“Birthdays,” noted one anonymous quipster, “are like uncomfortable under-shorts. They creep up on you.”

Inelegant, yet apt. But look on the bright side: when else do you get a day’s worth (or a week’s worth, or a month’s worth, depending on how effectively you milk it), of effusive good wishes — just for being you? If you’re really lucky, there may even be a party involved. Or presents. Or cake. Or (here’s the winning trifecta) all three!

For early cave-dwellers, a birthday was just another day. With no formal means of denoting the passage of time, one day-and-night cycle blended into another. Then, someone sat up and took notice. The moon cycles were repeating. So were the seasons. Using those benchmarks, a rudimentary “calendar” came about, and notable events (such as birthdays) could be observed on an annual schedule.
Before the dawn of Christianity, friends and family gathered annually to chase away evil spirits, supposedly chomping at the bit to make off with the birthday boy or girl. The onslaught of group merriment evidently sent the forces of darkness packing.

The earliest full-scale birthday celebrations were reserved for royalty, the only ones then flush enough to throw a lavish party. Paper crowns, a time-tested means of recognizing the honoree at any 1950s or ‘60s kiddie party, owe their presence to this early brush with nobility.

As evidenced by birthday traditions from around the globe, celebrations often involve more than just cake and candles:
– Hate those birthday spankings? Consider yourself fortunate. In Colonial days, “one to grow on” was accompanied by “one to live on, one to eat on, one to be happy on, and one to get married on!”
– It could be worse: in Argentina, it’s a pull on the earlobe, one for each year.
– The Irish favor the “birthday bump”: the birthday lad or lassie is held upside down, head bumped (gently, now!) on the floor. One bump for each birthday–and, of course, one more for good luck!
– In Hong Kong, extra-long noodles are a special birthday treat: the longer the noodles, the longer the life.
– Don’t like cake? In Russia, it’s a “birthday pie,” with a greeting incised in the crust.

Here’s a birthday extra: English bakers often hide a small coin inside the birthday cake batter; find it, and good fortune is yours (English cake-eaters, obviously, chew very carefully).

Pennants fluttered from the lances of medieval knights as horses thundered into battle. They let sea captains know which approaching vessels were warships, and which ones weren’t. Gung-ho college students waved them way back in the Roaring ‘20s. Sports fans have waved them from the late 1800s on.

But in the mid-20th century, when affordable travel made it possible for almost everyone to “see the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet,” pennants really came into their own. Now, you didn’t have to waste time letting folks know where you’d been on vacation. Secured by its handy tassels, the travel pennant flapping from your auto’s aerial told the whole story.

A pennant (from the Latin penna, which translates as “feather” or “wing”), is commonly a triangle on its side, larger on one end (the “hoist,” where it hangs from), than it is on the other (the “fly,” or point). The smallest travel pennants are generally about 12” long; the largest rarely top out at over 30”. Any smaller, and they’d be impossible to read. Any larger, and your aerial would topple.

Felt has long been the traditional pennant material, from “100% wool” at the turn of the 20th century, to “100% synthetic” by the 1970s. Lettering and illustrations were originally hand-sewn to the felt, making early pennants on the pricey side. Luckily, by the late 1940s, when hordes of Americans hit the road, hand-sewn pennants had given way to screen-printed ones. That put them within easy reach of budget-conscious souvenir hunters.

Only the earliest hand-made pennants had identifying labels sewn on the reverse. When mass manufacturing took over, pennant pricing and other pertinent info were printed on a paper label attached to the hoistend. Buyers, of course, tore off those labels after purchase. However, since pennants heralding school sporting teams and events were the precursors of travel pennants, a number of the same companies churned out both. Other pennants were produced by businesses specializing in souvenir novelties.

Travel pennant lettering and illustration followed a familiar pattern. At the hoist end was a depiction of the event or attraction being celebrated, with or without a caption.

The rest of the pennant was taken up with huge lettering heralding its name. With landmark pennants, the illustration was easy. Been to Niagara Falls or the Black Hills? Well, you’d naturally want a pennant picturing the Falls or Mt. Rushmore. Was your vacation spot known for something specific? How about a Salt Lake City pennant featuring the Mormon Temple, or one for Rhode Island starring a tasty-looking lobster? Some pennant pix were no-brainers. If you’d paid a visit to Colorado’s Buffalo Bill Memorial, your pennant had better show the legendary Colonel himself.

And for a bit of whimsy, a pennant marking your trip to Buffalo, New York, featured a rendition of—what else?—a buffalo.
More generic locales called for more generic illustrations. If you’d traveled to the once-Wild West, your pennant choices included plenty of cowboys on bucking broncos and Native Americans in full regalia. Some pictures call for a bit of head-scratching. A cowboy and bronc on a pennant from Burlington, Iowa? Now that’s stretching the Wild West a bit far East.

Hunting for vintage travel pennants may be as close as the nearest dusty family attic or basement, or at any neighborhood estate or garage sale. Chances are good you’ll find at least one pennant at a minimal price. These are the sort of things people didn’t have the heart to throw away—the memories still lingered. Instead they were packed away, waiting to catch the eye of a future collector. Choices also abound online, with most priced well under $25.

For folks in mid-century America, travel pennants were souvenirs to be treasured, tangible reminders of personal Grand Tours. Like old friends, they could always be called upon in the future to help recapture happy visions of the past.
Long may they wave!

