Any sort of cheap entertainment reflects the interests and dreams of the buying public for whom it is made. As such, postcards show us what appealed (or what the publishers hoped would appeal) to the greatest number of potential buyers. And ONE thing that amused Mr. and Mrs. Consumer was children dressed up.
We speak here not of the rppc, where Dad would take pictures of the kids in their new Sunday-go-to-meeting garb; we mean commercial postcard publishers who showed us children dressed up. And we don’t mean babies, because babies are a whole nother subject.
A baby’s face can always entertain, no matter what the baby is doing. Even if young Cloverblossom doesn’t want to do anything.
Nor do we speak of children posed with adults, something which could be used for any number of fine old jokes.
No, we speak here of children by themselves or in pairs, dressed to impress and to serve as enticers for the person looking for the postcard rack for something to send Cousin Mehitable. (Which do you like better: his buttons or her parasol?)
These were all but designed to be put in albums by their purchasers. If the cute face won no one over, the pretty clothes would. How many girls wore a design that Mom was inspired to improvise so it would look like what this young lady wore for the photographer? (And how many said “I’d rather have the puppet”?)
In the day, there were plenty of child models who appear over and over in postcards, sometimes as part of a traditional tableau for the holidays. One wonders what THEY thought of it, and what the working conditions were. “(Yes, you have to wear that winter coat under these lights until we’re done. And show your dimples when you smile at the pig! I’m NOT telling you again!”)
The French seem to have had an absolute mania for this sort of postcard (although in THEIR New Year postcards, as mentioned hereintofore, the model was supposed to hug a fish instead of a pig.)
You constantly find their cards featuring children posed in balloons or balconies or birdcages, releasing doves or songbirds, or…WHAT is this little girl holding? From her face, she was expecting a kitten but got a black bag of garlic and was told to pretend it was a kitty.
Or flowers: a pretty face and a flower would sell thousands of cards.
The Germans preferred to pose their little girls with pigs, of course. And they did not neglect dressing up little boys, either. (Those pig new year cards were traditional across the continent, by the way, and though I haven’t got an example to hand, little boys AND little girls would be dressed up as chimney sweeps to accompany the pigs. See, it was all about symbols of good luck and…you want to go back and check the previous blog on this subject.)
Oh, and Americans would never neglect a profitable postcard idea. Though, of course, OURS had their own singular flavor.
Blogsy Babbles 