Snow globe became cherished emblem of winter

Snow globes have evolved into traditional Christmas season decorations, and many families have been collecting them for years.

The “snow globes story” appears to have originated in France in 1878.

A French glassware company exhibiting at the Paris Universal Exposition “showcased a group of paper weights of hollow balls filled with water, containing a little man with an umbrella.” The objects also contained white powder that fell “in imitation of a snowstorm” when turned upside down.

Elizabeth Gumport, a contributor to New York Magazine, reported: “For the next Exposition, in 1889, the French built the Eiffel Tower. They also produced tiny replicas of the Eiffel Tower, enclosed in glass spheres full of water and fake snow. Almost as soon as there were snow globes, there were snow globe souvenirs.”

 

However, Erwin Perzy of Vienna, Austria, is widely considered to be the proper snow globe “inventor,” albeit accidentally, Gumport wrote. 

Perzy owned a medical instrument supply business. He was asked in 1900 by a surgeon in Vienna to improve upon Thomas Edison’s electric light bulb (invented in 1879), in order to produce an even brighter light for use within the operating room.

“Drawing upon a method used by shoemakers to make ‘quasi-spotlights,’ Perzy placed a water-filled glass globe in front of a candle, which increased the light’s magnification, and sprinkled tiny bits of reflective glitter into the globe to help brighten it,” according to Gumport.

“But the glitter sank too quickly, so Perzy tried semolina (a coarse flour from durum wheat) instead,” Gumport noted. “That didn’t quite work, either, but the appearance of the small, white particles drifting around the globe reminded Perzy of snowfall – and he quickly filed the first official patent for a snow globe, or a “Schneekugel” in the German-Austrian language (pronounced SHNAY-koo-gel).

Perzy called his invention a “glass sphere with snow effect.” By 1905, brothers Erwin and Ludwig Perzy were churning out dozens of handmade snow globes in their shop. 

Each contained a small model of the Basilica of the Birth of the Virgin Mary, in Mariazell, Austria, a Roman Catholic church that is “the most important Christian pilgrimage destination in Austria and one of the most visited shrines in all of Europe.”

 

The demand for snow globes snowballed.

The family-owned company is still operating as the Original Viennese Snow Globe Manufactory. The small business is now a tourism destination within Vienna. Erwin Perzy III and his daughter, Sabine Perzy, are presently running the business as a partnership.

 

Today, the company employs about 30 people, who produce and paint about 200,000 handmade and high-quality snow globes a year. All are glass and are filled with pure, alpine water from mountain springs.

 

Helen Soteriou, a business reporter with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), recently interviewed the Perzys. Erwin III said: “A snow globe is a thing which gives some magic and enchantment to people.”

 

For the first 40 years of production, the miniature diorama inside always featured a church, but Erwin II, who took over from his father after World War II, introduced different designs, such as Christmas trees, Father Christmas and snowmen figurines, Soteriou said.

 

“Nowadays, kids have everything,” said Erwin III, “computers and lots of other electronic things, and our snow globe has nothing, no battery, no nothing. But when the kids come here, their eyes are wide open, they are enchanted, and everyone has one or two snow globes in their hands, and they are shaking them. That is a very nice moment for me.”

Sabine, who represents the fourth generation of management, said: “We can proudly say that our snow globes are bought all over the world. Since each snow globe is still handmade today, each globe is as unique as a single snowflake.”  

 

Snow globes’ popularity tied to epic Hollywood films 

Snow globe manufacturer Erwin Perzy III of Vienna, Austria, said the most famous snow globe that his family’s company has ever produced was a prop used in the epic American drama motion picture titled “Citizen Kane,” released in 1941.

This was Orson Welles’ first feature film. He was director, producer and leading actor. The movie was co-written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz.

 

Carole Rosenblat, a contributor to Atlas Obscura, tells us: “As the ‘Citizen Kane’ movie opens, Charles Foster Kane lies in bed, alone in the dark clutching a snow globe. Inside the globe is a wooden cabin covered in white.”

“After a minute, Kane whispers one of the most famous lines in film history – just one word – ‘Rosebud.’ His hand goes limp, and the glass globe falls to the floor and shatters.” Kane is dead.

 

Perzy said his grandfather, Erwin Perzy I, who started the business – the Original Viennese Snow Globe Manufactory – in 1905, created the snow globe, a one-of-a-kind piece, for the movie studio.

The snow globe reminded the main character of a quiet time spent sledding near his mother’s wooden boarding house, and that spirit of peace was in keeping with his family’s philosophy, Perzy III said.

“It’s a separate world inside a snow globe. It’s an escape,” he stated.

Maybe that’s why people enjoy owning them so much. More than a souvenir trinket, “snow globes are objects that evoke holiday cheer,” remarked Kim Hart in an article for Artsy.net.

 

“Snow globes are irresistible for their promise of brief, easy entertainment – plus the added visual delight of the whimsical miniatures found inside,” Hart wrote.

For the Perzy family, it’s been a journey spanning more than a century to perfect the snow globe manufacturing process.

Initially, snow globes consisted of a heavy glass dome that was placed over a ceramic figure or tableau on a black cast ceramic base, filled with water and then sealed. They were often viewed as functional paperweights.

All sorts of materials were used to try to create the snow or “flitter,” including bone chips, fine pieces of porcelain, sand, sawdust, particles of gold foil, non-soluble soap flakes and white plastic.

The water was “enhanced” by some snow globe manufacturers over time with the addition of a light oil, antifreeze (ethylene glycol) and glycerol, which had added benefits of slowing the descent of the snow.

Today, the liquid inside each of the Perzy snow globes is pure alpine water from mountain streams found in the Alps. The flitter, however, is a secret mix of plastic and other materials designed to flurry for up to two minutes before settling on the bottom. 

The figures inside the globes are created by injecting plastic into molds created by a 3D printer.

Customers at the Perzys’ retail counter are invited to “give one of the snow globes on display a shake and watch as magical snow gently drifts over the charming scene inside. A delightful keepsake and world-famous memento, these classic snow globes are made of glass – not plastic.”

Today’s snow globes can include music boxes, moving parts, internal lights and even electric motors that make the flitter move so that it is no longer necessary to shake the globe. These models don’t impress Josef Kardinal much.

He’s just a regular guy who lives in Nuremberg, Germany, and has been collecting traditional snow globes since 1984. He has amassed the largest collection – 11,017 snow globes – on the planet, certified by Guinness World Records. The basement of his home is a mini-museum.

 

Kardinal approaches his collection with the care of an archivist and regularly maintains the globes so each still “snows” as intended, reported freelance journalist Lauren Beavis.

He said: “Snow globes capture memories, places and feelings. Every one of them tells a story.” 

 

 

There is no question that Hollywood films contributed to the “the mass popularity of snow globes,” beginning with “Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman” (1940), which featured Ginger Rogers.

 

A young Kitty Foyle launches a flashback scene when she shakes a snow globe containing the figure of a girl on a sled. Ginger Rogers won an Oscar for her role. As for snow globes, their sales zoomed by 200% following “Kitty Foyle’s” premiere.

 

 

Author Donald-Brian Johnson said “Citizen Kane,” the following year in 1941, helped snow globe sales to surge again. 

“Manufacturers were snowed under with orders,” he said.

 

“Rosebud” was the name given to the little sled on which Kane was playing on the day he was taken away from his home and his mother. It represents the simple joys and mother’s love that Kane knew as a child before he was separated from his family and thrust into a life of wealth and responsibility.