Jackson, Lucy R.

Lucy R. Jackson was a resident of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who wrote a book of poems titled Verses , in which these letters and poems were laid.

Lucy Jackson had established a friendship with Huger and Elizabeth Elliott, which is evident in the affectionate inscription in Verses, and the tone of her letters which are addressed to Elizabeth but occasionally refer to Huger.

American illustrator Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott (1871–1954) illustrated children's books and worked for many years for Harper's Magazine .

Elliott studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1889 to 1893, and then began study with Howard Pyle at Drexel Institute, where she met Violet Oakley and Jessie Willcox Smith. The three artists would form a lifelong friendship and at times shared a common residence. They lived together first at the Red Rose Inn, which caused Howard Pyle to call them "the Red Rose girls," and later at Cogslea, their home in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia.

In 1911, Green married Huger Elliott, an architecture professor, and moved away from Cogslea. In 1920 the Elliotts returned to the Philadelphia area until 1925, when Huger Elliot accepted a position at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Following Huger's death in 1948, Elizabeth Elliott returned to live in the area of Cogslea near her artist friends and remained there until her death in 1954.

Biographical information regarding Lucy R. Jackson derived from the collection. Carter, Alice A. The Red Rose Girls: an Uncommon Story of Art and Love. New York: harry N. Abrams, 2000.

From the guide to the Lucy R. Jackson letters to Elizabeth Shippen Green Elliott, circa 1930, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)