A look at the earliest View-Master state tour packets
From state capitals to important industry, View-Master provided a bird's eye view of each state in the 1950s and '60s.
I’ve been working on collecting all the U.S. state tour packets — there’s 50, of course, (plus Washington, DC) and there are at least two versions of each state packet — often more! The variants feel kind of endless. But I recently completed getting all 50 (-ish, I’ll explain later) of the two primary packet styles, pictured here:
These packets offer a tour of the state’s top destinations including tourists spots, industry important to the state, the state capitol, often an aerial shot, and always a booklet that provides (now wildly) outdated information about the given state.
Sadly, the state tour packets tend to largely exclude people who are not white. When adults who do not seem to be white are pictured, it’s often in service roles. And while View-Master tended to strive to be educational in nature, it seems like there’s a bit of Lost Cause nonsense in the packets covering the Southern states, I’m not gonna lie!
My favorite thing about these packets is that they tend to provide (somewhat sanitized) glimpses into the past via tours of factories, fields, fishing boats and other places where average folks made a living. I find those photos particularly fascinating.
Over on Instagram, I’ve endeavored to provide a few snaps of every state this year! Feel free to follow along. Here on Substack, I’m going to follow a few rabbit holes related to state tour packets in the next few weeks. First up: early State Tour Packets. I’m highlighting these because I adore the packet design and because there are quite a few interesting variants.
The Earliest State Tour Packets
The earliest iteration of the state tour packet featured just three states: Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. They were released around 1954.
I adore the graphics of these earliest packet. Each has a distinct font and style but look cohesive together. Each also introduced a booklet that gave context and more information about the states highlighted. This would become standard on all state tour packets going forward. The one-color print with line art illustrations would evolve with the second iteration (known to collectors as the S2 packet style), released on the heels of the first three packets (also around 1954 and 1955):
The challenge with these early packets (at least from a sales point of view) is that the monochrome design with pretty little line drawings does not really clue buyers into what they are actually getting: 21 vibrant full-color kodachrome transparencies that allow them to see the world in three dimensions!
See the Instagram post below for a sampling of photos from the Delaware State Tour Packet, where the vibrant colors and mix of places and people make it a real treat:
The third packet iteration (known to collectors as the S3 packet style), was a major change. It was the first version to use four-color printing. It rolled out around 1955 and was the dominant packet style until about 1960.
For a rundown on the wide variety of View-Master content and collecting categories, check out this article I wrote for Stereosite.
For more on packet styles, check out this deep dive I did a few weeks back.
Next up: Every state packet (and then some) from the mid 1950s.
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