3. Iterative Education: Scrapbooking

As seen in the previous chapter advertising trade cards showed derogatory images of blackness and black people that created ideological and social distance between races of people already physically separated. The resultant “othering” of African Americans learned through the images found on advertisements also had the effect of making northeastern whiteness appear superior to all who viewed the cards, regardless of race. The available scrapbooks left behind reveal that advertising trade cards assisted in racially indoctrinating collecting youths. Furthermore, the choices made by scrapbookers in their arrangement of cards with African American images on them sometimes provide direct evidence of racial inculcation.

Below are experts from two scrap books. The first is from a young man Morgan A. McLean. The second from a young woman Helen

In Morgan A. McLean’s scrapbook we find full sets of card series for Clark’s O.N.T. Spool Cotton, Henry Stiles Fine Boots and Shoes, and Higgins’ German Laundry Soap, as well as partial sets distributed by many other shops and manufacturers. Morgan’s complete set of a Higgins’ German Laundry Soap series is an impressive display of his navigation of the consumer market from a relatively powerless position . The full set of seven cards is proudly displayed, in exact order, on a two-page spread towards the end of Morgan’s scrapbook. Morgan may have received help from his friends in trades allowing for the completion of his series, but Morgan’s main accomplice would have been someone who purchased Higgins’ Soap during the period of time when the company distributed this particular card series. It is unimaginable that such sequential advertising trade cards, whether in full or partial sets, were amassed without any pressure from children on their parents to make certain purchases. On the contrary, I would argue that influence over the use of family dollars is confirmed in relation to the trade card series found in the scrapbooks of children. The accumulation of full sets would have likely required multiple purchases, either of a single product or from one store, potentially during a short period of time relative to the product’s usage. Furthermore, the array of advertising trade card series found in these scrapbooks suggests the collections to be more than just discarded scraps handed down by parents. Instead, these series can be seen as evidence of the persuasive power many of these children ultimately held over their parents’ purchases.

1. The Promenade – Morning.

2. The morning drink

3. Will you dance with me?

4. On his way home – Night

It becomes obvious through the story told by this series that the monkey-inman’s-clothes who seemed perfectly happy throughout the day, was rejected by whomever he asked to dance. As a result, he hangs his head in disappointment on the slow and lonely walk home. Unfortunately, Helen’s particular brand of racism against African Americans, likely learned iteratively through her coach varnish advertisements as she became visually literate, has even greater implications for this card series and its ideological power. Arguably, Helen saw a dandified African American man instead of a monkey and transposed her racial antipathies onto the main character imagined in this series.

In addition to the assertion of black ignorance that we saw with the advertisements in Helen’s scrapbook, the use of specific words like “Massa” evoked memories of a slave-past that became reinterpreted through images like the one on this Den-ShaSho card. Instead of reflecting reality, images like these made the horrifying and recent history of slavery seem playful, acceptable, and remembered fondly by black Americans. The words “darkey” and “massa,” in particular, simultaneously conjured a reminiscence of slavery and the lessons taught by the loyal slave stereotype known as Sambo. Furthermore, the use of a former slave in this ad for Den-Sha-Sho is not nearly as shocking as the former slave’s acquiesce, feeding into the growing national sentiment that African Americans had been better off under slavery and the protection of their white masters.

Young people were trained through their collections to notice brand-names and the claims made by certain products. In addition to a consumerist indoctrination, collecting and scrapbooking trade cards also introduced children to a much older culture of white supremacy and racism against African Americans. This is due to the fact that the method of advertising on colorful trade cards resulted in the mass distribution and subsequent collection by countless young people of ephemera depicting racist images of African Americans. From caricatures of late-nineteenth century stereotypes, to paternalistic representations of helpless blacks and homages to the plantation South, the majority-northern, young, white, children who participated in this early form of popular culture simultaneously read consumerism and racial difference through the objects of their playtime.