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Blue Ribbon Pop-ups Ann Montanaro East Brunswick, New Jersey
The "Pop-Ups" arrived in U.S. book stores in 1932 with much fanfare and publicity. An unprecedented advertising campaign preceded the publication of what was consistently referred to as the "Pop-Ups." Blue Ribbon Books placed double-page advertisements in Publishers' Weekly in October, 1932 proclaiming "The Pop-Ups are here! The Pop-Ups are the most complete and satisfying gifts to ever come out of Santa Claus' bountiful bag. No book ever made in America will arouse
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months before Christmas to sell them. The initial 1932 titles were: Jack the Giant Killer, and Pinocchio. [Full bibliographic citations appear at the end of this article.] Each title was offered for sale at $2.00 apiece beginning on October 15, 1932. They were described as containing four, three-dimensional illustrations with horses that stand up, people who walk and enter doors, horses which rear, and fish that gape. "It's all very fascinating and new to this country," reported PW. "The English have had something like it in the London Daily Express Annual." Blue Ribbon announced that because of the difficulty in manufacturing, each book would be limited to one printing.
the curiosity of potential customers as thoroughly as these
Pop-Ups." The publisher was not alone in celebrating
the novelty. A PW columnist in the same month described the following event:
At another lunch, a few days before, we were looking at the new Blue Ribbon "Pop-Ups" which hadn't then been published. An elderly gentleman at the next table, getting more and more restless as we played, fascimated, with the
illustrations, finally cleared his throat, leaned over and begged our pardon but where could he get books like that? He was told, of course, that they weren't published yet, but that after the 15th of October he could get them from any bookseller or from the Blue Ribbon office. He promised to buy a half dozen or so. They solved his Christmas problem, he said. nicely. Before lunch was over the head waiter had made the same enquiry, shaken his head over the price and promised to buy one for his youngster. Not in a long time have we seen anyone go so out of his way to buy a book.
Harold B. Lentz The Pop-Ups were created by Harold B. Lentz, a Toledo, Ohio artist. Lentz had worked in the field of juvenile art since 1919 and had been Art Director for the Cleveland Trust Co. and served as well as Cleveland's Art Director for the Liberty Loan Committee during the Victory Loan Drive. A brief article about Lentz in PW noted "much of the credit for the success of these books should be given to Harold B. Lentz . .The finished quality is due to Mr. Lentz's ingenuity and diligence. After long hours of labor and experimenting, Mr. Lentz prepared preliminary sketches and dummies. .
The publishing house Blue Ribbon Books, Inc. was founded in 1930 as a non-fiction reprint venture owned jointly by Dodd, Mead, Harper, Harcourt, and Little, Brown. The larger firms provided most of the books which were reissued for $1.00, and Blue Ribbon was very successful in its initial years. As sales began to slump, Eugene Reynal, a Blue Ribbon executive, took an idea which had been successful in England. called them "Pop-Ups," risked $20,000 on two titles with only two
"When these failed to satisfy him he made more, tearing up one rough working dummy after another after he discovered impractical folds in the mechanism. The
finished books which he finally submitted will permit constant opening and closing of the books without crushing the complicated folded pieces."