Charles Dana Gibson

Born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1867, Charles Dana Gibson became one of America's most influential illustrators. After studying briefly at the Art Students League in New York, he began selling drawings to magazines and soon found a wide audience for his sharp eye and confident pen-and-ink style.

Gibson is remembered above all for inventing the "Gibson Girl," an image that came to represent the fashionable, self-possessed modern woman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work appeared for decades in Life and other major publications, where his scenes of courtship, manners, and high society helped define the visual character of the period.

As his reputation grew, he took on a larger role at Life, eventually becoming its editor and later its owner. He died in 1944, but his drawings remain a vivid record of American culture in the Gilded Age and early 20th century.