Cyrus Le Roy was an illustrator, author, and artist-adventurer. Born in 1889 in upstate New York, Baldridge was raised primarily on the road with his mother who left his father and became a traveling saleswoman, instilling in her son strong spirit of individualism and lifelong wanderlust. At the age of 10 he was accepted as the youngest student at Frank Holme's School of Illustration in Chicago, and he was admitted to the University of Chicago and graduated in 1911. While looking for work as an illustrator he worked in Chicago stockyards and became an excellent rider training in the Illinois National Guard Calvary and worked as a cow hand on the 6666 Ranch in Texas for a summer. During World War I worked as a war correspondent and illustrator, crossing through war zones on bicycle and horseback until he ran out of funds and returned to Chicago. The National Guard called him up in 1916 to repulse Pancho Villa at the Mexican-American border, and in 1917 he joined the French Army as a stretcher bearer. He went to Mexico and the fronts in Europe as an idealistic youth, but the horrors of war left him deeply disillusioned.
In 1920 Baldridge met the Caroline Singer (1888-1963) who shared his love of travel and adventure. Together they toured Africa, India, Asia and the Middle East and published travel memoirs written by Singer and illustrated by Baldridge that were highly regarded for their respectful portrayals of the cultures and for the beautiful illustrations. There were long periods in China and Japan in the 1920s, including a period collaborating with Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), the preeminent publisher of shin-hanga woodblock prints. Watanabe produced six Baldridge woodblock prints.
