Her work as a pioneering animator was lost to history — until now

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 19:43:34 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.npr.org/2022/12/24/1145092476/bessie-mae-kelley-first-woman-animator>

'With a trunk full of paper stock, charcoal, and a giant easel in tow, Bessie
Mae Kelley would travel the country for her vaudeville circuits in the 1920s.

Kelley was an animation pioneer, having hand-drawn a mouse couple named Milton
and Mary before there was ever a Mickey or a Minnie Mouse. She would apprise
vaudeville audiences of the new world of moving cartoons in a budding industry
called animation. She even billed herself as "the only woman animator" on these
tours.

Yet much of Kelley's story and work was lost to the pages of her own journals
and left undocumented — until now.'

Via Lee Rothstein and Susan ****

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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