Our cultural history on the face of a church fan

The table held several flats of fans, but the ones that drew me held a story. They were diverse in both their images and messages, silently imparting slices of our cultural history.

This wasn’t the first time I’d seen an array of church fans, but this was the first I’d seen at auction. I was in an antiques mall while visiting my family at Christmas once and found a handful of fans bearing images of African Americans: Booker T. Washington, Mahalia Jackson and two little black girls.

This current group was among other straw fans in the flats. I found these appealing because of their subjects:

“School Days,” the Dionne Quintuplets, State Road Bakery

These five little Canadian girls – Cecile, Emilie, Yvonne, Marie and Annette – were considered miracle babies after they were born prematurely in 1934 and became the first ones of their type to survive. Their story was told in numerous newspaper articles around the world, and many families precariously adopted them as their own.

The drawing on the fan showed them as happy children, but it was not entirely realistic. They were removed from their parents in 1935 after their father contracted to show them at the Chicago World’s Fair (1934). They became wards of the state, which used them as its own moneymaker: The Madame Alexander company made baby dolls (which are now very collectible); tourists flocked to see them in “Quintland,” a compound where they lived across from their family’s farm; Hollywood made movies with and about them, and advertisers slapped their images on products.

They grew up secluded and exploited, they said in a 1960s book. Three of them (two others had died) wrote in 1995 that their father sexually abused them, although the couple’s five other children denied it.

“Ho Hum,” Industrial Health, Accident and Life Insurance Co.

The Industrial Health, Accident and Life Insurance Co. and the State Mutual Benefit Society were certainly aiming at the black community in offering a fan with the photo of a little black boy yawning. Most images of black children from around this time were deliberately offensive.

The “Photo from Life” fan appeared to be from the late 1920s because it mentioned the number of policies the Connecticut-based company issued in 1925 and 1926. A policy was selling for 10 cents a week in 1934 to insure boys and girls up to 12 years old.

Insurance companies peddled industrial, or burial insurance, door to door to poor African Americans telling them that a policy would ensure that their families would not be burdened with the cost of burying them. These folks paid premiums that over the decades were sometimes more than the policy was worth.

In 2004, class-action suits were brought by insurance regulators against several companies, including Metropolitan Life of New York, and some settlements were reached. In most cases, the insurance companies were accused of charging blacks more than they did whites for coverage.

G.H. Lyddon Grocery, Lenox, IA, montage of nicely dressed women, presumably early 20^th-century

I suppose the fancily dressed women corresponded with the “Fancy Groceries” that Lyddon’s sold.

The owner, G.H. Lyddon, was involved in not only selling groceries but also real estate during the early decades of the 20^th century. I found an entry in the Des Moines Register newspaper from Sept. 14, 1914, from Lyddon who was trying to sell a parcel of land:

“I have 160 A. of Dakota land in cultivation that I would like to exchange for merchandise or automobile; would prefer groceries. If this interests you write me and will give particulars. G. H. Lyddon, Lenox, la.”

“Prevent Woods Fires,” Delaware State Forestry Dept.

The back of the fan offers information about fires in general, and brush and refuse fires, along with tips to campers and smokers. The front bears images of a forest after and before a fire, and the slogan uses the word “woods” rather than “forest,” which was more familiar to me.

The current slogan – “Only You Can Prevent Forest Fires” – didn’t start appearing until 1947, three years after Smokey Bear was created. The brown bear in the Boy Scout hat came into being in 1944 after the government realized that it needed to alert the public to the dangers of forest fires. Bambi was the first to be used on posters, but the Forestry Service felt that it should have its own emblem. Smokey was the nickname for a man who had been the assistant fire chief in New York City.

“Curly Top,” Duke’s Food Store, Swedesboro, NJ

“Curly Top” was the name of a 1935 Shirley Temple feel-good movie, but I don’t think this was the familiar child actor with the full head of curls. This image of a little blonde girl with blue eyes was perceived to be the cultural antithesis of the little black boy on the other fan – even though both were pretty cute.