in A. Abbey, Howard Pyle, Charles Dana Gibson, W. L. Taylor,
Albert Lynch, Will H. Low, W. T. Smedley, Irving R. Wiles, and others.
As his magazine was rolled to go through the mails, the pictures
naturally suffered; Bok therefore decided to print a special edition of
each important picture that he published, an edition on plate-paper,
without text, and offered to his readers at ten cents a copy. Within a
year he had sold nearly one hundred thousand copies, such pictures as W.
L. Taylor's "The Hanging of the Crane" and "Home-Keeping Hearts" being
particularly popular.

Pictures were difficult to advertise successfully; it was before the
full-color press had become practicable for rapid magazine work; and
even the large-page black-and-white reproductions which Bok could give
in his magazine did not, of course, show the beauty of the original
paintings, the majority of which were in full color. He accordingly made
arrangements with art publishers to print his pictures in their original
colors; then he determined to give the public an opportunity to see what
the pictures themselves looked like.

He asked his art editor to select the two hundred and fifty best
pictures and frame them. Then he engaged the art gallery of the
Philadelphia Art Club, and advertised an exhibition of the original
paintings. No admission was charged. The gallery was put into gala
attire, and the pictures were well hung. The exhibition, which was
continued for two weeks, was visited by over fifteen thousand persons.

His success here induced Bok to take the collection to New York. The
galleries of the American Art Association were offered him, but he
decided to rent the ballroom of the Hotel Waldorf. The hotel was then
new; it was the talk not only of the town but of the country, while the
ballroom had been pictured far and wide. It would have a publicity
value. He could secure the room for only four days, but he determined to
make the most of the short time. The exhibition was well advertised; a
"private view" was given the evening before the opening day, and when,
at nine o'clock the following morning, the doors of the exhibition were
thrown open, over a thousand persons were waiting in line.

The hotel authorities had to resort to a special cordon of police to
handle the crowds, and within four days over seventeen thousand persons
had seen the pictures. On the last evening it was after midnight before
the doors could be closed to the waiting-l