Margaret Hilbiber Baylis (1912December 10, 1997) was an American

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

er, illustrator, and author of gardening books.

Early life

Margaret Hilbiber was born in

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...

in 1912. At age 16 she was accepted as an architecture student at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, one of three women in her cohort. Two years into her studies with the onset of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

, Maggie had to drop out of the program to support her family by working as an assistant advertising manager at a department store in Tacoma.Pimsleur, J.L
"Obituary-Maggie Baylis."
''San Francisco Chronicle''. (December 24, 1997).

Career

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Baylis left for Hawaii where she worked as a civilian doing graphic design work for

Moore Dry Dock Company Moore Dry Dock Company was a ship repair and shipbuilding company in Oakland, California. In 1905, Robert S. Moore, his brother Joseph A. Moore, and John Thomas Scott purchased the National Iron Works located in the Hunter's Point section o ...

In 1941 she moved to San Francisco two weeks before the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

and began work as an assistant advertising manager at ''

Sunset Sunset, also known as sundown, is the daily disappearance of the Sun below the horizon due to Earth's rotation. As viewed from everywhere on Earth (except the North and South poles), the equinox Sun sets due west at the moment of both the spring ...

'' magazine, where she worked until 1951.Maggie Baylis, interviewed by Suzanne B. Mess, Doug Baylis
The Church Office and Garden Publication, Regional Oral History Office University of California, The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California, 1978 While working for ''Sunset'', she opened her own graphic design studio and hired

Douglas Baylis Douglas Baylis (January 7, 1915 – November 28, 1971) was a landscape architect often credited as a founder of the "California School" of modern landscape architecture alongside contemporaries Thomas Church, Garrett Eckbo, and Robert Royston. ...

, a

landscape architect A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manageme ...

whom she later married, as her business partner. The Baylis' worked together for 20 years. The Baylis's contributed to ''Western Landscape Design'', '' House & Garden'', '' Better Homes & Gardens'', ''

House Beautiful ''House Beautiful'' is an interior decorating magazine that focuses on decorating and the domestic arts. First published in 1896, it is currently published by the Hearst Corporation, who began publishing it in 1934. It is the oldest still-publish ...

.'' At ''House Beautiful'', Baylis created a how-to series with detailed illustrations which were later copied by other magazines for the home gardener. Maggie Baylis was the main force behind the 1948 San Francisco Museum of Art Landscape Design catalog, credited with both the layout and design. When architect Gordon Drake was killed in a skiing accident, Maggie designed and her husband wrote a book entitled ''California Houses of Gordon Drake''. In 1971, she turned her attention to writing and illustrating a dozen books, the most well-known being ''House Plants for the Purple Thumb''. The book capitalized on a nationwide interest in houseplants, teaching new growers easily digestible information on the full range of care needed for success. Throughout her life Baylis was involved in community affairs. She was on the board of trustees for the Strybing Arboretum, and involved with San Francisco Beautiful, and Telegraph Hill Dwellers. In the about the author section of her book ''House Plants for the Purple Thumb'', Baylis described herself as a "draftsmen, delineator, bread-baker, carpenter, and house plant tender." Her career centered on creating tools for the public to create large and small changes to their built environments. Baylis died of liver cancer on December 10, 1997.

Douglas and Maggie Baylis collection

Her works were exhibited by the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation in March 2011.

Books

* ''House Plants for the Purple Thumb.'' 1973. *''Plant Parenthood.'' 1974. * ''Real Bread: A Fearless Guide to Making It''. Cole Group, 1992.

Bibliography

Obniski, Monica and Darrin Alfred. ''Serious play : design in midcentury America.'' New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.

References

External links

from the finding aid for the Douglas and Maggie Baylis collection, 1938-1998 (bulk 1943–1971) {{DEFAULTSORT:Baylis, Maggie 1912 births 1997 deaths American garden writers American graphic designers Women graphic designers American women illustrators Deaths from liver cancer Artists from Tacoma, Washington University of Pennsylvania School of Design alumni Writers from Tacoma, Washington 20th-century American women artists 20th-century American non-fiction writers