Women Paper Engineers: Work-in-Progress Research Show & Tell for the Movable Book Society 

By Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

Title slide for Women Paper Engineers talk

On Saturday February 24, Rebecca Rouse and I had the privilege and pleasure of sharing a new research project with the Movable Book Society about Women Paper Engineers (you can watch the talk on YouTube). We began by contextualizing our topic within research on movable books generally. We connected some recurring questions that arise about terminology, the nature of movable books as a genre and with the invisibility of producers in library documentation. We observed that some producers (women) are less visible than others. Accordingly, we designed an initial survey to begin research mapping the field of women paper engineers.

Our questions are:

  • Do you know of any women paper engineers, past or contemporary?
  • Can you direct us to any examples of their work?
  • Is there a female “Meggendorfer,” meaning a woman paper engineer who was or is prolific, innovative, and commercially successful on a mass scale?

Finally, we asked if they were comfortable sharing their email with us so we could contact them. We are extremely gratified by the tremendous response and by the insights and experiences by the respondents, many of whom are movable book makers themselves. We have the work for our project mapped out!

Women Paper Engineers survey questions

We had approached the Movable Book Society due to our interest in women (and girls) who make movable books domestically or commercially. This research interest stems from an article we co-wrote for the Journal of Children’s Literature in Education called, “Understanding the Design Values of Baby Books: Materiality, Co-presence, and Remediation.” In this piece we focused on the materials of baby books and their affordances in terms of interactivity. We became fascinated by women makers and designers of “indestructible” and multisensory baby books and how this work has been credited only recently (see my recent post for more on this article: https://sites.psu.edu/learningasplaying/2023/12/07/journal-launch-and-presentation-analyzing-the-interactivity-of-baby-books/).

I am a recent member of the movable book society and attended several recent formal and informal meetings. I was impressed by the breadth of members’ knowledge, their openness and the genuine good will among the members who range across the spectrum of movable book involvement. I was also struck by the gender of the award winners and some of the comments in the informal sessions. We took the opportunity to extend our research in this context, thanks to the auspices of the new Director of the Movable Book Society Dr. Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Newberry Library. We have all become mutually acquainted through our research on movable books and facilitated by our participation in the Pop-App Centre conferences and journal JIB (Journal of Interactive Books). Accordingly, Rebecca and I derived an informal survey that was approved and sent to all the society’s members as mentioned above.

In our initial survey, we had 25 respondents who shared over 148 names of women paper engineers from all over the world with us! We see this project as a long-term one, and we welcome more thoughts and comments.

We wanted to share this information with the readers of the “Learning as Play” blog and invite anyone interested in participating to email Jacqui at jxr67@psu.edu. Thanks!

Tom Seidmann-Freud: playing with “magic pictures”

Jacqueline Reid-Walsh
With Giovanni Greco and Giovanni Sello

In an earlier blogpost (Nov. 29, 2023), I discussed Tony Sarg’s Magic Movie Book (1943) which uses volvelles, cut-out windows, and “magic glasses” to achieve the impression of movement and special effects. In this blog I explore some work by Tom Seidmann-Freud that could be considered a precursor of Tony Sarg in terms of using a prosthetic device (transparent coloured paper) to create an illusion of movement. As with Sarg books I have been fortunate to examine editions housed in the Special Collections Library of Penn State University (in German and in English translation) and at the Centre for Interactive Books at MUSLI in Turin (in German).

Tom Seidmann-Freud (Nov. 17, 1892-Feb. 7, 1930) was a brilliant picture and movable book maker who combined pedagogical acumen with creative explorations that involved the child reader-viewer-player as an interactor. Bettina Hurliman considers her contribution was significant, since she applied ideas of child psychology regarding children having an active role in how they look at images (Hurliman 216).

As a creator, designer and paper engineer, Tom Seidmann-Freud is known for two works, both published in 1929: Das Wunderhaus (The Wonderful House) and Das Zauberboot (The Magic Boat, translated 1935; republished 1981). The second book became wider known. In both books she uses both word and image games with interactive elements. In the first book, Seidmann-Freud uses different interactive techniques like liftable flaps, opaque paper overlays, cut-out paper layers, and overlapping sheets as well as word and image games like the rebus.

