Mutoscope Numerology Vending Machine Cards
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Mutoscope Numerology Vending Machine Cards
This week's Patreon sneak-peek page completes our set of 32 comical numerological fortune telling arcade cards published and machine-vended by the Mutoscope Company of Chicago, Illinois, in the 1940s.
The Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 for the manufacture of stand-alone single-viewer, hand-cranked machines that displayed moving images in the form of a lighted flip-book. What began as a diverse assortment of dramatic and educational short entertainments soon devolved into naughty peep shows. Then, as moving pictures became a popular form of entertainment during the 1920s and 1930s, the public lost interest in the short, silent self-operated Mutoscope reels and the company branched out to enter the vending machine card business, which had been pioneered by another Chicago-based company, Exhibit Supply Company.
Because Mutoscope began in as a maker of coin-operated peep-show reels, the company emphasized pin-up, celebrity, and comic postcards which were marketed primarily in men's spaces, such as bars, pool halls, back-room betting joints, men's washrooms, tobacconists, and liquor stores. Unlike Exhibit Supply, which had both "clean" and "dirty" offerings suitable for any type of venue, Mutoscope cards were not offered for sale in women-safe spaces, so it makes sense that they featured themes like illegal lottery play, risqué or misogynistic jokes, and burlesque cartoons. They sure don't make them like this any more!
With the Mutoscope Numerology cards, the buyer got a mildly mean-spirited joke about the so-called "war between the sexes" or a silly pun, a matching cartoon, and a random set of lucky numbers to bet, framed in a border of talismanic charms, with a standard postcard back so the card could be mailed. The idea is catchy, but unfortunately this card set was put together in an exceedingly sloppy and unprofessional manner. Not only are there typographical errors in the texts, but the art consists of stock printer's cuts by a variety of illustrators working in different graphic styles, including pin-up, big-head, silhouette, and just plain bad -- and several cards are signed: a sweet pinup piece by "Curlander" and seven comic silhouettes with the single initial "W" in reverse-out white. I have not been able to definitively identify "Curlander," but i may have come close, with a family in living in Baltimore at the time of the 1930 Federal Census: The father, Edward Curlander, was an art dealer who ran Edward H. Curlander Fine Arts, and one of his sons, Henry Curlander, worked as a linotype operator at a newspaper. In any case, these pieces of art, probably cut out of magazines or joke books, had pre-set sizes, which the Mutoscope Company's typesetter did not try very hard to work around them, thus creating numerous clashings of text and art. The magenta ink doesn't add a lot of charm either. Still, bizarre as it is, this is a genuine lucky number arcade card set -- the only such numerology set i know of -- and so it deserves memorialization at "Your Wate and Fate." Just be forewarned: if misogyny makes you cringe, stop now and click another link.
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Thanks to my Patrons, who support this work, and to my husband, nagasiva yronwode, for help with scans and social media notifications.
catherine yronwode
curator, historian, and docent
Your Wate and Fate