Ellis Credle
Ellis Credle was an American writer. She wrote a number of books for children and young adults, some of which she also illustrated. Credle is best known as the creator of the acclaimed children's book Down Down the Mountain and other stories set in the South. While the most successful of her work has been called inspirational, some other stories were controversial for her depiction of African Americans.
Credle was raised in North Carolina, but broke into writing after years of struggle in New York City. She spent the last half of her long life residing in Mexico, where some of her later stories are set. Over the course of her career she had the opportunity to collaborate with her husband, who was a professional photographer, and with her son, who in time became a well-known archeologist.
Biography
Early life
In North Carolina
Credle was born on August 18, 1902, on the Pamlico Sound, in Hyde County, North Carolina. She would call her birthplace "the somber low country of North Carolina". She was the daughter of Zach, a soybean farmer, and Bessie Credle. She said that although her home was far from any railroad and isolated by swamps and forests, she perceived herself at the time as being "right in the middle of things". Her childhood also included time spent on her grandfather's tobacco plantation; on North Carolina's coastal islands; and in the Appalachian Highlands. As an author, she later drew upon her early experiences in these regions when designing her characters and settings.At age sixteen, Credle was admitted to Louisburg College, the same school her grandmother had attended during the Civil War. There she became editor-in-chief of the school literary magazine, "The Collegian". After graduating in 1922 she went to the Blue Ridge Mountains to teach history and French at the Forest City High School. She taught for two years. Unfortunately, she was very unhappy in this work, finding the country "majestic" but the work "uncongenial".
In New York City
Within a short span of time, Credle pursued a few different directions. In 1924, she came into a small inheritance, and decided to invest in a course in interior decoration. By 1925, she was studying at the New York School of Interior Decoration; she soon decided that although this was an art, it was too much a business for her. She began taking courses in commercial art at the Art Students League and also attended the Beaux Arts Architectural Institute, but her funds ran low.For eight years, all the while hoping to return to art, Credle held a variety of jobs: salesgirl, librarian, guitarist, soap distributor, "imported" Japanese lampshade painter, and usher at Carnegie Hall. She also worked as a governess to the children of the wealthy. It is said that she conceived the idea of becoming a children's book author while telling stories to her young charges.
Credle said, "If I had to choose the circumstance that was most important in turning me toward a career of writing and illustrating for children, I should say it was the fact that I saw myself running out of money during the year that I had chosen to study art in New York. To piece out of my foundering financial situation I got a job as part-time governess for two children. One of my duties was to read to them from their library of a hundred or more books for children. This gave me a background in the subject, and I soon discovered that the children preferred the stories I made up myself. These were based on things that had happened to me on my grandfather's tobacco plantation and also adventures on the Carolina outer islands. I began to write these tales down with the idea of finding a publisher".
Another source says that Credle, while looking for work as an illustrator, was advised by an editor to consider writing and illustrating children's literature. Credle related that she then went to the New York Public Library "and read every children’s book they had". Deciding that few of these books were really stories, she determined to create a new kind of book for children using the folk tales and legends of North Carolina. She is said to have "concocted fairy tales and garnered rejection slips" before turning her focus to more realistic stories based in her own background. Credle said, "My first five tries at fiction were all rejected".
While looking for a publisher for her stories, Credle took a job drawing reptiles for the American Museum of Natural History. Fortunately, this employment afforded Credle a full day off each week to pursue her dream of becoming a children's book author. A friend gave her the use of his studio during the day, and Credle found the elegant space more conducive to creative endeavor than her cramped apartment. A promising idea for a story set in the Blue Ridge Mountains began to take shape, and Credle set to work "writing and rewriting, doing and redoing the pictures". She submitted early versions to publishers, but they were rejected. One helpful editor advised her that since she had made the setting realistic she should make the story less fantastic. Another advised her to limit her pallette to fewer colors, since publishers would be hesitant to invest the money required to print full-color illustrations. She adopted these suggestions.
