Telephone directory valentine, c. 1930s

A plaintive lament if I ever heard one....Kid's scrawl in pencil on back reads (I think) "From Gunie."

Sweet valentine, c. 1930s

Another die-cut valentine, this one marked on the back with the letters GB on a bell, and below that Made in U.S.A.

Inscribed on the back to Sharon from Jean Bierbower. Greeting on front reads:

"The sky would seem a lot more blue /If my sweet valentine were you!"

A doily valentine collage, c. 1908

A very clever hand-made valentine built on a heart-shaped doily glued to thin construction paper. The little girl was cut from a magazine and glued to front (I'm taking a wild guess with 1908, taking my cue from her big hat and bow). A small red heart was glued under her hand. No writing, slight foxing on back.

Pigskin Valentine, c. 1930s

Paper Doll Studio Issue 101

A truly fabulous issue from Jenny and company. You can order your issue here.

Click above image to read. There are all kinds of goodies in this issue, including David Wolfe on Think Pink, the famous musical number from "Funny Face," Brenda Mattox on Painting Pink and Evie Fullingim on Elsa Schiaparelli, who introduced shocking pink to the fashion runway. Eileen Rudisill Miller is the featured artist, and has an essay about how she started out and grew as an artist. It's one of my favorite features in Paper Doll Studio.

Every page of this issue is filled with artwork submitted by artists who take up the theme of pink in their own way. And Bruce Patrick Jones provides the icing on the pink cake!

Also in this issue: the artist challenge for a forthcoming issue and it's a beauty:  Dress a Bridal Party! Four figures--bride, groom, maid of honor and flower girl--have been drawn by the artist Norma Lu Meehan. Some of the submissions will be used for the magazine, but others will be collected in a book, a follow-up to the Paper Doll Artists Gallery of a few years ago.

Brownies Theater, 1895

 From the Dec. 8, 1895 Boston Sunday Globe,  a play theater. Above, the proscenium.

 The stage above is set, with places numbered for the actors to hit their mark.

Presenting: the Brownies. Alas, I only have a few of the actors and their props.

Palmer Cox was a Canadian artist who created strange elfin creatures with round heads, little pot bellies and skinny arms and legs. Toy Collector has an excellent overview of the Brownie craze. I'm not even sure the Boston Sunday Globe art supplement had license to use the Brownies; apparently the beloved Brownie was adopted freely, with few if any alterations. You'll often see the real deal touted as "Palmer Cox's Brownies," so you know Mr. Cox was fighting for control of his creation. I remember the Brownie camera was marketed as late as the 1960s. Toy Collector says Kodak was not authorized to use the name or character when the camera was first introduced more than 100 years ago.

I love theater of all kinds: puppet, toy, Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theater, and reading about old time vaudeville. One of the best movies about the theater is "All About Eve." I'm on a Stephen Sondheim kick (saw the great "Follies' last year), and highly recommend his book about his creative life, "Finishing the Hat." 

Below, some random theater-related items from my collection.

A new postcard of a vintage magazine cover. The great Billie Burke was married to Florenz Ziegfeld. Her theater work is lost to us, and it's likely she would not be remembered today if not for her lovely turn as the Good Witch Glinda in the 1939 movie of "The Wizard of Oz."

I didn't see this 2006 one-woman show, I'm not a big Bernhard fan, but I couldn't resist the postcard (free at a shop somewhere in the theater district, of course). A terrifically expressive face.

A classic. Lillian Hellman was a favorite when I was in college.

A great way to start buzz in the old days -- offer to stamp and mail the postcard to spread the word. But what if it's a negative review. Hmmm. Probably goes straight to the circular file.

I have a soft spot for toy theaters and marionettes. This postcard is from an exhibit of toy theaters that I attended in Brooklyn four years ago. Great Small Works produced a number of toy theater festivals and their web site has many pictures as well as a brief history of toy theaters.

The curtain rises on many other theatrical presentations at Sepia Saturday. Click the logo below.

Market Street, Newark, N.J. c. 1908

Streetcars, horse-drawn wagons, pedestrians, cobblestone streets and all those signs. Who could ask for anything more? I work in Newark and pass through Broad and Market streets five days a week, hence my fascination with the city's past.

Check out the sign for Proctor's "Newark's Theatre Beautiful" and then "Refined Vaudeville-Low Prices." Pillsbury's Flour is nice and visible, twice, on this busy street. Some of the signs on the left seem to float, indicating they were pasted on the photo: Reilly's and Van Horn's can be detected if you squint. Red Star Stamps might have been an early version of S&H Green Stamps, but I'm not sure.

Newark has a number of old buildings still standing, in truncated form, along Market Street. Orange, the destination on the streetcar,  is the name of a nearby suburb. Unlike New York City, Newark never consolidated with neighboring suburbs such as Orange, Belleville and Bloomfield. It's a fairly small "big city," with a population of about 277,000, according to the 2010 Census.

Miss Fannie Maurer of Gansford, Pa., received this postcard in May 1908:

I guess you are done housecleaning. I am just going to start tomorrow. How is your mother? You had better come along down when I come up. Carrie.