Photo: Original Vienna SnowGlobe.
In the year 1900, Erwin Perzy I of Vienna created the very first snow globe. Unintentionally.
I’ve always liked stories of inventions that happened by accident. The currently ubiquitous Post-it Notes, for example. I think it takes special kinds of creative thinkers to realize they’ve on stumbled a good invention.
I recently learned that the popular snow globe was the offshoot of a medical project. Erik Trinidad writes about it at the Smithsonian.
“In the opening scene of the 1941 mystery Citizen Kane, the eponymous protagonist, played by Orson Welles, clenches a snow globe in his hand as he utters his last word: ‘rosebud.’ The glass-encased spherical diorama of a snowy scene was a mere novelty at the time, but the film, in part, gave rise to its popularity.
“Now, more than 80 years later, it’s hard to imagine the Christmas season without snow globes. A symbol of childhood nostalgia, the Austrian innovation has become beloved around the world.
“In September 2024, I toured the Original Viennese Snow Globe Factory and Museum in Vienna’s 17th district. Erwin Perzy III, spokesperson of the multigenerational family business, led me through the story of how his grandfather, Erwin Perzy I, invented the snow globe.
“ ‘He invented this by mistake, because he wanted to make something different,’ he told me. ‘The improvement of the electric light bulb was his [intention].’
“It was 1900 when Erwin Perzy I, a tradesman who built and repaired surgical instruments for local physicians in Vienna, was tasked with creating an inexpensive solution to amplify light in hospital operating rooms. Perzy, who always had a knack for experimenting in his workshop, found inspiration for his assignment in a tool used by local shoemakers: a glass globe filled with water to act as a magnifying glass. He positioned an Edison light bulb near a water-filled glass globe, and he added different reflective materials to the liquid that might help increase the illumination — including white particles that floated around before sinking like snow. …
“He had a friend who sold souvenirs to pilgrims at the Mariazell Basilica, a local religious site south of Vienna, for whom he made trinkets; he molded little pewter models of the church to be sold alongside candles and crosses. One day, an idea struck: to combine two of his handiworks together, by putting the miniature pewter church inside the wooden base of the glass globe filled with water and white wax particles — effectively creating the first snow globe. Perzy knew he had something special on his hands— not to mention marketable — and applied for a patent for ‘glass ball with snow effect.’ …
“ ‘Collectors agree that the first snow globe patent was issued to the Viennese Erwin Perzy,’ reports Anne Hilker in her thesis, ‘A Biography of the American Snow Globe: From Memory to Mass Production, From Souvenir to Sign,’ filed in the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. But her report also cites appearances of snow globes that, while short-lived, predate Perzy’s patent. ‘The earliest snow globe for which both specific surviving contents and date can be established is that containing a miniature of the Eiffel Tower from the Paris [Exposition] of 1889.’ …
“Perzy started putting other models into glass spheres and selling them in markets around the city. By 1908, he had become known by many Austrians, including Emperor Franz Joseph, who praised Perzy for his ingenuity and gave him a special award as an Austrian toymaker. …
“Its trendiness waned after World War I. With the subsequent economic depression, snow globes were not a necessary purchase, and sales rapidly went into decline. The situation did not improve during World War II. However, when the war ended and soldiers returned home, starting families and creating the baby boom of the late 1940s and ’50s, a subsequent snow globe boom took hold. …
“Enter Erwin Perzy II, a motorbike and typewriter mechanic. … ‘My father’s idea was changing the pilgrim souvenir to a Christmas item,’ Perzy III told me. ‘He made a Christmas tree.’ Perzy II took three new models of snow globes—a Christmas tree, a snowman and Santa Claus—to the international toy fair in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1955.
“ ‘They bought our snow globes like it was something to eat!’ Perzy III gushed as he retold his father’s success story. ‘We supplied all the big stores, like Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman — all these big chains.’ “
More at the Smithsonian, here. Got any snow-globe memories? Please share them.
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