Abstract
In this article I examine trading cards produced by Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. in the United States in the decade following World War II. I focus on how these cards functioned as mechanisms of discipline, through the practices associated with collecting, as well as through their content and use. Cards reflected contemporary trends in education and behavioural science. In addition, they utilised what I term optical technology to entice children to buy. This came in the form of rudimentary optical tricks that emulated scientific and technological developments associated with wartime. I argue that in doing so, these cards brought children into the nascent military-technological complex, and provided a way to view the world in hierarchical terms through optical science.
Highlights
In this article, I examine collectible trading cards produced for children between 1948 and 1952, which utilised optical technologies that allowed the cards to stand out in a crowded market
I examine 1948’s Magic Photos, 1949’s X-Ray Round Up, and 1952’s Look ‘n See cards, all produced by Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., the leading manufacturer of trading cards by the mid-1950s
Analysis of the cards provides insight into how Topps envisaged its audience in the postwar period, and into what the company, its executives, and its artists deemed appropriate for children to know and understand about the world
Summary
I examine collectible trading cards produced for children between 1948 and 1952, which utilised optical technologies that allowed the cards to stand out in a crowded market. I focus on two types of optical technology included in trading cards, which reflected developments in optical science: Topps’ Magic Photos from 1948 emulated Polaroid instant photography, while 1949’s X-Ray Round Up, and 1952’s Look ’n See both referenced x-ray technology, using colour filtration. The fact that Topps and other trading card companies had 09 page of 26 many ties to the military exacerbated this link, so by playing with trading cards, children became technological subjects, learning how to operate within a system of American technological and military might Following his daughter’s dismay at being unable to view holiday snaps as soon as they were photographed, Edwin Land set out to solve this problem, and by November 1948, the first instant camera, the Polaroid Land Model 95 was available to the public and sold in huge numbers. Likewise, trading cards regularised the gaze of children toward both American icons and “exotic” populations, imposing order onto them, augmented by replicas of scientific observation
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