The second book builds on the imagery and design of the first in that “Das Neue Wunderhaus” is the first interactive page in the volume. To engage with the house the interactor pulls a tab at the bottom to change the images in the windows in consecutive blocks to depict the passing of a day in six phases from morning to night. The transformation for each is achieved sequentially by pulling the tab down and then pushing it back up.

The book contains other interactive devices. A later pair of pages use a volvelle. On the one side, it depicts the modified fable of Aesop as the Rabbit and the Hedgehog; the other side shows the title transformation “The Chinese Bridge and the Magic Boat.” The final page uses a pull tab to stage a Punch and Judy puppet show. (Abrahamson and Stewart (1982), 343).

What I want to focus on here is a pair of pages called “magic pictures.” The pages form a sequential two-page spread in that the second is an elaboration and application of the first. The interactivity is based on visual transformations. An interactor goes from playing a game of looking at the images of transformations to being invited to make their own magic transformations. The transformations are achieved by using red-and blue-colored inks and a prosthetic device of a red square of transparent paper. The instructions at the bottom inform the interactor what to do (note 1; see also Hombrecher and Wassilschenko (2020)).

The sequence of nine pictures on the first page tells a simple illustrated story called “The invisible child” about a boy who has a magic cap that makes him disappear. She instructs an interactor take the transparent red sheet from the back of the book and place it over the pictures. Then Klaus (Nick in the English translation) vanishes.

The sequence of four images on the following page is entitled (in English) “Some more red and blue magic pictures” and the instructions are an invitation to the interactors to create a DIY application. “Clever children can try and make picture like this for themselves.” The images with text below feature four transformation scenes: a cat stealing marmalade from the pantry that is noticed after the fact; a child lying on a bed who looks that he is flying; a house becomes an ark on the water and a pig becomes a child at tea (gendered female in the German text). There are no specific instructions, but the brief texts are prompts for an interactor to experiment with the red paper to create the transformations described.

Although there is no evidence, my supposition is that Seidmann-Freud may also be suggesting her clever interactors try further experiments with colored sheets. For instance, when I tried a blue filter there was no change to any image. The magic trick is reinforced but the question remains – How does this perceptual effect work? This book could be a powerful impetus for interactors to learn more about color theory through play (note 1).

I want to thank two digital visual specialists associated with the Centre Giovanni Greco and Giovanni Sello who taught me about colored filters and perception in both material and virtual realms.

Notes

Note 1: Hombrecher and Wassilschenko (2020), p. 545-46. They describe how the invisible play section is presented in a comic-like panel sequence. The boy walks around town unseen and enabled by an invisibility cap plays tricks on everyone. The child character and other objects and animals are printed in red while the remaining illustrations are blue. The book includes what they call red plastic “foil.” By placing this over the page, the red-printed parts become invisible while the remaining blue printed illustrations remain visible. At the end there is an invitation to readers: “Clever children can try and make pictures of these for themselves” (ibid., pp. [4–5]). They state that the same effects can be achieved with pens in red and other colors if one uses the book’s red foil as an aid. This statement impelled me to try placing the red transparent material throughout the book – only the red created the effect.

References

Abrahamson, Richard and Richard Stewart. ‘Movable Books-A new Golden Age.” Language Arts, vol. 59, no. 4, April 1982: 342-347.

Hombrecher, Hartmut and Judith Wassilschenko. “The Well-worn Book and the reading child: cultural and cognitive aspects of materiality in German children’s literature.” Neohelicon, vol. 47, August 2020: 537–557.

Hurlimann, Bettina. Picture-Book World. Trans. and ed by Brian Alderson. London: Oxford, 1967.

