to the Salon of
Patty Thum
and Her 1894 Letter to the Editor
Describing Her Electric Pyrography Tool with Wire Tips

Back to E-Museum Entrance

The Art Interchange September–October 1894 issue, page 76 Letter to the Editor from Patty Thum dated August 1894. Digital image by Sharon H. Garvey, ©2006 Article with images courtesy of Anna North Coit of the North Stonington Historical Society North Stonington, Connecticut, U.S.A.

"...the operator of the electric fire-pencil holds the point in one hand..."

Electrodes—Platinum Wire Tips Drawings by Patty Prather Thum, August 1894 Published in The Art Interchange in September 1894 as a response to their July 1894 article by J. William Fosdick Digital image by Sharon H. Garvey, ©2006 Article with images courtesy of Anna North Coit of the North Stonington Historical Society North Stonington, Connecticut, U.S.A.

The Art Interchange, September–October 1894 issue, page 77 Letter to the Editor from Patty Thum dated August 1894. Digital image by Sharon H. Garvey, ©2006 Article with images courtesy of Anna North Coit of the North Stonington Historical Society North Stonington, Connecticut, U.S.A.

Victorian artist Patty Prather Thum (1853–1926) from Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A., was primarily known as a decorative art painter, a teacher, an art critic, and a magazine illustrator. An example of her painting along with a short biography of her many notable accomplishments (albeit with no mention whatsoever of her pyrography or her invention of an electric pyrography tool) are at this Kentucky University link.

James William Fosdick In His Studio Posing with His Thermo-Pyrography Tool and a Work in Progress Published in his article in The Art Interchange in July 1894

It is astonishing that, published in The Art Interchange in September 1894, as a response to their July 1894 article by
J. William Fosdick entitled BURNT-WOOD DECORATION, which includes the photograph of the artist (also shown here) posing in his studio with his enormous thermo-pyrography tool, is the letter to the editor (the subject of this salon exhibit) that was submitted by Patty Thum. It included the two drawings by her seen here: one shows an artist (herself? *) using an electric pyrography tool for which she even provides a detail of the mechanical function. The second drawing shows in detail the platinum wire points.

It is also astonishing that Patty Thum's electric pyrotool appears a quarter of a century prior to the appearance in July 1916 of the first known patent for such a tool in the United States [Ref. for the 1916 patent: Robert E. Boyer, his 1993 book The Amazing Art of Pyrography, p. 36; and also on the internet at his Free Art School, History Section, page 2].

It is likewise remarkable that, after having expressed the hope in 1894 (in his article linked above) for an electric tool that might spare the artist from the naphtha fumes of his own thermo-pyrography tool, J. William Fosdick, two years later, made only slight mention of an "electrode" tool in his August 1896 article BURNT WOOD IN DECORATION. WITH ANCIENT AND MODERN EXAMPLES, p. 496 in The Century Magazine. He missed the opportunity to mention Patty Thum's name as the inventor of that "electrodes" tool, saying only "The electrode, another surgical cautery, is likewise used in burnt-wood work, and electricity will in time supersede all other means of heating the burning-point."

In his September 1896 article The Fire Etcher and His Art published for the Ladies Home Journal, while he was offering a lengthy description of the pyrographic process and tools used in earlier and then current times, Fosdick made a similar comment: "More recently the electrode, also used in surgery, has made its appearance and has been used some for etching. It promises to be a still more effective instrument for wood burning." Again, no mention of Patty Thum's contribution. Nor any indication that, during the lapse of two years since her letter to the editor, he had made any attempt to either make contact with Patty Thum or acquire an electric tool.

After seeing Patty Thum's drawings and reading her letter, it is only natural to want to learn what happened to her tool and why no one seems aware of her pyrography pieces. If Patty Thum went to that much trouble to invent a tool, it seems logical to assume she must have produced a substantial number of works in this technique, yet no records or items or pictures are forthcoming. Such a remarkable tool, most likely unique in the world, should have been preserved and put on display somewhere.

Because Patty Thum was well known in her own lifetime, it is incomprehensible that her pyrography works and tool would not have been preserved unless it was because the experts involved in preserving her works had little regard for this one aspect of her oeuvre. Research has turned up very little; however, hope remains that an archive of her letters may reveal more.

UPDATE—August 2008: From the Smithsonian Museum's collection of the Charles Kurtz papers, a review by the E-Museum's Research Department of approximately 50 letters (on microfilm) that were written by Patty Thum to art promoter and family friend Charles Kurtz over a period of 20 years beginning in 1884, revealed one dating from July 1891 discussing her personal discovery of pyrography as an art form, which she termed "fire drawing" and her own invention of an electric pyrography tool.

Patty Thum's 1894 article was the source of estimating the date of her invention at circa 1892. With the discovery of her handwritten 1891 letter, that date has now been revised to circa 1891. See an exhibit with the transcription of the contents of that important letter at the link here.

* UPDATE—February 2009: The E-Museum has discovered a photograph of Patty Thum in an 1894 publication. You can see that picture of her on display here in the E-Museum also in the Patty Thum 1891 exhibit of her letter.

UPDATE—November 2009: A special exhibition of the works of Victorian artist Patty Thum was held at the Howard Steamboat Museum in Jeffersonville, Indiana. It opened on November 1st, 2009. In conjunction with that exhibition, a lovely Patty Thum catalogue was compiled by Warren and Julie Payne and is available at the Howard Steamboat Museum at this link. The E-Museum was honored to collaborate with Lynn Renau and others involved with this project and pleased to be quoted and cited in that catalogue.

In conjunction with the Patty Thum exhibit in November 2009 is this article by Eric Rodenberg for Antique Week Magazine entitled Thum's pyrography work has yet to surface from October 9th of 2009.

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If you have either any questions to ask or any information to offer regarding this letter to the editor by Patty Thum, any works in "fire drawing" by her, or the remarkable electric pyrography tool that, by her own account, she invented in about 1891, please e-mail the E-Museum Curator.