Nancy, Children's Play Mate, Feb.1934

I acquired a couple of 1934 Children's Playmate magazines last year, and there was something different...

The magazine cover reads "Play Mate Magazine For Boys and Girls."

By 1938, the cover title was changed to Children's Play Mate. Was there a girlie magazine that already laid claim to the Play Mate title? (Playboy Magazine didn't debut until Dec. 1953.) It could have been a simple redesign, and using "Children's" up top certainly cleaned up the cover of excess verbiage.

I misplaced the February issue, so I didn't post on Valentine's Day. But if you plan to hold a party next year, here are invitations and place cards designed by the great Fern Bisel Peat. 

What are the chances of finding them in a flea market or online? At least now you can copy and print them out yourself!

 

Children's Playmate, January 1934 with Cinderella paper doll by Fern Bisel Peat

 

Happy Fourth of July

 

Children's Playmate January 1943

Kimnaloo, A Little Eskimo Girl

 

A Wonder-Book, 1929

 

My mother-in-law found this book about three years ago at a flea market. Florida or New Jersey? I'm not sure anymore.  She has good instincts about what I like, and this was no exception. 

The surprise when I opened the book:

An early work of illustration by Fern Bisel Peat! Of course, Peat was not a contemporary of Nathaniel Hawthorne; this is a reprint of his work from 1851, in which he re-imagined Greek myths for children. The Saalfield Publishing Company reissued his work with Peat's lovely illustrations in 1929. 

"Children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high, in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple, likewise. It is only the artificial and the complex that bewilder them." -- Nathaniel Hawthorne, Lenox, July 15, 1851.

from The Miraculous Pitcher

from The Three Golden Apples

from The Golden Touch

from The Gorgon's Head

from The Paradise of Children

Children's Playmate, March 1952

Cover by Fern Bisel Peat

March always "comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb."

Dirk and Katrine by Angela Price

 

Gene and Jean, by Fern Bisel Peat, 1941

 

From the October 1941 Children's Playmate 

Children's Playmate October 1941

 

Fu Mei Ling by Fern Bisel Peat

 

This is the paper doll included in the September 1942 issue of Children's Playmate.

Children's Play Mate January 1959

I love reading vintage magazines. Sometimes, they show a country and a culture in transition.

Minstrel shows in schools were still popular in 1959! A whole script for a children's minstrel show was included in this issue. 

But in this issue it's clear that Children's Play Mate was struggling to keep up with the times: TV shows are referenced throughout, with pictures of child stars from the Mickey Mouse Club (Bobby Burgess and Cubby O'Brien) and the Donna Reed Show (Paul Petersen and Shelley Fabares) included in "cameo" shots in the back of the magazine. 

Of course, TV also recycled old movies and comedy shorts from the early days of Hollywood, and the editors let young readers know that the "Little Rascals" was once "Our Gang" in the movies. This issue included 8 pages of the "funnies," the comic strips that ran in the Sunday newspapers, including Popeye and the Katzenjammer Kids.

This issue had two very different cut-outs! Sylvia and Zbik.

Alaska became a state on January 3, 1959, so the cover is perfect! An excellent chance for Play Mate to capture new readers and introduce them to longtime subscribers, as the cover text makes clear. The cover is signed by Fern Bisel Peat, but neither paper doll has been signed. I'm assuming Sylvia and Zbik are from the pen and brush of Peat, too.

Children's Play Mate, January 1941

Jackie and Joan are the Play Mate Twins

Love the accessories: trumpet, toy elephant on wheels, jack-in-the-box, wood duck, toy dog, blocks, bows, beads, rattle and what looks like a little alien! The little grooming accessories, combs and brushes, are darling.

Sally and her Friends by Fern Bisel Peat

Children's PlayMate, Nov. 1943

Children's Playmate, July 1940

I hope everyone has a good view of a great fireworks display tonight!

Children's Play Mate Magazine, 1938

Your Doll House by Fern Bisel Peat

Children's Playmate had a few pages of home furnishings over the years, for a child to easily cut out and paste in a book or box for a ready made doll house. c. 1940s.

Children's Playmate, July

Summer seems to fly by as we get older. Here's to the long, lazy days of childhood summers.

Art: Fern Bisel Peat