Figure 1.--Here are some German scraps or Oblaten collected by a German reader. They date to the turn of the century. They illustrate many fashions actually worn, but seem fancier and more colorful than the clothes actually worn by German children at the time. Note for example the boy in the sailor suit here. This looks like a fairly standard sailor suit, but note the boy is pictured wearing an elaborate wauist sash. We do not think that this was very common. Also note that none of the boys have croppedc hair, yet this was a very common hair style forf boys at the turn of the 20th century. The scraps here are modern eproductions of actual turn-of-the-century scraps. Click on the image to see more.

Scraps and scrapbooks were enormously popular in the 19th century. Related to scrap cutouts were paperdolls. Modern versions of which are still popular todayThey were prepared for a variety of reasons. One of the most common uses of sdcraps were family scrapbooks or albums. Mothers, especially the ones that didn't work, loved to prepare scrapbooks on their children. These scrapbooks might contain keepsakes, such as lockets of hair or ribbons the child wore as a baby. After the development of photography, portarits were a popular item to include. In fact in the 20th century these scrapbooks in many cases became family pohotographic albumns. To help decorate late 19th century scrapbooks, companies began printing "scraps"--beautiful lithographed cut-out figures. They were sold primarily scrapbooks, but might be used for other purposes like decorating screens etc.

Country Trends

We do not have details at this time on the countries in which scraps were popular. We know that they were popular in America, Austria, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Sweden. They were popular in many other countries, but we do not have details at this time. They may have been more popular in Germany than anywhere else. At least German companies had important export msrkets for scraps. There wetre several different oprodycers in Berlin alone. There were also important producers in other German cities. The companies involved normally had a range of producrts, including greeting-cards, postcards, trading cards, and commercial labels.

Terminology

We are not entirely sure what the popular term is for these printed pictures. We have been calling them "scraps". We have also notice them referred to as "scrap pictures". Perhaps our readers will know more about this. The German term was Oblaten .

Printing

Advancements in printing during the late 19th century had a wide variety of commercial ramifications. These included among many other ventures, greeting and post cards, paper dolls, labels including toy boxes, and scrapbook cutouts, or "scraps". Here the important advances were in color lithography. The color proved enormously attractive and greatly added to the popularity of building scrapebooks.

Lithography

Lithograpy or lithographic printing is the process used to print illustrations and photographs in magazines, newspapers, and books. Another term for it is photo offset printing. In the early 19th century printed images were very expensive. The process involved was engraving. This was an art form in itself and very expensive. Thus illustrations in books significantly increased the cost of a book and were not common in less expensive publications like newspapers and magazines. The process to more in expensively reproduce images is lithography. Printing photographs proved the most complicated, but lthography was being used to print illustrations by the late 19th century. At first they were simple black and white illustrations, but sophisticated color lithography was developed by the late 19th century. To get anything like a full color image, multiple colors had to be used. Thus might require anywhere from 10-20 colors. The labor involved made the whole process enormously expoensive as as well as technically very difficult. As a result, books with color plates before the 1880s are very uncommon.

Chronology

We are not entirely sure about the chronology of scrapbooks. The chronology of the scrap pictures is easier to follow because it largely reflected the chronology of color lithography. As far as I know, these scraps did not become popular until they could be produced in full color. There may be black and white scraps, but we are not familiar with them. Scraps began to appear in the 1860s, we had thought it was later. They were apparently very common by the 1880s. We think they were done throughout the early 20th century, both in the 1900s and 1910s. We are less sure about the 1920s. Now we know that scraps were reproduced into the 1950s and perhaos even the 1960s, but these are reproductions of earlier scraps.

Subjects

We are not altogether sure what the range of subjects covered by these scraps. The ones we have noted are happy, well dressed children. Surely there must have been other topics. One dealer reports scraps depicting: angels, animals, children, fairytales, and Father Chrismas. We have not noted scraps devoted to subjects like sports heros, actors, and poluitical or historical figures. This is a little surprising given that a similar development at the same time was collectable cards--the fore runner of baseball and other sports cards. The early cards were advertising included in cigarette packages and other products. These did cover a range of different subjects.

