This vintage handmade post card is from my Scottish maternal grandmother's collection. It is possible it was done by a relative because many of them were artists. Unfortunately it doesn't have any signature.
I've always loved this. A simple pen drawing with a watercolor wash, but it captures the feeling of Marely and the ghost from A Christmas Carol.
Most likely 64 years ago tonight there was a PTA party in the county of Marin, California. I provide you with the handmade invitation from Montez Lawton's scrapbook.
So why can I narrow this down to 1951? The give away are the first few lines on the inside of the card:
"Come on to our school, our school,
We geeve you—dinner!"
This is a word play on the Rosemary Clooney 1951 hit "Come On-a My House." Too many people will have no idea who Rosemary Clooney was, unless they just think of her as George's aunt. And even fewer people will know the people are who are referred to in the information below from Wikipedia:
"Come on-a My House" is a song performed by Rosemary Clooney on her album Come On-A My House, released on June 6, 1951. The song was written by Ross Bagdasarian and his cousin, the Armenian American Pulitzer Prize winning author William Saroyan, in the summer of 1939, while driving across New Mexico. The melody is based on an Armenian folk song.
It was not performed until the 1950, off-Broadway production of The Son. The song did not become a hit until the release of Clooney's recording.
It was probably Saroyan's only effort at popular songwriting, and it was one of Bagdasarian's few well-known works that was not connected to his best-known creation, Alvin and the Chipmunks. Bagdasarian, as David Seville, went on to much fame with his Chipmunks recordings.
…the song touches upon traditional Armenian customs of inviting over relatives and friends and providing them with a generously overflowing table of fruits, nuts, seeds, and other foods. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)
So take a minute and imagine the PTA party back in '51. I'm betting there were a lot of crepe paper decorations.
Another card from Montez Lawton's scrapbook. This is quite small, handmade using construction paper and what appears to be a photo and text cut from a magazine. There is no signature. Perhaps it was made by one of her students.
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And thank you to all who have bought copies of my new book. I hope you enjoy it.
Bill was, I believe, Montez Lawton's husband; I can't be sure. There are several cards in the scrapbook signed by Bill, though there are more from her mom and dad.
I especially like Bill's signature.
I'm guessing this Hallmark card is from the late 40s to early 50s.
You can see that the front of the card has a plastic window allowing the holly inside to be seen.
Another card from Montez Lawton's scrapbook; a Hallmark card from 1947. I don't think I've ever seen this logo before. Apparently until 1954 the company was known as Hall Brothers, Inc. A brief Hallmark bio follows the card.
Love how the little girl initially wrote her signature in pencil and then inked over it.
Joyce Clyde Hall became captivated by a salesman who stopped by his family's store in 1906 in Norfolk, Nebraska. Driven by the postcard craze of 1903, Hall decided to venture from retail of various products to wholesale of postcards. He moved his business to the larger market of Kansas City. As time went on, Hall became more convinced that greeting cards would become more prominent than postcards. Greeting cards, according to J.C. Hall, represented class, promised discretion and "they were more than a form of communication—they were a social custom.”
By 1915, the company was known as Hall Brothers and sold Valentine's Day and Christmas cards. In 1917, Hall and his brother Rollie "invented" modern wrapping paper when they ran out of traditional colored tissue paper. In 1922, the company expanded throughout the country. The staff grew from 4 to 120 people, and the line increased from holiday cards to include everyday greeting cards.
In 1928, the company adopted the name "Hallmark", after the hallmark symbol used by goldsmiths in London in the 14th century, and began printing the name on the back of every card. In the same year, the company became the first in the greeting card industry to advertise their product nationally. Their first advertisement appeared in Ladies' Home Journal and was written by J.C. Hall himself. In 1931, the Canadian William E. Coutts Company, Ltd., a major card maker, became an affiliate of Hall Brothers, which was Hall Brothers' first international business venture.
In 1944, it adopted its current slogan, "When you care enough to send the very best." It was created by C. E. Goodman, a Hallmark marketing and sales executive, and written on a 3x5 card. The card is on display at the company headquarters. In 1951, Hall sponsored a television program for NBC that gave rise to the Hallmark Hall of Fame, which has won 80 Emmy Awards. Hallmark now has its own cable television channel, the Hallmark Channel which was established in 2001. For a period of about 15 years, Hallmark owned a stake in the Spanish language network Univision.
In 1954, the company name was changed from Hall Brothers to Hallmark. In 1958, William E. Coutts Company, Ltd., was acquired by Hallmark; until the 1990s, Hallmark's Canadian branch was known as "Coutts Hallmark". (SOURCE: Wikipedia)
I stopped buying Hallmark products a long time ago because of their propensity to "copy" ideas from smaller companies. Add in the fact that the local Hallmark store became very religious and I decided I'd go elsewhere for cards. It used to be their cards were about the only ones you could easily find; not anymore. Their artists still turn out some very nice work, I just choose to spend my money elsewhere.
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The following images are, like yesterday, from a book entitled Christmas: A Book of Stories Old and New published by Charles Scribner's Sons. The illustrator is Hildegard Woodward. These are only a sampling of the black and white illustrations throughout, including spot drawings.
The following images are from a book entitled Christmas: A Book of Stories Old and New published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1937. Well, actually I'm not sure when it was published because the copyright page says 1935, but the title page says '37. Perhaps this is a different edition. The anthology was put together by Alice Dalgliesh with illustrations by Hildegard Woodward. Endsheet
Click on image to see it larger.
Hildegard Woodward was born in Worcester, Massachusetts February 10, 1898. Her parents were Rufus and Stella Woodward. She was educated at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and in Paris. She is the author and illustrator of many children's books, two of which were awarded a Caldecott Honor. In 1948 she was recognized for her illustrations of Roger and the Fox written by Lavinia R. Davis and again in 1950 for The Wild Birthday Cake.
In 1953 Woodward painted a mural on the wall of the Center School cafeteria in Brookfield, Connecticut near her residence in Hawleyville.
She began to lose her sight in the 1960, but didn’t stop painting. When she went blind she developed a method of "painting by touch".
Woodward's art was not restricted to children's books; her portfolio includes numerous works of fiction and humor for adults. Although most noted for her watercolor illustrations, she painted in oil and [6] was a children's portrait artist.
Woodward never married or had children. She died in December 1977 in Connecticut. (Source: Wikipedia)
I'm a doll lover/collector from childhood. Eventually I realized there just wasn't going to be enough room for me to continue down this path. That didn't mean I couldn't still collect dolls, I'd just take it in a different direction. The result is my new book Tattered and Lost: Forgotten Dolls.
New book NOW available on Amazon.
