At the conclusion of World War I, over a decade passed before movable books for children began to again be published in any quantity. British publisher S. Louis Giraud began publishing in 1929 a series of movable books that he labeled living models. These were true pop-ups, moderately priced (unlike their predecessors of the 19th century), and over the next two decades Giraud would publish sixteen annuals, each of which included at least five pop-ups:
The first American movable books had been published during the 1880s by McLoughlin Brothers of New York in what they termed their Little Showman's Series:
The firm is perhaps better known, though, for pirating Dean & Son's Pantomine Toy Books (see our post of 23 November 2009). The firm had little more to do with movable books until 1939, as we shall see shortly.
The worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s sent book buying, like most other economic activities, into a long and precipitous decline. Seeking to resurrect their fortunes, the Blue Ribbon Publishing Company of New York hit upon a winning combination: a series of movable books for children inspired by traditional fairy tales, as well as by the animation of the Walt Disney Company:
It was near the end of this decade that McLoughlin Brothers re-entered the market for children's movable books, publishing their famous Jolly Jump-Up Series. As a recent exhibition at the University of Virginia observes, this series' themes of family life--buying a new home, going camping, visiting the farm--trace the family from the end of the 1930s through the post-World War II boom. Over time, the Jump-Ups came to encapsulate the American dream:
The 1940s saw the advent of a number of remarkable paper engineers such as Julian Wehr, who designed books with tabs that were located at the sides of books (not just at the bottom, as in previous decades), and which could often be moved back and forth as well as up and down:
In the 1950s Bancroft & Co. (London) began marketing an innovative series of movable books produced by, believe it or not, a state-run import/export agency (Artia) in Czechoslovakia. These books were largely the work of the extraordinarily talented paper engineer and artist Vojtêch Kubašta:
The second golden age of movable books for children was about to begin....
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