Scrapbook Preparers

The question arises as to who actually was interested in these scraps and preparing scrapbooks. Here we are unsure, but believe it was mistly women and girls. Men might put together photograph albums, but scrap books we believe was more likely to nbe girls. At least scrapnooks that used scraps like the ones here it seems to would be mostly women and girls. Hopefully readers that know more about scraps and scrap books will be able to tell us more.

Social Trends

Like greeting cards, these "scraps" reflected the sentimentality of the rising Victoriam middle class.

Scraps

Scraps and scrapbooks were enormously popular in the 19th century. Related to scrap cutouts were paperdolls. Modern versions of which are still popular today.

Uses

Scraps were used for a variety of purposes. The major use for scrapebooks, but there were other uses.

Scrapbooks

One of the most common uses of scraps were family scrapbooks or albums. Mothers, especially the ones that didn't work outside the home, loved to prepare scrapbooks on their children. These scrapbooks might contain keepsakes, such as lockets of hair or ribbons the child wore as a baby. After the development of photography, portarits were a popular item to include. In fact in the 20th century these scrapbooks in many cases became family pohotographic albumns. To help decorate late 19th century scrapbooks, companies began printing "scraps"--beautiful lithographed cut-out figures.

Screens

Scraps were used for a variety of other purposes. One popular use was to decorate the screens that were commonly used in the Victorian parlor.

Styles

Very often the children's clothing on these scraps were very elaborate. The boy's outfit is often usually at least as picaresque as the girl's. Often the artists were obviously inspired by costume from earlier periods, especially outfits based on Van Dyck portraits.

Van Dyck styes

Many of the scraps were fanciful. Often they were roughly based on Van Dyck paintings, long hair, satin knee breeches, lacr collors, elabotate use of stocvkings, white stockings, slippers with bows, and other elaborate clothingbitems.

Fauntleroy

One of the most popular subjects, was emaculately dressed children. Children appeared in a wide variety if outfirs, dresses, kilts, tunics, sailor suits and many others. One of the most popular outfits was the Fauntleroy suit.

Sailor suits

Silor suit outfits also often appeated on Victorian or Edwardian dress. This was less fanciful than the other styles as sailor suits were actually worn bt large numbers of Victorian and Edwardian boys.

Buster Brown suits

The Buster Brown suit was one of the most popular boys' fashions at the turnh of the 20th century. Tey were commonly featured in scraps.

Historical Value

A German reader writes, "when I was a child I was eager collecting Oblaten. I couldn't find a proper translation for that. You can use them for scrap-booking. For decades they have been popular. I guess especially around 1900. In some shops you can still buy them. Today mostly used for decorating things in an antique style. Recently I bought those you can see as attachment. I thought they can give us information about colour clothing. I am sure that this new print is a copy of an old print. What do you think about this as a source of information on fashion? HBC does not think that these scraps are a particularly helpful source of information about actual period clothing. This is because the children in the scraps are often elaborately dressed in very colorful clothing that is not confirmed by the photographic record. We should stress here that they can not be entirely dismissed . Some of the scraps are more realistic than others. In addition they also took commonly worn garments and embellished them with elavorate trims and depicted them in bright colors. The colors information is helpful, but we think the color used is more to appeal to purchasers than to accurately reflect how children dressed, These scraps I think are more useful as a artifact of social history. I think they show how many mothers might have LIKED to dress their children.

Personal Accounts

A Britis readers tells us, "I recall scraps. These could be bought in the 1950s. You bought them by the sheet. They were easy tio split and then you stuck them in a scrap book. Often these little pictures were used as book marks. The themes did not interest me much. They were not warfare images so I did not have much to do with them. They were often about folk lore--mainly the fairy world. They were more popular with the girls."

Created: June 10, 2000
Last updated: 7:18 PM 10/15/2005