Making Healthy, Happy Children
- Andrew Rapoza
- Apr 24
- 4 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Shadow Cards in 1908
What Mr. Birtz held in his hands was clearly very special; the beauty and intricate craftsmanship of these paper amusements spoke for themselves. Each of these very delicate, die-cut advertising trade cards showed in amazing detail how to form one of ten different creatures in the shadows. There were lots of shadow cards on the market at the tail-end of the Victorian era, but none quite as fine as these. Fingers were articulated with artistic precision and anatomical accuracy, pointing and flexing in as many directions as necessary to form the fascinating shadow creatures. Across Europe and North America, little fingers struggled in delight to mimic the positions on each card that the beautiful tangle of ten digits quietly demonstrated.
No one could appreciate their artistry as much as Albert Birtz de Desmarteaux, a “temperer” in a knife works who strengthened and sharpened the cutting edges of knives and machine blades. He saw the card set while on a trip to his native Montreal, Quebec, in 1908; perhaps they were even evidence of his craftsmanship on the blades that had freed all those fingers and knuckles from the paper stock that had held them. The discriminating bladesmith instantly decided to bring the envelope of paper fingers to someone very special back in the U.S.A.
Albert brought the extraordinary collection home to Southbridge, Massachusetts for his one-year-old daughter, Claire, as her very first birthday gift. When she was old enough to understand, she was told to take them out only once each year, on her birthday, to look at and enjoy them. Albert and Claire had a very close father-daughter relationship; she turned out to be an only child, making her treasured even more by her father, who died when she was only fourteen. Claire never married or had children of her own. As a remembrance and tribute to her beloved father, she kept her promise and looked at that first gift only on her birthday each year. She then carefully returned them to their envelope and tucked them away for safekeeping for another year.
In 1994, the 87-years-old Claire Birtz attended one of my talks on advertising trade cards and came up to me afterwards, saying there was something she wanted to give me because she could tell I would appreciate and take good care of the cherished items. I met her at her home later that week. There she told me the story about these treasured cards from her father. She entrusted them to me, instructing me to protect and to display them as I thought best – this was about thirty years ago. Early this past August, I showed them to the public for the first time in my display at the national expo of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC) in Houston, Texas.
The expo concluded several weeks ago, but I still feel the need to share them in a more long-lasting manner. It then dawned on me that I should reach out to my long-time friend, Diane DeBlois, of the Ephemera Society of America. What better audience to admire and enjoy the enduring Birtz family story and legacy than the world’s largest group of ephemera enthusiasts?
The back of each card (translated from the French) explains the health benefits of adding Phoscao-Bébé, (a powder of phosphates and cocoa), to a child’s milk:
PHOSCAO-BABY
CHILDREN’S FOOD
MAKES TEETHING EASIER
HELPS WITH BONE FORMATION
On the other side are the detailed images and text instructions about how to make the shadow creatures. The French text on each card reads,
This cutting, exposed in front of a bright light, projected onto the wall in the image below. To get the same “animated” shadow, join your hands like the model.
Each card showed placement of the hand in front of a candle, since lightbulbs were a very new and uneconomical technology that still had a while to go before they would become the standard illumination across the land. The Phoscao-Bébé shadow cards probably suffered and disappeared in the hands of many children’s hands, their paper fingers getting bent, pulled, and eventually amputated from their ephemeral hands, and others probably were placed too close to real candles, going up in flames instead of shadows. Such is ephemera.
But not this set. Claire Birtz’s paper hands were treasured mementos from her dear father – her way of reaching out to him on every one of her birthdays for 87 of her 93 years, until she knew that her own end was near. Please join me in enjoying these cards and perpetuating the love for them that was never ephemeral, but eternal.
Love the sweet tribute to a wonderful father-daughter relationship! ❤️
Expertly written, as always. You bring out all the "feels."
Shadow puppets !
A lost art !
My mother and brother used to make Shadow puppets at bedtime and tell me stories of the many Shadow puppets my grandfather made for her as a girl. We used to have a tiny book on how to make Shadow puppets.
What a touching story of the way this woman cherished the memories of her father.
Thank you for preserving this memory. Perhaps you can make Shadow puppets on the wall for your great grand children !
From Barbara Rusch, Thornhill, Ontario, Canada:
What a powerful and articulate tribute to the love between a father and daughter. Claire could not have found a more appropriate and sensitive custodian of this precious legacy than you, Andy. Thank you for bringing us this delicate artifact and resurrecting its beautiful story. You have made the fragile and ephemeral shadows of times past substantial and enduring.
Great article about the shadow puppet cards. I had something similar when I was a kid that showed how to make shadow puppets. Your display at the bottle show was excellent!