Happy Halloween

From Betty Bonnet's Halloween Party, 1917.

From the 1920s Weldon's costume catalog.

Tiny in TinyTown cutouts, 1915

From The Delineator magazine. Above, Grocery Store and Schoolhouse, August 1915; below, The Globe Department Store, October 1915. Joan Homann's guide to Magazine Paper Dolls helped me to identify the magazine and exact date of these TinyTown cutouts. You can order your copy here. 

Matsue from Japan, c.1930s

From Little Americans from Many Lands.

The Magic Circus by Violet Moore Higgins, 1917

This author and artist is new to me. But a simple search online revealed that Higgins (1886-1967) has a fabulous oeuvre, in addition to this lovely book of cut-outs which graced the Competition room at the convention.

Higgins was a prolific author and illustrator. Here are some images of her work found in a Google search:

She took over the illustration of a comic strip called Drowsy Dick. Thanks to Allan Holtz of the blog "The Stripper's Guide" for posting this full length comic strip with some background on Higgins.

And Ms. Higgins did covers for The Saturday Evening Post. One hundred years ago, her illustration of "The Young Suffragette" appeared on the cover.

2014 Convention Registration Discount Deadline

Don't forget to mail in your registration this week -- the discount is only good through Saturday, Nov. 2 (a day later than originally posted).

Click here for the registration form.

Children on a Swing, c. 1890s

Over the next week or two: entries in the 2013 Convention Competition, where the rarely seen (or never seen) and mint condition paper dolls are displayed. Here, a German set from the 1890s.

The Boston Sunday Globe, 1895

I bet a lot of Boston is busting its buttons with pride today.

This is one of my favorite collectibles: The "Art Fashion Supplement" of the Boston Sunday Globe. Plus, it's a newspaper theme, which I love. The globe had the largest circulation in New England, Aug. 11, 1895, and probably enjoyed that status for a very long time. The Boston Herald probably ran a close second, and of course had that fabulous Boston Herald Lady to ramp up the numbers and its popularity.