Postcard History

A History of the centennial “Baltimore & Ohio Magazine” covers.

At some point in the early-1920s, the railroad entity known as the Baltimore & Ohio decided that since 1927 would be their centennial year that it would be appropriate to celebrate with twelve especially commissioned magazine covers. At the time, Herbert D. Stitt was the in-house illustrator. The commission for the twelve covers fell to him.

Several attempts to find biography on Herbert Stitt have yielded little. The best information comes from the website “Welcome to Schoonover Studios.” The site is named for the American illustrator Frank E. Schoonover. It is a collection of thumbnail biographies and examples of work done by those who studied with Howard Pyle. It also includes other late nineteenth and early twentieth century illustrators from the Delaware River valley.

Stitt turned to easel painting later in life and specialized in images of famous horses like Man o’ War and Blockade. He also painted landscapes and still-lifes. He chose to avoid portraits and until he died on February 17, 1943, in Pikesville, Maryland, the full range of his work was in fact unknown.                                                                                                     

Herbert was born in 1880 in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In his late-teenage years, he worked as a ranch hand and at railroad construction sites. Most of his education came from his years at West Point and it is likely during those years that he decided to become an artist. First, presumedly around 1900, he went to Paris, and after returning to America did a short study at the St. Louis Academy of Fine Arts in Missouri, then went to study under Howard Pyle in Wilmington, Delaware, and finally he perfected his skills at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

There is no record of how long he was in Wilmington or exactly when, but he seems to have attended Howard Pyle’s many composition lectures. There is a letter written to Gertrude Brincklé (Pyle’s private secretary) when he was about 40 years old stating that he did not consider himself an illustrator and that the illustrative work he had done was purely to make a living. He estimated that he had done about two hundred illustrations and covers for such magazines as People’s Magazine, Top Notch, Adventure, Romance, and The DuPont Magazine. He also did calendars.

He worked for the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad as an illustrator and staff artist from 1912 until he was furloughed in 1932. His furlough was directly related to the company’s decision to suspend production of the magazine during the Great Depression.

After leaving the B & O Magazine staff, Stitt continued his successful artistic career from his studio in Pikesville, a Baltimore suburb. While retired Mr. Stitt earned a reputation as a competent and amenable judge at dozens of art fairs in the mid-Atlantic states.

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The commission for the B & O Magazine covers was the professional event that made Herbert David Stitt famous – at least in the art world.

Before the Coming of the Railroad (above left) was the first of Stitt’s paintings that became the twelve centennial year magazine covers. The caption on the card announces that Stitt’s paintings will appear on the magazine covers throughout 1927. This painting shows the start of the stagecoach from a tavern in Washington, Pa., and travels west on the historic National Pike.

Another of the early paintings (above right) was one that became the cover of the February 1927 issue. It is titled First Meeting of the Founders. That meeting occurred on February 27, 1827. The B & O Charter was approved that day and presented to the State of Maryland as a model for other railroad companies that wanted to operate in the state of Maryland.

The Pathfinders painting (above left) shows an early survey party of engineers in the Cheat River Valley. It was there that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached one of its highest points. The Cheat River is an almost eighty-mile-long tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania.

Stitt’s painting titled Locust Point became the November magazine cover. The caption recounts how in the 1860s the B & O railroad built large marine terminals to accommodate the easy transfer of freight from ships arriving in Baltimore from around the world. The capacity to move incoming commerce from ship to rail has never been surpassed.

Other Herbert Stitt’s paintings included in the postcard set were,

Mr. Stitt’s painting of Roseby’s Rock shows the event that took place on Christmas Eve 1852 when the last rail of the 379 mile line was laid just 18 miles east of Wheeling, West Virginia.

Twenty Minutes to Eat was a common scene in stations along the B & O line. That was the approximate length of time needed to fill the engine’s water tanks and reload the coal cars.

The painting Rivals portrays a familiar scene along the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. It was common to see the horses that were pulling freight barges along the canal being startled by the sound of the train’s steam whistles.

Milestones was the tenth painting completed. The painting is a then-and-now image of the “York,” a steam engine built to demonstrate how such engines could be used to do practical work on the railroad, while in the “dreamlike” background is a massive modern (remember these cards were created for an 1927 centennial celebration) “flyer.”

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When Herber Stitt’s art became magazine covers,
they looked very much like the two examples below: