Henry Patrick Raleigh - the High Society Illustrator of the “Gatsby Era”

Henry Patrick Raleigh was a famous draftsman and illustrator of the Golden Age in America, and at his times one of the country's highest paid illustrators.
Raleigh was born in 1880 in Portland, Oregon. His family was very poor and Raleigh began working at the age of 9. He sold newspapers to support his mother and sisters. At the age of 12, he dropped out of school and found work at the San Francisco docks for a coffee importer. The sailors filled his young head with amazing stories from distant places. Inspired by these stories, he began to draw and share them. Raleigh's boss liked the up-and-coming artist and offered to pay his tuition at the renowned San Francisco art school, the Hopkins Academy.

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At just 17, Raleigh started working for the newspaper "San Francisco Bulletin". There, as a young reporter, he dealt with the most extreme, emotional topics. The San Francisco Bulletin was the favorite paper of American publisher William Randolph Hearst. He discovered the artist and invited him to work for the New York Journal. Only nine months later, Raleigh was offered a job by the rival newspaper The New York World. With a large salary increase, he only had to work three days a week. This was the irony of fate that the young man, coming from desperately poor circumstances, was now well known for his illustrations of opulent parties and fashionable celebrities.

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Raleigh became one of the most successful commercial artists of the time. In his 25-year career, he had published over 20,000 illustrations.

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