Credle heard a rumor that her job drawing reptiles would soon be coming to an end, and decided to head home to North Carolina for a time. She then had the idea to travel to Chicago, and she found a room near where her brother and his wife were living. She had hoped to earn a living painting portraits, but that plan failed. To make matters worse, her brother was transferred to another city, and she felt stranded in Chicago. But in seeking help from the YWCA to return to New York City, Credle was placed in a woman's shelter which was situated in a beautiful mansion. In this setting, she had the free time and inspiration to take up working on her book again. She had made significant progress by the time she headed back to New York City.
Career
Breakthrough
Once back in New York, Credle was put to work under the newly organized W.P.A., and she painted a series of murals for the Brooklyn Children's Museum. At night she worked on the final pictures for her book. Remembering what one editor had told her about the preference of publishers to avoid printing in full color, she chose to work in only two colors, blue and brown. Credle recalled seeing and liking that combination of colors on a batik scarf a friend once gave her. She recalled later walking along a path near her North Carolina home, and being reminded of the scarf upon seeing a broken brown branch with brilliant blue berries.Credle brought her well-polished manuscript to Thomas Nelson and Sons of New York. An editor, as Credle recalled, "liked it and said it might interest the Book of the Month Club, who were now adding children’s books to their list. This instant approval was the giddiest experience I had ever had with an editor". Still, Credle said that when she was asked to leave the manuscript for consideration, she headed for the elevator with the work in hand. The editor caught her, and made a firm commitment that closed the deal.
After much perseverance, Credle had finally found her initial and greatest triumph as an author with Down Down the Mountain which has been called "the first picture book ever done of the Blue Ridge country". With dialog presented in an engaging and authentic Southern vernacular, it tells the story of a poor brother and sister who raise turnips, intending to sell the crop to fund the purchase of needed shoes. Along the way down the mountain to town they give turnips away to people who ask, leaving them only one. In the end, the siblings are rewarded serendipitously.
Down Down The Mountain was an overnight and enduring success. It has sold more than 4,000,000 copies. Fifteen editions were published in English between 1934 and 1973 and it is now held by 998 libraries worldwide. In 1947, General Douglas MacArthur asked that the book be translated into Japanese for the children of the occupation. It became a Junior Literary Guild selection, and was in 1971 honored with a Lewis Carroll Shelf Award. Its inclusion in the book Raising Spiritual Children: Cultivating a Revelatory Life attests to the generous spirit of the story.
A contrary view holds the tale to a higher standard of real-world authenticity. Keystone Folklore Quarterly claimed that the story actually "conveys little of the hard life and isolation of the mountaineers". The same source characterizes the children, Hetty and Hank, as "unbelievably optimistic".
Credle was uplifted by her book's acceptance for publication. With great optimism for her future—and the advance royalties in hand—Credle embarked on a cruise to South America. On that momentous journey she met photographer Charles de Kay Townsend. The couple married on April 13, 1936, in Kings, New York. Afterwards, rather than settling down, they "moved about a great deal". Although she changed her name to Ellis Townsend very early in her career, she continued to use her maiden name on all of her subsequent published work.
More success, then a setback
Credle followed up on Down Down The Mountain with three more picture books. The Townsends then went to North Carolina where they collaborated on a photographic story book called The Flop-Eared Hound, which was set on the farm of the author's late father in Hyde County.Buoyed by continuing success, they next headed out to Blue Ridge country for another photographic story project called Johnny and His Mule. Credle recalled that the book was accepted by a schoolbook publisher, but it was subsequently held for five years without publication. Meanwhile, her previous publisher withheld her royalties on her work in print for two years, claiming she had broken an option clause in her contract. Credle said the result was "financial ruin". In this difficult period, her son Richard was born. Her husband accepted a position at The National Gallery of Art, and the Townsend family moved to Washington, D.C.
Eventually, she was able to retake possession of Johnny and His Mule. The book was finally published, her other royalties were restored to her, and her career continued. But for a time, the setback shook her confidence in the profitability of writing for children.