Children's Book Illo by Wally Wood

This is a preliminary sketch Wallace Wood did, probably for, the book "Henry Ford: Boy with Ideas" (1960) or possibly the equivalent book about Thomas Edison. Wood tried branching into regular illustration and did several other books, including Thomas Edison and George Washington Carver, in the "Childhood of Famous Americans" Series". These books were staples of school libraries and the children's sections of public libraries. According to Wood executor Bill Pearson, from whom RLP bought this, Wood gave this up largely out of frustration over editorial interference. Pearson cited the big editor’s comment herein. It is interesting that the editor chose to make an issue of the watch but missed entirely that the clothes are several decades out of date. Ford and Edison would have been in their forties when these were in style. In fact, Pearson sold it as a picture depicting a 1910 home scene.

The piece shows scorch marks on the left side showing that this narrowly missed being destroyed in the fire in Pearson’s house.