The Way to a Mother’s Pocketbook was Through Her Children

QUESTION: I discovered my first child’s advertising booklets quite by accident. I was actually looking through a box of assorted vintage paper goods at a local flea market when I noticed a tiny booklet. It was an illustrated nursery rhymes distributed by Clark’s O.N.T. Thread. I’ve seen other advertisements from the late 19th century but never thought anything about it. Why did advertisers use children in their ads? And why did they distribute children’s books to promote their products? I’d like to start collecting these little books, but I don’t know where to begin.

ANSWER: While there’s a dedicated group of children’s advertising booklet collectors, many people have never heard of them. However, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, children’s advertising booklets were a common item in many households. Everything from coloring books to junior cookbooks caught the eyes of advertisers.

As early as the 1850s, manufacturers realized the way to a mother's purse strings was through her children. What mother could resist the purchase of Clark's O.N.T. thread when doing so would include an educational booklet of rhymes for her little one? Besides, O.N.T. Black fast thread was "guaranteed never to show white on the seams after being worn or washed” –clearly a win-win situation.

But Clark's O.N.T. thread wasn’t the only company to take advantage of a mother's love for her children. The heyday of consumer advertising in the United States was in the last quarter of the 19th century. This was a time when steam presses and chromolithography made visually appealing promotional material relatively inexpensive, and when manufactured goods proliferated.

The great Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, with its myriad of domestic exhibits, inspired thousands of different advertising handouts. Advertisers began to use the image of a comfortable middle-class life as an inducement to purchase their products. Well-fed babies and well-dressed children at play were themselves symbols of material accomplishment. Plus, they portrayed the picture of wholesomeness.

At the same time. advertisers became aware that the woman in the household made most of the buying decisions, especially of household goods. The logical conclusion was that promotions which doubled as toys for children might also attract sales.

Many of these little promotional booklets have survived. So what affects their value? Condition, subject matter, general appeal, author, and illustrator are all important when determining the value of a children’s advertising booklet or an ad with children in it. Though companies hired prominent illustrators to create these booklets, many of them aren’t given credit. Among the more famous ones are W.W. Denslow who illustrated The Wizard of Oz, Johnny Gruelle who did Raggedy Ann, and Maxfield Parrish, who became known for his high fashion Art Deco paintings. So booklets that feature these artists are likely to command a premium.

The Wonderful Lunch Boxes, illustrated by 20th century children's book illustrator Shirley Kite is a good example. Printed in 1925 and 1927, the book came inside boxes of a variety of Post cereals, including Bran Flakes, Instant Postum and Postum Cereal, Grape-Nuts, Toasties, and a cereal that obviously didn't go over too well----Bran Chocolate.

There was also a wide variety of advertising booklets available. Coloring books, nursery rhymes, and alphabet booklets were particularly successful as advertising promotional material. In most cases, advertisers created ingenious tie-ins with their products, using verse, parody and caricature. Occasionally, advertisers included watercolor “chips” in coloring books, and sometimes interleaved the pages with glassine to protect the images from smearing once children colored them.

However, not all advertising booklets were aimed at children. In 1910, Ivory Soap issued “Elizabeth Harding, Bride,” an advertising booklet with instructions on how to clean everything from blankets and brassware to hardwood floors and rubber plants all using Ivory Snow. It seems new bride Elizabeth feared her housekeeping abilities would be unacceptable to her new husband until Ivory Snow saved the day.

Jell-O was America's first packaged dessert, and owner Orator Woodward had a tough time convincing the public that combining water with white powder would produce tasty fruit-flavored gelatin. In 1902, Woodward hired door-to-door salesmen to hand-deliver Jell-O recipe booklets. The strategy was a key part of Jell-O's marketing for decades. And as with previous booklets, prominent artists illustrated many of them. One of the most famous is Rose O'Neill, best known for the Kewpie doll. A 1915 mint condition example of Jell-O and the Kewpies now sells for over $100.

