Baby it’s Cold Outside!
LIFE Feb 9, 1953 Issue
Toronto. Mid last century photo studios used lots of ideas to increase traffic as our program director, Yvette Bessels, suggested in a recent Toronto meeting program. My friend, pro-photographer, and fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar, suggested one great option that brought back memories of the birth of my eldest daughter back when man first walked on the moon. We too had a visit from a baby photographer. He was given our name and telephone number by the hospital in those simpler days of a bye-gone era.
An American company called “Aunt Mary Birthday Clubs of America Inc.” posted this ad in LIFE Magazine in 1953. The ad suggested you write them for the name of a photographer offering their special deal of a baby portrait each year for six years on your baby’s birthday.
Studios could increase traffic as parents would traipse in with their bundle of delight at least once a year and be living and breathing candidates for another studio special, perhaps a family portrait to grace the year’s Christmas card.
Some one up here offered those special baby shoes too. I still have my first pair (copper plated, not pearlized in pink or blue) forever cast as book ends …
