European and American
CHARM BRACELETS
Beginning in the early years of the 20th century and extending
until around 1960, it was a mark of middle-class properity that
young girls be given a charm bracelet before they
reached puberty and that at every holiday or
anniversay, a new charm be added to the assemblage, often by the
doting relative who had supplied the original bracelet. One
suspects that jewelers were behind the craze, but in fact, the
demand for charms is ancient; only this method of marketing them
is relatively recent. Not all the charms on these bracelets were
lucky emblems -- equally common were hobby-related and
school-related charms. In fact, the multiplicity of charms
available, and the mundanity of many of them -- a telephone, a car, a
cheerleader's megaphone, a windmill -- served to devalue
the word "charm" in the English language, so that today one may
be misunderstood if one refers to "charms" when one means
"amulets."
The picture here is an undated French postcard that was mailed in
1921. Printed in sepia tone, with modest touches of colour, it is a photo of 10 good luck charms of the type then
popular in Europe and America.
The legend reads "Le Langage de Porte Bonheur" ("The Language of
Good Luck Charms") and the 10 charms are labelled with their meanings --
which, i feel compelled to note, do not accord in every case with
their usual symbolism.
The charms are:
- an elephant: "Felicite" (happiness)
- a heart: "Amour" (love)
- a four-leaf clover: "Bonheur" (luck)
- a horsehoe magnet: "Argent" (silver -- or money, due to the magnet's "drawing" power)
- a die, showing seven spots: "Veine" (games of chance; gambler's luck)
- the number 13: "Joie" (joy; the usual use of this number is as general luck or gambler's luck)
- a pig: "Prosperite" (prosperity)
- a hamsa hand: "Richesse" (riches; this is not accurate -- the hamsa hand protects against the evil eye; this one is unusual in that in place of the bilaterally symmetrical filigree design of an Arab "hand of Fatima" or an eye in the palm (which would make it an eye-in-hand amulet), it has a little arabesque curlique in the palm which is not visible on this scan (and barely visible on the original)
- a horseshoe: "Fidelite" (fidelity; not entrely accurate -- the usual meaning is attraction or "drawing")
- a pansy: "Souvenir" (remembrance; i have not encountered the pansy as a lucky charm elsewhere; it belongs more properly to the "language of flowers" than the "language of good luck charms")
The 20th century American charm bracelet at left features a
variety of lucky charms in a bright mix of brass, copper,
sterling silver, and gold-plated metal.
This bracelet is typical
of the kind of jewelry worn by adolescent girls in the 1950s and
1960s, collected charm by charm while travelling through the
tourist traps, flea markets, jewelry stores, and yard sales of
the heartland. It is, in fact, my very own charm bracelet!
There are 13 charms on it, demonstating the use of
"unlucky" 13 as reversed bad luck. Clockwise from the top,
they are:
Other popular 20th century charms not depicted on
this page but often found on European and American charm bracelets include:
- a swastika: luck (pre-Hitlerian, of course)
- twin hearts pierced by a single arrow: reciprocated love
- an Amanita muscaria mushroom: luck
- a chimney sweep or his ladder and brush: luck
- a so-called "Lucky Buddha": luck
- a black cat: gambling luck
Unrelated to European and American charm bracelets -- but
probably made to meet Occidental rather than Oriental tastes
-- are the so-called Chinese charm
bracelets made with glass beads, jade carvings, and metal amulets strung on black cord and tied around the
wrist.
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