'Jennie and Jack, Also The Little Dog Jap'.
Margaret G. Hays was a 19th-century U.S. children's book writer, illustrator and comic artist. She made several comics in cooperation with her sister Grace Drayton, but also had a comic strip of her own, 'Jennie and Jack, also the Little Dog Jap' (1908).
Early life and career
Margaret Parker Gebbie was born in 1874 in Philadelphia as the daughter of an art publisher. As a child she was homeschooled by governesses, after which she went to the Convent of Notre Dame boarding school in Philadelphia (today the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur). In 1893 she married architect Frank Allison Hays. She made paper dolls for postcards and created the Sunday comic strip 'Jennie and Jack, also the Little Dog Jap' (March-August 1908) for the Boston Herald, about a brother and sister whose good intentions always lead to dire results. The comic was also syndicated to other papers. Between 1908 and 1913, Margaret Gebbie Hays additionally made stories and illustrations for women's and children's pages, syndicated to American newspapers.
Part of the kids' section 'Aunt Peggy's Page for Little Readers', The St. Louis Star and Times, 11 September 1910.
Collaboration with Grace Drayton
Hays' sister Grace Drayton would also become famous as a newspaper comic artist and Margaret often collaborated with her as a writer. Some of their collective storybook-style comics were 'Dolly Drake and Bobby Blake in Storyland' (1905-1906) for the Philadelphia Press and 'The Turr'ble Tales of Kaptin Kiddo' (1905-1909) and its spin-offs 'Kaptin Kiddo and Puppo' (1911) and 'Kaptin Kiddo's 'Speriences' (1913) for the North American Syndicate, which Drayton still made under her married name Grace Wiedersheim.
Children's books
Hays also wrote children's books, such as 'Kiddie Land' (1910), 'Kiddie Rhymes' (1911), 'Vegetable Verselets for Humorous Vegetarians' (1911), 'Babykins Bedtime Book' (1914), 'Little Pets Book' (1914) and 'Rosy Childhood' (1914), which were all illustrated by Drayton. Some poems from 'Vegetable Verselets' were later put to music by composer Daron Hagen.
Death
Hays passed away in 1925. Her daughter, Mary A. Hays, was a newspaper cartoonist too.
'Jennie and Jack', from the Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York (30 August 1908).