Bailey, Oakley Hoopes

Oakley Hoopes Bailey (June 14, 1843 - August 13, 1947) was a prolific American viewmaker, artist, and lithographer active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bailey was born in Beloit, Mahoning County, Ohio. He matriculated in 1861 at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, where he studied architecture. At the outbreak of the American Civil War (1861 - 1865), he briefly abandoned his studies for 2 years, during which time he saw combat as a Union soldier. After the war, in 1866, he returned to Mount Union to complete his degree. Bailey was the younger brother of another view artist, Howard Heston Bailey (1836 - 1878), and followed his brother into the print business, producing his first city views of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1871. Active from 1871 to 1926, Bailey produced more than 375 recorded city views across more than 13 states and 2 Canadian provinces, making him one of the most active viewmakers in American history. In 1875, he settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and most of his subsequent work focused on Massachusetts and Connecticut. Bailey worked with many other American viewmakers of the period, including his brother, Howard Heston Bailey, Thaddeus M. Flower, and J. C. Hazen, among others. Even his wife, Sarah F. Bailey (1846 - 19??), got into the business, drawing at least one view of Watkins Glen, New York. Around 1904, in his 60s, Bailey entered a publishing partnership with Thomas S. Hughes, publishing their 'Aero-Views' as 'Hughes and Bailey'. Together, Hughes and Bailey revisited many of Bailey's early view sites, remaking them sometimes 20-40 years later, with the idea of setting them beside the earlier views to show how much the towns had changed. The partnership lasted until about 1926. Bailey died in his hometown of Alliance at the ripe old age of 103.