don Freeman was born August 11, 1908, in San Diego, CA. He attended the Art Students League in New York City for two years. In 1931 he married Lydia Cooley, an art student, and the couple had one son. Don Freeman worked as a freelance artist and as a graphic artist for the New York Times and New York Herald Tribune before beginning to illustrate books in the 1940s. In 1940 he illustrated William Saroyan's My Name is Aram . During his career, Don Freeman illustrated children's books by other well-known authors such as Ann Nolan Clark, Clyde R. Bulla, and Julia Cunningham. In 1951 Don and Lydia Freeman published their first book for children, Chuggy and the Blue Caboose, and in 1953 they published Pet of the Met . Don Freeman wrote and illustrated many picture books that won critical appraise. He received various honors for his work, including a Caldecott Honor citation for Fly High, Fly Low in 1958. He is perhaps best remembered for Corduroy . Don Freeman died on February 1, 1978. Biographical Sources: Something About the Author, Volume 17, p. 60-69 Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, 3rd ed., p. 360-361

From the guide to the Don Freeman Papers, 1954-1976, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])

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