Mildred McMillen, born Chicago, IL - Christmas Greetings 1918 - 1918 - T-Shirt

A woodcut holiday greeting from 1918, showing two women and a black cat gathered around a pot-belly stove in a warm domestic interior.

Visual Elements & Composition

The composition is built on strong black and cream white, with black taking up the largest share of the image and cream white filling the open areas. A rectangular framed card holds the scene, and a scalloped border frames it at the edge. The cylindrical stove sits near the centre, with a woman reading in a rocking chair beside it and a second woman seated in a ladder-back chair. A black cat lies stretched on the floor. The lettering reads "Christmas Greetings." and "1918," with "PICO" on the stove, and the signature "M. McMillen" alongside "A. Gilmore" and "Cape Cod."

Meaning & Symbolism

Mildred McMillen was a Chicago-born artist working in the early twentieth century, and this piece belongs to the period's tradition of printed holiday greetings that blended fine art with seasonal communication. It was made in the closing weeks of 1918, as the First World War ended, when messages of home, warmth and goodwill carried particular weight for families looking toward peace. The stove and the gathered figures express that sentiment directly: a room kept warm, people spending the season together, and an ordinary domestic scene given the care of a finished print.

Made for the Way You Wear It

This is a woodcut-style scene, and its bold black shapes and open cream areas read clearly at a distance, so the design holds its composition across the chest. The framed card and scalloped border give the image a defined edge, so the greeting sits as a single, contained picture rather than scattered details. Wearing it carries the message of a holiday card that was meant to be seen, passed around and kept.