Humor and Inventiveness: Board Games of the Belle Époque

It was during the Second Empire (1852-1870) that board games truly gained popularity. What had been the preserve of an elite salon crowd were now democratized, and the imagination of manufacturers offered children a wide variety of themes for family fun. All these table games were packed in splendidly illustrated printed boxes drawn by famous period illustrators. The Second Empire (1852-1870) gave rise to an incredible proliferation of table games, each more inventive than in the past. After the 1870 war, games were claimed to be instructional and to help educate children. Industrialization in lithographic color printing gradually led game makers to replace wood with paper and cardboard. Major toy manufacturers like Saussine or Natté-Hauss were present at the 1878 Universal Exhibition. The lucrative activity of Parisian department stores through their Christmas/Étrénnes catalogs forced small, scattered cardboard workshops to join forces.The result was JJF (Toys and games acronym) or JR (united games)

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