American illustration offered more professional opportunities to women than did the world of fine art. Alice Baber Stephens was a very successful, early member of this profession, having trained at the Philadelphia College of Design for Women and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins (1844–1916). Stephens was a regular contributor to Harper’s and other popular magazines, and also illustrated works for authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.