Journal launch and presentation: Analyzing the Interactivity of Baby Books

Poster advertising the event
Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

This last week I was pleased to participate in a launch and a presentation about a new co-authored article, “Understanding the Design Values of Baby Books: Materiality, Co-presence, and Remediation” just published in the latest issue of Children’s Literature in Education with Rebecca Rouse from the University of Skövde, Sweden. It is a special issue devoted to Baby books edited by Clémentine Beauvais at the University of York, England. I took part in the virtual launch organized by the journal with the entire group of authors.

Yesterday Rebecca and I participated in a special event hosted by the Pop-App International Centre on Interactive Books in their beautiful museum called MUSLI (school and children’s book museum). We spoke about four exemplary books and book series: I talked about Dean’s Rag Books from the early 20th century and the Indestructibles from the early 21st century that are of simple design, while Rebecca talked about Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kundardt (1940) and I PreLibri by Bruno Munari (1980) which are of complex design. We argued that the latter books in each pair are “remediations” (Bolter and Grusin, 1999) that are “refashionings” or “reworkings” of the genre and ideas of the early books for later audiences of babies and caretakers. As a response, Pompeo Vagliani delivered a paper about the history of rag books published by Cartoccino from the 1920s to the 1940’s in Italy which are little known outside of the country. It was marvellous to all be together in person! Rebecca and I spoke in English and Pompeo in Italian. Flo Ulmann kindly translated for us. There was a good audience turnout and we had animated discussions in a mix of both languages.

Picture of Rouse and Reid-Walsh giving their lecture in front of an audience.

Rebecca Rouse and I presenting, Flo Ulmann translating, and Pompeo Vagliani listening in the audience.

The entire evening was streamed on Facebook and the links are included below.

The event website in Italian, with link to video

The event website translated to English, with link to video

Event description on the Centre’s website: https://www.pop-app.org/convegni/

Direct link to video of the event on the Centre’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/live/tnINDwH-pCA?si=wxeMcRqcpdLq9I_O

Pop-Out!: Animation using volvelles, cut-out windows, and “magic glasses” to create the illusion of projectile motion

By Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

Tony Sarg’s Magic Movie Book in collaboration with Emery I. Gondor; ten tales that will never die rewritten in modern style by Hazel Seaman and Christina De La Motte …; eighteen poems and jingles by poets who will live forever, 1943.

Sarg's Magic Movie Book front coverCover of Magic Movie Book held at Penn State special collections

I have been fortunate to work with two copies of this unusual interactive book, first the Penn State Special Collections Library and now the FTB (Fondazione Tancredi di Barolo). They appear to be the same edition and both are complete. The one at Penn State has the paper cover while the one at FTB has tabs that are easier to move. The book contains several kinds of materials to create animation and an illusion of projectile movement. At base are line drawings in two colors blue and red –they make no sense when viewed without the prosthetics, for example, there are extra legs of the wrong color on a character. Using fused pages most effectively there are dials or volvelles protruding from the sides of the pages and cut-out windows for a viewer to look through. The metal rivets attaching the volvelles are visible and touchable in the center of the pages. An interactor needs to move the protruding part of the dial to create movement.

The special glasses used with the Magic Movie Book

Initially the movement makes no sense, but the “magic glasses” change everything. The plastic glasses have blue and red lenses with movable tabs at the sides. An interactor achieves the intended effects by moving the tabs up and down to change the colors. Since the drawings are red and blue switching the colored lenses makes the figures seem to move.

The glasses are separate from the book but attached to the front matter. They are packaged as a prop but are not an “extra”: rather their function is essential to the book’s movable design. In many cases the glasses get lost or are damaged and so are too fragile to play with. It was only when I was able to interact easily with the glasses did I understand the complexity and integrity of the book. Moreover, this book is one of the few movable books I have seen that invites the engagement of more than one person, for two sets of glasses are thoughtfully provided. The visual context is of children, female and male at a movie theatre.  This context is depicted on the hard cover and repeated on the paper cover.

