The young Margaret was given the chance to enter the professional art world as a teenager, designing menus and dinner place cards. She also offered handmade calendars for sale at Candace Wheeler’s (1827-1923) New York Exchange for Woman’s Work, a medium for the sale of home-manufactured products by women that continued from its founding in 1878 until 2003.
In addition to Armstrong, the other two most celebrated book cover designers of the period were also women, Sarah W. Whitman (1842-1904) and Alice C. Morse (1863-1961).Armstrong was also doubtless influenced by the botanical art of her grandmother, Sarah Hartley Ward (1801-1853), an original example of which can be seen in the gallery below.
