Look and see: Optical technology and disciplinary mechanisms in Topps Trading Cards, 1948-1952

Themed section on Visual rhetoric and rhetorics of the visual

Keywords: Trading cards, children, science, technology, anthropology, Cold War

Abstract

In this article I examine trading cards produced by Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. in the United States in the decade following World War II. I focus on how these cards functioned as mechanisms of discipline, through the practices associated with collecting, as well as through their content and use. Cards reflected contem-porary trends in education and behavioural science. In addition, they utilised what I term optical technology to entice children to buy. This came in the form of rudimentary optical tricks that emulated scientific and technological developments associated with wartime. I argue that in doing so, these cards brought children into the nascent military-technological complex, and provided a way to view the world in hierarchical terms through optical science.

Published
2021-02-23
Section
Articles