How does this book work?  I am not used to playing with “magic glasses” and my experience with a similar kind of interactivity is from playing with a later version of the view master toy years ago (note 1). This ingenious book works in terms of multiple interactivities of sight and touch to create both pre-cinema animation of the images and the illusion of projectile movement which in also evokes the tactile. I think of an observations Walter Benjamin made about Dadist film in his “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” (1936). He states,

“[Dadaist art] hit the spectator like a bullet, it happened to him, thus acquiring a tactile quality. It promoted a demand for the film, the distracting element of which is also primarily tactile, being based on changes of place and focus which periodically assail the spectator” (note 2).

I think the magic glasses and the moveable dials create a similar projectile effect since the images seem to move out of the page toward the interactor. Sarge creates the effect in a simple way when illustrating the nursery rhymes since an interactor simply puts on the glasses and moves the tabs. The effect is more complex and the interactor has more agency when moving the disc while wearing the glasses to animate the retold tales.

Opening of the inside of the book, with the start of the Cinderella story on the right

This scan shows Cinderella on the right side, while on the front end paper there are instructions on how to use the glasses. (Volvelle not visible)

As indicated by the long title, the book is a kind of anthology or omnibus volume with a co-author discussed below and other contributers. The fairy or folk tales are retellings written by Hazel Seaman and Christina De La Motte. They are short, jaunty, cartoon-like and presume a knowledgeable reader. Both the beleaguered heroes and heroines are equally savvy and take advantage of the situation and stereotypical villains. For example, with the first disc we encounter “Cinderella” and on one side “The Three Little pigs” on the other. The endings give agency to the protagonists: both Cinderella and the prince decide to marry at once “since neither favored long engagements.” With “The three little pigs” the oldest brother, after scalding the wolf, performs a cesarean section on the wolf as in “Red Riding Hood” and rescues his brothers. They learn from their mistakes and make brick houses like him.

When an interactor engages with the disc, we rotate through the key episodes in the story in accordance with the text. If we wish, we could rotate it contrarywise or focus on a couple of sequences.  The physical artifact of the two-sided discs also creates intriguing juxtapositions between the tales.

The book effectively creates a “toy-like” semi-immersive experience where the interactor is the reader-narrator-viewer and the film projectionist who controls the speed and direction of the movement.

The Three Little Pigs story in the Magic Movie Book.

This image shows the three little pigs design format on the left side, while on the right is a simpler form of animation with no volvelle or tabs illustrating two well -known nursery rhymes. (volvelle visible on left hand side)

There is one lingering question: Is this book just a one-off trick or an experiment? Or both? It is a notable achievement combining animation and the illusion of three-dimensional perspective achieved by the interactor by touch and sight. Sarg was an expert in creating actual movements and the illusion of movement. He worked with material objects like puppets on different scales ranging from the toy theatre to balloon puppets, and created ingenious movable books that combine different textures, materials, and invite active exploration by an interactor. He was also a pioneer in film animation, creating “Adam Raises Cain” (1920) and “The First Circus” (1921), a silhouette film (Tamara Hunt, p. 32-25).

Unfortunately, this book was published posthumously after Sarg’s sudden death in 1942. It is a collaborative project with Emerich (Emery) I. Gondor (1896-1977), a psychotherapist and artist who immigrated to the United States in 1935 and became a citizen in 1941 (note 3). I would like to know what Gondor’s role was in the invention and their plans. Another question I have is Sarg’s choice of line illustrations for the animation, not more complex images. In this way I wonder if he is hearkening back to the 19th century in the early day of pre-cinema of which he was knowledgeable. I include a link to the Magic Media Museum online and the 1830 experiments with dancing figures to support this idea (note 4).

