Yankee Notions
- Newt
- Nov 25
- 6 min read
We have previously posted about Quintract Bridge (with five suits) and the Liechtenstein Pattern (also with five suits). Now it is the turn of Yankee Notions, an American original. Four new suits—Stars, Eagles, Flags and Crests—providing an American Nativist aura to the set, with a Faces suit providing trump duties (perhaps inspired by the Tarock decks). There were no court cards: there was a Zero, or Z card at the apex of each suit.
16 new or adapted games were described for the pack in a booklet that came with the deck.
Here are the 9s of the four pip suits illustrated:
and the Zs
The Faces suit were drawn by the carucaturist John McLenan, and very much reflect the mores of the time:
Rather than recreate the images, or use the originals, we have settled on the hats or bonnets that would have been worn:
The hats come from contemporary illustrated taxonomies of hats, so serve the purpose well.
The 16 games mentioned are mostly quite original: that in itself is quite an intellectual feat. We have no way of telling who made them up, but Strong acquired the editing rights for Hoyle's Rules of Games for the US, and in the 1857 edition the booklet was reprinted completely. It was edited by Thomas Frere, who wrote extensively about card games and chess beyond the Hoyle editon—could he have invented the 16 games? It's an intriguing thought.
No less an authority than Sid Sackson praised the games, and selected Hekaton for his anthology of games worth rediscovering, adapting it to a standard card set. With our recreated and modernised cards, you can play all 16 games as in the original (minus the caricatures).
This is the account in the booklet, reprinted in Hoyle
Yankee Notion Cards.
Believing that a settled prejudice exists with a large class of the community against the old-fashioned cards, the publisher has issued an entirely new style, to the introduction of which into every family circle there cannot possibly be the least objection.
These cards, and the games adapted to them, are calculated to discipline and exercise the mind; imparting the utmost quickness and facility in the calculation and combination of figures; accomplishing, under the charm of amusement, the objects sought in the study of mathematics— namely, the strengthening of the mind, and the improvement of the memory.
The new cards have been spoken of by the New York Commercial Advertiser in the following language: ‘We are glad to see something in the way of domestic games, and social amusement, that we can recommend, not only for its scientific and instructive character, but for its good moral influence.’
The publisher, being determined that these cards shall be within the reach of all classes, has fixed the standard price at Twenty-five Cents per pack. Office of publication, 98 Nassau Street, New York.
This is the account of the pack
There are Fifty Cards in each pack.
They are composed of five different suits, viz.: Faces, Flags, Eagles, Stars, and Shields. Each suit contains ten cards, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.
Classes.—The fifty cards are again divided into two general Classes.
The first Class, being the ‘Upper Ten,’ is Pictorial, and is called Faces, or Faced cards.
The second Class, being the Lower Forty, is plain, and embraces the other four suits, Flags, Eagles, Stars, and Shields. This class is called Figures, or Figured cards.
Graces.—The Zeros are called Graces, and sometimes simply Z’s.
The Faces.—1. Is Mrs. Sally Smith, John’s wife. 2. Is the Baby. 3. Is an Old Maid. 4. Is an Old Bachelor. 5. Is ‘Sweet Seventeen,’ ready for an offer. 6. Is the Parson, also ready for duty. 7. Is Ruth, the Quakeress. 8. Is Ezekiel, Ruth’s husband. 9. Is the Watchman. 0. Is the original John Smith. The only correct likeness ever taken.
We will put the entirety of the games booklet in a separate post, so as to make this post manageable.
Here is the complete deck as reconstructed and modernised
If you want a deck of Yankee Notions in all their antebellum glory, you can acquire a pack printed on demand at Make Playing Cards here.
The afterlife of the cards: The American Union Deck
A final note on the cards themselves. After the Civil War Strong sold his interests in both the printing and the cards to other concerns, and shortly after that we have the emergence of the American Card Company's Union Playing Cards, featuring the four spot-suits augmented by a Colonel for the King, the Goddess of Liberty for the Queen, and a Major for the Jack.**** It sold reasonably well, but sadly, it was no longer an American original.
The Background and life of Yankee Notions
Yankee Notions* was a satirical magazine started in New York in 1852 by the publisher T W Strong. It was one of a number of illustrated magazines he set up in imitation of successfully imported London publications. **
The New York Times at the time, in a survey of magazines on offer, said
The genuine humor of its engravings (to say nothing of the fun which forms the staple of its original and selected letter-press) has secured a very great circulation for this monthly periodical. That wit may be expressed by the pencil as well as by the pen, is evident from the specimens before us. Ol the greater part of these, even the idea is original. As regards the artistical execution, it may safely be compared with that of the " social-evils" cuts in Punch.
The satire was only partly political, there was a fair deal of social commentary. For example, Mark Twain was printed in the pages before his fame.
From the beginning, Strong employed the illustrator John McLenan (1825-1865), recently arrived in New York, to make illustrations in many styles under different signatures. And it is very likely that the cards were drawn by him.
Strong also ran a print house, and produced books on demand as a profitable sideline.
On the back page of all of his magazines, there were advertisements for the boks he had printed, as wel fas a reminder of his availability to print high quality books on demand. ***
In the February 1856 issue, we find this notice:
We can't find prior discussion either in the pages of the Yankee Notions or Strong's other publications, or in the general press at the time. But on the back pages for the next few years we find advertisements such as these:
Then in 1857 (as mentioned above), Strong acquired the rights to Hoyle for the US, and insterted the full ruleset, adding the advertisement to Hoyley to the listings.
Later in the year, there appeared an advertisement calling for salesmen for a new pack of cards, on page 6 of the New York Daily Herald of Saturday the 24th of October, 1857.
After that the advertisements get smaller
And after 1862 the cards are only mentioned in toy boxes advertised for sale.
Our New Yankee Editions Pack
We felt that the ingenuity of the Yankee Notions deserved a second chance. To that end we have recreated the set using colours and styles that were of the 1850s, to permit the experience of the excitement that the designers must have felt.
* The name came from a pun, as Yankee Notions referred to the cheap seabord items sold by traelling salesmen, and by the ideas of the upper eastern states that were somewhat resented by conservative sttler communities. Sewing items were the core of notions, but the term was expanded to products of "yankee ingenuity" when they were sold overseas.
** F. Weitenkampf, American Graphic Art (1916) The comic paper entered more decidedly into the field of caricature not long after the Civil War. There had been previous attempts to found periodicals devoted to humor. “Yankee Doodle” appeared in 1856, with Charles Martin as the principal artist. “Yankee Notions, or, Whittlings of Jonathan’s Jack-knife,” issued monthly by T. W. Strong of New York, made its appearance in January, 1852, claimed a circulation of 150,000 by September, 1854, and lived about fifteen years. Augustus Hoppin had a full-page drawing in each number, and the contributing artists included John McLenan, Frank Bellew (“the triangle”), Thomas Butler Gunn, Magee, J. H. Howard, Dallas, Thomas Worth, M. A. Woolf, and “Carl,” pseudonym of G. W. Carleton the publisher, who later put a little bird under his sketches.
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