Seasons Greetings: Vintage holiday shopping bag exhibit open through December
The public is invited to view another colorful and fun vintage shopping bag exhibit in the History Corner of the Marian Hunter History Room at the Avon Free Public Library, 281 Country Club Road, Avon, CT through December. This time is all holidays – colorful and fun to bring back memories of visiting large department stores to shop for family and friends with these large, sometimes oversized, shopping bags in a variety of colors and designs.
When is a shopping bag not a shopping bag? When it is celebrated as a work of art, saluting the role of graphic design in our everyday lives. In the late 1970s, the Copper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, acknowledged the importance of shopping bag art with an exhibit of “Bandboxes and Shopping Bags,” which included 125 shopping bags. A catalog accompanying the show designated eleven categories of bags, including eight with a Christmas motif. In the introduction, the museum curator described the bags as “a form of portable graphic art.”
A Bit of History
Before there were shopping bags, there were bandboxes, oval-shaped cardboard boxes embellished with colorful paper images. In the 1880s, they were used by travelers to carry lightweight accessories including women’s bonnets and men’s neckbands. It is likely that the name “bandbox” is derived from this latter use. In the early 20th century, members of the Hewitt family, most notably, Sarah and Eleanor Hewitt, collected examples of these bandboxes and donated them to the Copper-Hewitt Museum. One example in the museum’s collection features a colorful eagle that was manufactured by the Putnam and Roff Company of Hartford, CT, in the early 1820s.
When at-home delivery services became available, these charming boxes became obsolete. When a van bearing the name of a prominent department store arrived at home, it helped enhance the prestige of both stores and their patrons.
In the 20th century, advances in technology and shopping styles evolved. In 1933 it became possible to produce inexpensive paper bags with handles. That improvement coupled with new printing processes developed in the mid-1930s, led to the mass production of the paper shopping bag that we use today.
For many years, these bags prominently featured the name of a store, thus serving as inexpensive advertising symbols while also ratifying the idea that the consumer had the means and discerning taste to shop at fashionable venues.
In the 1960s, major developments in the graphic design world impacted the look of many everyday objects, including the humble shopping bag, elevating it to a higher level. Bloomingdale’s department store led the way with a shopping bag designed by artist Joseph Kiningstein who eliminated the store’s name, allowing the design to take center stage. Through the years the store continued the tradition and despite the “anonymous” character of the bags, astute shoppers prided themselves on their “inside” knowledge that it was indeed a “Bloomies” bag.
The bags on display for this holiday season are from the Jim and Joyce Baldwin collection.
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