Vintage Thingies Thursday Wiggy Wags

This afternoon, I was putting my can of crayons back on the shelf in my bedroom closet and noticed some illustrations that I had picked up at the local antique store a couple of years ago because they were all of cute dogs and I was going through a dog phase. They were leaning up against something else and still in sealed plastic sleeves. I opened this one up.

I know I bought it because I thought the puppy dog and little boy were so adorable. Based on the text, it's from a book about a dog called Wiggy Wags and someone named Tips.



I flipped it over to find another illustration on the other side. In this one, Wiggy Wags is not very happy because he has to spend the rest of the night with Susie the kitty in the baggage car. Notice the signature in the bottom righthand corner: Ruth E. Newton. Of course, I immediately had to google it.

Thanks to Google, I now know more about the book that this page came from. It's called "Let's Play Train" by Ruth E. Newton, Mabel Horn and Betty Carter. According to Biblio.com, it's "A large adorable collectible picture book featuring 2 little children, doll & dog running to catch a train. It includes a little Black boy who is the porter." That must be Tips. The one they have for sale was first printed in 1936 on linen-like paper. I don't know if my page is from a first edition but the paper is pretty cool. You can see the texture in this photo.



Ruth E. Newton (1884-1972) illustrated more then 40 books and designed rubber squeak toys for the Sun Rubber Company. Her images were also used for greeting cards, jigsaw puzzles and paper dolls. I found a Wiggy Wags paper doll in this album on Webshots that I had actually seen before when I was in my dog paperdoll phase. (Obsess much?)



And, there's a Japanese site selling two placemats with embroidered cats from a Ruth Newton pattern.

My plan for this afternoon was to dust and vacuum my bedroom and then clean my bathroom. Instead, I spent a several hours going through Google results for Ruth E. Newton. I have three other prints of dogs still in their plastic sleeves that I could open and check for information on their illustrators but then I'd be here for another nine hours. I'll save that for a night when I'm stuck for something to blog about.

For the past two Thursdays, I have had so much fun checking out other Vintage Thingies. Go to Confessions of an Apron Queen and see who else is joining in this week.

Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom! I'm way behind with answering my email and my blog reading so I'm going to take a break from blogging for a few days. Enjoy the weekend! [Hits publish and runs off to check other dog illustrations]