Collectors can still find great examples of charming booklets for under $100, and many are still priced for less than $50.

Along with the promotional booklets, advertisers also used children in illustrations for some not-so-common products. One of the most bizarre was “The Dutch Boy’s Lead Party,” a paint book for children. Considering that housepaint used to contain lead, it seems a bit noxious to promote it with children. Then again, maybe that’s supposed to be pronounced “leed.”

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What's the Scoop?

QUESTION: I’ve loved ice cream ever since I was a kid. And today, I even make my own. I’ve been around for a while, so I’ve seen a variety of items related to ice cream changeover the years. I’d like to begin a collection of ice cream collectibles but have no idea what all there is out there besides ice cream makers and ice cream scoops. What sort of items related to ice cream would be good to collect?

ANSWER: Surprisingly, there are lots of items that would make a good ice cream memorabilia collection. But first, let’s take look at ice cream in the past.

Believe it or not, George Washington loved ice cream, too. He purchased a pewter “cream machine for ice in1784. Newspapers at the time occasionally advertised commercially made ice cream, but most people prepared it at home.

The first hand-cranked ice cream machine received a patent in May, 1848. Butby the end of the Civil War, ice cream makers could be found in most homes. These became popular with the extensive development and manufacture of ice boxes. This made it easier for Victorians to obtain and store ice to freeze the milk, eggs, fresh cream and eggs needed to make ice cream. Back then, it took lots of cranking, but the results were worth it.

By the 1880s and 1890s the ice cream freezer was a significant item in leading department stores and in catalogs. In 1884 one catalog featured selections from the American Machine Company which produced both single action and double action crank freezers, but also offered models which claimed to take less effort.

By the late 19th century, those making homemade ice cream also bought ice cream dipping spoons. They could purchase a variety of dipping spoons, including round ended spoons, pointed ended spoons, and square ended spoons—all 12 to 18 inches long.




Still another popular feature of the making delightful ice cream at home were the amazing array of molds. The ice cream could be pushed and shaped into all matter of images from cupid and Mother Goose to a rocking horse or George Washington himself. By the late 19th century even a battleship mold was available to for preparing ice cream in a big way, it held two quarts. Most of these molds were made of pewter.

Ice cream got a promotional boost at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904.

To help sell their products, commercial ice cream producers published and gave away booklets with ice cream recipes and instructions. The Snow Ice Cream Makers Guide in 1911 and the Ice Cream Maker's Formulary and Price List were just two of them. And commercial producers also sold their products at retail shops, serving it on store advertising trays.

The number of brands of commercially produced ice cream skyrocketed in the 1920s. While commercial producers like the Carnation Milk Company offered prepared ice cream, most of it came from local dairy farms. Most of the companies gave away premiums, such as calendars and buttons bearing the their names.

In 1927, the Sears Roebuck catalog began featuring not only ice cream makers, but scoops, and even pressed glass footed sherbet glasses for ice cream, sherbet, and sundaes.

Commercial manufacturers inaugurated National Ice Cream Week in the l930s. Hendler's Ice Cream handed out brass rests for ice cream scoops, Puritan Dairy Ice cream issued toy whistles. As the 1930s drew to close the Howard Johnson's restaurant began offering what would ultimately become 28 different flavors of ice cream Back then, Americans consumed nearly three gallons of ice cream per person per year.

In 1949, hoping to encourage in commercial ice cream, Sealtest published and distributed a vivid booklet of recipes entitled, New Ways With Ice Cream.

To promote their products even further, many commercial producers took out colorful advertisements in magazines.

Related to ice cream distribution was the ice cream parlor, with its myriad of equipment. One such device was the ceramic dispensers for Coca Cola, Hires Root Beer, and Dr. Pepper. These were usually large one or two-piece china urns. There were also straw holders. milk shakers, and assorted glassware. And don’t forget all the signs and advertising.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the Victorians in the Winter 2018 Edition, "All Things Victorian," online now.