Pennants courtesy of Maureen Maher

Do you collect thimbles? There’s a collector’s club just for you. Depression glass? Ditto. Washing machines? We’ve got you covered.

Whether the subject is oh-so-familiar (Fostoria), or oh-so-obscure (infant feeders, anyone?) isn’t important. What’s important is that, if it’s collectible, chances are good that a group of like-minded people has formed somewhere, sometime, to celebrate that collectability.

A case in point: “CAS Collectors,” founded in 1994 as “a group of people with a common interest in Ceramic Arts Studio.”
In operation from 1940 to1955, Ceramic Arts Studio gained fame as “the little studio that could.” Operating out of a ramshackle former garage in Madison, WI, CAS was far removed from the “California Pottery” juggernaut which took the country by storm during the World War II years, when imports were restricted. In popularity and production, however, Ceramic Arts took the lead, producing more than 500,000 figurines annually at its peak. That Midwest moxie was due to the marketing skills of studio owner Reuben Sand, and, even more importantly, to the talents of the studio’s principal designer, Betty Harrington.

Harrington was responsible for almost the entire roster of the studio’s 1,000-plus figurine inventory. Bursting with innate talent, but with little formal artistic training, her link to the studio came about by happy accident. Using clay from a well being dug at her home, Harrington created the figurine of a kneeling girl. Looking for a source to have the figurine “fired,” she recalled a business she drove past daily en route to her secretarial job — “Ceramic Arts Studio.”

Prior to Betty’s 1941 arrival, CAS had struggled unsuccessfully to find a sales niche for its often-leaky pots and vases. When Harrington stopped in, owner Reuben Sand was amazed at the quality of her work. A brainstorm struck: why not change the focus of the firm to figural ceramics? Better yet, why not have Betty Harrington design them?

For the next 15 years, Ceramic Arts Studio warmed America’s hearts with imaginative renditions of children, animals, historical and international subjects, and fairy tale/fantasy characters. When CAS closed its doors in 1955, the victim of cheap imports, knickknack shelves across the country were filled with the studio’s charming and colorful figurines. And there they sat, awaiting rediscovery.
That came in 1993, with the Wisconsin Pottery Association’s exhibit of CAS figurines. Special guests at the showing: Betty Harrington and Reuben Sand. The response was so favorable that, in 1994, a collector’s club was formed, under the leadership of Tim Holthaus and Jim Petzold. The club’s mission, as stated in its first newsletter, was “to provide accurate information on authentic studio pieces, and attract stories and memories of the studio and the collecting experience.”

Betty Harrington was an enthusiastic club participant, thrilled by the renewed interest in the studio. When the club embarked on plans for its first-ever convention in 1995, Harrington eagerly agreed to create a limited-edition commemorative for the occasion. “M’amselle,” depicting a kneeling girl, called to mind her very first figurine. A highlight of the convention: Harrington’s demonstration of how “M’amselle” came to be:

“This was very important to me, because it is so difficult to describe in writing how items are made from a mold. I brought in the mold that I used to make all the ‘M’amselles,’ and I described how I made her in so many different positions. I felt that a visual explanation would make the whole process clearer.”

Beaming bakers. Knights in armor. Singing chickens, a solemn Sphinx, and even a corn cob or two, outfitted with airplane wings.
What gives? Well, one and all are examples of “feed sack art.” Those colorful logos on cotton feed sacks provided a healthy dose of Americana from just before the turn of the 20th century well into the 1950s.

Cloth feed sacks were the mid-1800s successors to the wooden barrels that had previously handled storage chores. Industrial sewing machines now made it possible to sew reliable seams. Although dubbed “feed sacks,” the bags were put to work carrying plenty besides animal feed. Among the contents: seeds, flour, sugar, tobacco, bath salts, corn meal, and even ammunition. While early bags were often burlap or jute, by the 1890s cotton was king. Cotton bags were more pliable, cheaper to produce, and reusable.

Actually, “repurpose-able” is a better description. No homemaker intended to refill her empty Blue Feather Potatoes bag with more potatoes. But with a good washing, and by picking out those sturdy seams, there were plenty of other uses for that good cotton–and there was plenty to use. The standard 100-lb. feed sack, when laid flat, measured approximately 37” by 43”. With enough bags, there was soon more than enough material on hand to sew up a variety of household necessities, from dish towels and bedsheets, to new curtains and quilt backings.

Just about the only thing early white cotton bags were less than desirable for: clothing. Initially, the logos and product information inked on the bags was there to stay. The only hope for removal: dousing them with bleach, or other “sure-fire” home remedies, before engaging in some vigorous scrubbing. If that didn’t do the trick, printed info was sometimes left as is. After all, who would see it? Only the disgruntled little girl heading off to school, knowing that her new set of drawers had “100 lbs. net weight” plastered across the posterior. (Patterned feed bags, which came into vogue for clothing use in the 1920s, solved the problem. Their labels and logos were either water-soluble ink, or on easily removable tags. This led to a surge in dresses, play clothes, aprons, and other types of feed sack clothing during the Depression and World War II years).

By the early 1940s, more than 30 companies were churning out feed sacks nationwide. There was an ongoing effort to come up with distinctive, uniquely-themed logos, sure to drum up buyer interest. This explains the warbling poultry and flying corncobs on some bags, which vied for attention with more traditional illustrations of farms and countrysides.