Victor Harry Arnold

Advancements in printing technology in the 1800s enabled newspapers, books, and magazines  to print images as well as words. Some artists became engravers so they could transfer drawings and illustrations to the printing press in a process called lithography. Victor may have been primarily an artist more than he was an engraver.

His family came from France to Philadelphia where his parents were both tailors. He developed a talent for drawing and sharpened his skills in the late 1860s and early 1870s by working at William Graf & Co., producers of advertising posters and trade cards. He became an illustrator for one of Philadelphia’s daily newspapers, The Ledger.

Victor was especially drawn to an English girl named Elizabeth Charlton Rooke (her middle name was her mother’s maiden name) and they married in 1867. Their first son, Albert, lived just four months before he died in 1868. Their home at that time also included Victor’s mother and Elizabeth’s younger sister. The following year Victor Harry Arnold Jr. was born. 

The senior Arnold eventually found his talents were needed in New York City at A.S. Seer’s Theatrical Printing Company. He drew this detailed poster for the new Gilbert & Sullivan comic opera, H.M.S. Pinafore. That show was so popular that, after it opened in 1878, three different theaters in New York staged the production simultaneously.

This poster for a production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was printed in 1886. It features the “Vic Arnold” signature he most frequently used.

From there he went to the Strobridge Lithographing Company of Cincinnati, then in 1890 to the Courier Company in Buffalo. Posters were produced there for P.T. Barnum and the Ringling Brothers Circus, although it’s not known if he actually drew any of those. The company also did railroad printing and illustrated catalogues.

It was in snowy Buffalo that Victor died suddenly from throat cancer on Christmas Eve, 1895. Brought home for burial at Mount Moriah, he was eulogized in The National Lithographer as an unusually fine artist and designer whose death was a great loss to the poster trade.

Elizabeth moved on with her life, and rather quickly at that. She was swept off her feet 16 months later, marrying a Philadelphia tin manufacturer named George W. Haslet. They married in Manhattan but lived the rest of their lives at 1916 North 18th Street in Philly. That was just a few blocks west of a new college that was popular with the working class known as Temple College.

Victor Jr., known as Harry, saw his mother get married on April 21, 1897. The next day, in Brooklyn, was his wedding day. His bride was Mary “Mayme” Maerz a native of Buffalo, which is where they no doubt met. They made their home in Manhattan where Mary became a music teacher. Harry was listed as a metals salesman in the 1900 census and selling dental goods in 1910. They welcomed their daughter, Victoire, in 1907.

At just 44 years old, Harry died in 1914 and was buried beside his father in Section 211. His death certificate listed the cause of death as general paralysis and his occupation as retired. A year later, Elizabeth had the little mausoleum shown above built for them.

Little did she know it would only be five years later that George Haslet would also occupy a place there, in November of 1920. When the census was taken earlier that year, the couple listed a boarding house where they were vacationing in New Orleans to celebrate the beginning of the Roaring Twenties.

This photo of her was taken a year later. Elizabeth lived alone until her death from liver cancer in 1936. The wealthy lifestyle she enjoyed was provided by the successful business George had built over many years. She is the fourth to be  placed in this mausoleum and is honored with her name inscribed on the front footstep.

When her will was filed for probate, that wealth amounted to $161,000. Almost all of it was in savings accounts at four banks. Five relatives each received $10,000: her daughter-in-law, Mary Arnold; her granddaughter, Victoire Arnold; her sister, her sister’s daughter, and another woman. The remainder was divided between Mary and her sister’s daughter.