Russell Patterson

(1894-1977) born in Omaha. Illustrator, designer, decorator, cartoonist, while a magazine illustrator in the 1920s, his drawings "created many of the fashions of the flapper and collegiate era of the 1920s with his Patterson Girl, the longlegged sophisticate with patent leather hair" whose appearance was as influential as that of the Gibson girl in the 1890s; he was the first to draw women in sleek evening pajamas in 1931, designed the Women's Army Corps uniform during World War II, and decorated Macy's display windows at Christmas, hotel lobbies, theaters, and restaurants; also designed sets and costumes for Hollywood movie studios and Ziegfeld's "Follies" and in the 1950s created "Mamie," a comic strip about a pretty young model. Consult Sunday /Omaha/ World Herald Magazine, July 26, 1951, p. 5 and Omaha World Herald, August 28, 1942, p. 8 and March 6, 1957, p. 12 and New York Times obituary, March 19, 1977, p. 22 and Encyclopedia of American Comics From 1897 to the Present (Promised Land Productions, 1990) 285-286.

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