Dixie Cups

If you are 50 or older, you probably remember coming out of the store or school cafeteria with a 5 or 10 cent Dixie Cup in one hand and a flat wooden spoon in the other. You pulled the tab, and the cardboard lid slowly lifted from the cup, revealing chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream. In their early days, after licking the ice cream from the lid, kids found a covered photograph on the underside. Dixie Cup lids were a precious fixture of childhood from the 1930s through the mid 1950s.    

Waxed paper had to be peeled from the lid slowly, so it would not stick to the picture.  If you were lucky, a cowboy hat appeared, and the crooked smile of a real cowboy.  You might get Hopalong Cassidy, Roy or Dale Evans, or one of the other cool cowboys or cowgirls of the day.  Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Jane Withers, John Barrymore, Tyrone Power, Myrna Loy, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. or Norma Shearer was among the movie stars under the wax paper on the lid. FlashGordon and sports heroes were also favorites. 

Dixie Cup lids are cherished pieces of Americana. The cardboard discs are mementos of a time when novelties used artistry, to attract youthful fantasies.  A Buck Rogers photo is worth $125 to $150, and a Flash Gordon, $200 to $250 today to collectors.

The ice cream was so good.  Dixie Cups were present at all school parties given by the room mothers.  No respectable birthday party was without the famous ice cream cups.  And… remember the slogan?  I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM … WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM. How could we ever forget?