American artist and illustrator Howard Chandler Christy’s vast body of work includes depictions of presidents, war heroes, socialites, and politicians, but he was ultimately best known for his “Christy girl” drawings that depicted the idealized American woman. Christy began his career in professional illustration upon his arrival to New York City, where he studied under William Merritt Chase. At the onset of the Spanish-American War, Christy enlisted himself as a war correspondent for several publications, and received acclaim for his “Men of the Army and Navy” series and a portrait of then-colonel Theodore Roosevelt. With this recognition under his belt, Christy became a well-known illustrator, yet to avoid being type-cast in the military genre, introduced his first “Christy girl”, a prototype that developed into an ongoing series of the ideal modern, beautiful, educated American woman.