Jay Hyde Barnum (1888-1962) 

Jay Hyde Barnum was born in 1888 in Geneva, Ohio. He attended the Cleveland Art School and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He also studied in Woodstock, New York with Bellows, Speicher and Kroll. He made his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. He was an author and illustrator of books for children and a commercial illustrator. He contributed interior and cover illustrations for Collier’s, and his paintings also appeared in Good Housekeeping, The American Weekly, McCall’s, Liberty, and Woman’s Home Companion. The books he wrote and illustrated are The New Fire Engine, The Little Old Truck, and Motorcycle Dog; he also illustrated books by other authors. In the 1920s a house was built for him in the neighborhood of Silvermine, Connecticut. In 1947 he received honorable mention in the competition for the Caldecott Medal for his illustration of the book Boats on the River, by Marjorie Flack.