This collection contains chromo card albums dating from the 1920s to 1970s, represented by sheets from the album rather than a bound album. The cards are colorful and represent cultures from countries throughout Africa that were under European colonial rule.
Given the strong presence of African cultural awareness in the colonial powers of Europe, a robust pop culture emerged in the form of children’s books, comics, and chromo trade cards. The latter were cards that were offered with food products, usually chocolate, meat extracts, tea, etc. A card would accompany each chocolate bar for instance and when you had completed the set of cards you could write away and get an album to paste the cards. Most card sets did not have an album, and only a few in each country dealt specifically with Africa. They were collected over ten years and were sourced from Germany, England, France, Belgium, and Spain.