Jacqueline Reid-Walsh

Last summer and fall I collaborated with Jacquelyn Sundberg, Outreach Librarian at McGill University, researching the paper toys that Raphael Tuck Company produced in great numbers during the early Victorian period. They were dispersed widely across Europe and North America. My particular question was whether the toys travelled as far as Italy since I was beginning to study possible influences of Tuck’s paper toys on the handmade paper toys of a young Florentine teacher, Luisa Terzi, in the early 20th century. Between 1913 and 1917 Terzi re-worked four published stories for children written by Italian author Paola Lombroso Carrara (Zia Mariù) and illustrated by Italian artists Attilio Mussino, Bona Gigliucci, and Bruno Angoletta. Terzi redrew images on cardboard sheets and added levers, joints, and detailed animations to create interactive albums. Using paper, thread, ribbon and wire, the objects were moveable structurally and externally. The handmade objects were never intended to be published but were a gift to Paola Lombroso Carrara in four volumes. They were exhibited at the Lyceum in Florence (1917) and at the National Industrial exhibition of Toys in Venice (1917), to great acclaim. The materials are held at Pop-App: International Centre on interactive books in Turin.

I have continued studying her work as an early woman paper engineer but have not established a connection to Tuck that can be proven archivally. Yet, the similarity of design, materials, and effects are striking. In each case silver wire is used most effectively to suggest the movement of wind with a balloon or kite. Even the act of picking up the paper toy sets the animation in motion.

Below is a link to a blog of McGill University special collections where we introduce the topic.

https://news.library.mcgill.ca/the-flying-wonder-of-victorian-paper-toys/

Reference:

Reid-Walsh, J. “Was Luisa Terzi the First Female Paper Engineer?” The Child and the Book Conference, Rouen, France, May 2-4, 2024 (presentation)