Notes

  1. Viewmaster toy first introduced in 1939 at the world’s fair and intended for adults; see https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1129885.
  2. Benjamin goes on to contrast film with a painting: “Let us compare the screen on which a film unfolds with the canvas of a painting. The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so. No sooner has his eye grasped a scene than it is already changed. It cannot be arrested … The spectator’s process of association in view of these images is indeed interrupted by their constant, sudden change. This constitutes the shock effect of the film …” (XIV; 238; cited in Reid-Walsh 2007).
  3. See the finding aid for the Emery I. Gondor collection at the Center for Jewish History. The content note gives the following information: “During World War II, he worked for the War Department and was Chief of the Technical Operation Unit in the Overseas Service for France and Germany for two years. This unit performed classified work in counter-espionage. Gondor was also an instructor at the training schools in New York, France and Germany, where he taught about the psychological problems of counter-espionage as well as wrote several classified manuals on the subject.”
  4. Magical media museum channel on YouTube

References

Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Ed. by Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken, 1969.

Hunt, Tamara. Tony Sarg Puppeteer in America, 1915-1942. Garden City BC: Charlemagne Press, 2018.

Reid-Walsh, Jacqueline. “Everything in the Picture Book Was Alive”: Hans Christian Andersen’s Strategy of Textual Animation in His Fairy Tales and the Interactive Child Reader.” In Johan de Mylius et al. (Eds.), Hans Christian Andersen: Between Children’s Literature and Adult Literature (pp. 275-289). Odense: University of Southern Denmark Press, 2007.

Permanent Pop-App Exhibition at the Fondazione Tancredi di Barolo

“Libri interattivi/creativi in Italia e all’estero”
MUSLI PERMANENT EXHIBITION 2008
Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

I have the good fortune to be based at the Fondazione Tancredi di Barolo in Turin for the duration of my sabbatical. I am working with Professor Vagliani and his group researching interactive books and related media, old and new, directed to children and youth. I only became aware of the Pop-App project in 2019 but it dates back to 2008 when the founding display of interactive books and related media was launched in a permanent exhibition space. Yesterday I had a guided tour of “Libri interattivi/creativi in Italia e all’estero” with Professor Vagliani.

The exhibit is housed in a large, vaulted subterranean space devoted to printing techniques within a historic noble residence. The stone walls and cool environment lend an aura of mystery to the experience.

One of the exhibit cases.

The display cases and hanging displays effectively suggest a path for a visitor. The many examples range from classic movable books to sound enhanced books, to games and toys from the 18h to 20th century. The spectacular display fuses old paper media and new digital media. The innovative, interactive approach provokes and stimulates a viewer to think and rethink assumptions about movable books.

Of the cornucopia of examples, I focus on three groups which invite a multisensory approach. One set combines touch, vision and movement and consists of lift-the-flap books and an unusual, vertically-slatted transformation book by Dean and Son. The transformation works when it is stroked. When an interactor gently moves the slats one way (with the grain) a scene is revealed: when you stroke the book the other way (against the grain) another scene appears. Unusually there is no pull-tab and you have to engage directly with the mechanism.

Innovative moveable books.

Another portion of the display is devoted to theatrical presentations.  These range from miniature stage sets, to carousel books, to Englebrecht inspired perspective views. One book republished in America by McLaughlin Brothers continues the idea of direct engagement with the object.  This popular series of books exploits the idea of a viewer entering a theatre to watch a performance. Usually an interactor opens the covers/curtain to reveal a stage, but this version opens directly on the performance. You encounter sets of vertical flaps of different sizes. By turning them aside you to see a performance matching a fairy tale or derive your own performance of a fairy tale (in this case Aladdin).

Miniature stage set

To conclude this cursory review I mention several iconic movable books by Lothar Meggendorfer that have been digitally remediated. Touch screen panels allow a viewer not only to enact an iconic scene but enhance the original through the addition of sound. Here by adding the sound of the doorbell the character is pulling, the digital version “enhances” or “improves” the paper media version.

Interactive touch screens for Meggendorfer books

My tour started a journey of discovery. The cross connections between books and research in Italian and English are fascinating. In some cases we have unknowingly paralleled and overlapped one another. Distance and language divides have contributed to this but the foundation’s inaugural conference “Pop-App 2020 (2021)” has enabled linkages to start that we are pursuing further.

Please see the website for the permanent exhibit: https://www.pop-app.org/pop-app-musli/