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| Pair of unlabeled colorful Czech wood bead bags from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
1930s Czech Wood Bead Handbags
Note: Scroll for Important Article Updates June 19 and 24, 2023
Once again, The Vintage Purse Museum was driven to a full-on investigation because of a question posed by one of our many wonderful social media friends. This time, it was our video of a vibrantly colored Czech-made wood bead bag that inspired someone to ask if we knew what type of wood the beads were made of.
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| Trio of unlabeled Czech wood bead bags from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
We didn’t, but we wanted to learn! These bags were so well constructed and such a popular trend more than 80 years ago that they are quite collectible today. Most that are labeled have the brand names "Schowanek" or "Suzanne," while some only have a "made in Czechoslavia" label. Some are unlabeled, often because they were home-crafted. We've seen only a few of this era with labels by other makers, so we believe Schowanek and Suzanne were these bags' primary producers. (Note: Czechoslovakia is also known for its fine glass products, including beads, which we are not addressing in this article.)
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| This bag has a "Made in Czechoslovakia" label but no manufacturer tag. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
A 1924 article about Czechoslovakian wood exports stated that 68 percent of the country's wood exportation was to Germany, and consisted of “pulp wood, pine longs, mining timber and rough lumber," so we thought perhaps the beads were pine. We also looked into the species of trees that grow in the forests of Czechoslovakia, and they included pine, oak, spruce and beech. The beads that comprise these bags are very sturdy, so we thought they may be oak, but a woodworking friend of The Vintage Purse Museum ruled out both pine and oak, based on their analysis of our collection's 1930s Walco Bead Co. wood-craft beads sample card.
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| 1930s bead sample card by Walco, a New York company that imported and sold beads and produced craft kits. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
We scoured old newspaper advertisements and learned that wood bead handbags were trending as early as the 1920s, but they were not the same style or shape as those from the 1930s (and later). However, around 1925, wood bead bags for children started to be advertised, and the newspaper sketches resemble a smaller version of 1930s wood bead handbags for adults. Although no country of origin was given in these ads, the bags could have begun as a children’s line because the Schowanek factory in Czechoslovakia was already making children's wooden toys.
On the website of the Society of Bead Researchers is a pdf of bead expert Peter Francis Jr.’s (1945-2002) 1979 book, The Czech Bead Story, and within it is a small reference to the wood bead maker "Shovanek at Albrechtice" (located in the Vysocina region of the Czech Republic). So we reached out to the Society of Bead Researchers to get the scoop on Czechoslovakian wood beads.
Bead expert and Society of Bead Researchers member Karlis Karklins responded almost immediately to our message, telling us that all of the wood beads he'd encountered were made in Germany. (A 2005 pdf with interesting historical info about 1920s German beads, written by Karlis Karklins and Anita von Kahler Gumpert, can be read here.)
Mr. Karklins also mentioned the US company Walco, which manufactured wood bead craft kits, and he referred us to another bead expert, Stefany Tomalin.
Ms. Tomalin also responded very quickly, and solved our initial mystery by telling us these beads were made of beech wood. In an email, Ms. Tomalin wrote that beech “has a consistent solid grain, and they were often dyed and varnished smooth and shiny. Also used for abacuses and a variety of toys.” She kindly sent us photos of pages of a 1930s Walco bead catalog and instruction booklet.
Walco Bead Co., also known as Walco Toy Co., was established in 1922 and dissolved in 1993. Walco imported and sold beads and sequins, and the company made many kits for a multitude of crafts over its decades in business. The Vintage Purse Museum is fortunate to have in its collection the aforementioned sample card, as well as a 1937 Walco wood bead craft kit with many of its original components, including colorful beads, findings and brochures. We spoke with a Walco family member (name withheld for privacy), and they told us that company founder Samuel Wallach created nearly every aspect of these kits, from the handbag designs to the brochure contents. Although the family still has some of the products and mementos from the company's rich history, they unfortunately do not have documentation to prove a link between Walco and a specific maker of these wood beads.
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Walco Wood Bead Craft kit from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. It cost about $2 in 1937.
 21 Apr 1938, Thu Greensburg Daily News (Greensburg, Indiana) Newspapers.com |
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After finding Peter Francis Jr.'s historical tidbit, we searched the name “Schovanek" and learned this was the original spelling of the surname of Johann Schowanek, who was a creator of wood bead handbags and possibly the bead supplier to Walco. (Fun fact: the word "schovanek" in Czech and Polish means "hiding place.")
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| Schowanek US trademark, screenshot via United States Patent and Trademark Office. It was filed in 1954, and shown to be first used in 1924. This filing is for wood beads and buttons, but the same trademark was used for the company's wooden toys. |
The Schowanek name is often written “Schonanek” in advertisements, likely because of the label’s confusing font, in which the “w” looks like an “n.” Another common maker name of these bags is Suzanne, and there may be a connection between Schowanek and Suzanne. But first, some information about the original factory.
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| More Czech bead bags, both labeled "Suzanne," from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Photo of label inside multicolored bag above. |
Based on the clue about it being located in Albrechtrice, we found a 2020 article, which is mainly a bio about Czech politician Jaroslav Zeman, who currently owns the factory. It is written in Czech, so we translated it to English using an online translator. The article also shared much of the history of the Schowanek factory. The following paragraph is a portion of the article, supplemented by other documentation we found online about the Schowanek family. Please keep in mind that there may be some clarity issues due to the translation. (Note: The Vintage Purse Museum has yellow-highlighted some facts below and put additional info in parentheses.)
Per the translated article (edited): Johann Schowanek (b. Jan Schovanek in 1868-d. 1934) "started a business in Desná (Czech Republic) in 1896 (which is also when he began using the German version of his name)…called 'Mechanische Drechslerei Schowanek.' The successful businessman then decided to build a new factory complex. In 1906 he bought extensive land between the River Kamenice and the RGTE railway track at the station in Jiřetín pod Bukovou (known as Sankt Georgenthal in German). The Schowanek factory complex was successively built from 1907, in 1913 and between 1935 and 1938. Production from 1908 onwards concentrated on fine wood processing. The company soon became a world-renowned producer of wooden toys, beads and wooden costume jewelry. Operation was limited during WWI, mainly to the production of buttons for military uniforms. The production of wooden toys was added in 1927, with the popular yo-yo being made (starting in) 1932. Models of battleships, planes and other weaponry were then made during WWII.”
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| Screenshot of a photo of the Schowanek factory from the Digital Lower Silesia Library. |
According to the 2020 article, Johann Schowanek became famous for the “production of wooden beads and pearls” and “exported handbags with them to the United States of America in such huge quantities that Czechoslovakia was threatened with customs sanctions.”
We then found the website of the Schowanek Villa museum, which is located inside the former Schowanek family residence. We translated their online history from Czech to English and found a few more details, including that Johann Schowanek employed his brother Karel and nephew Bronislav. The museum website also says that Johann Schowanek's son and heir to the factory Johann "Hans" Karl Andreas Schowanek was from the elder Johann's first marriage, and that he had his daughter Anne Marie with his second wife. The museum states that Anne Marie's whereabouts were unknown after 1945. We reached out to the museum and asked some questions about the handbags and for permission to use some of their photos. We also told them we know what happened to Anne Marie and would be happy to share what we found, but have not yet heard back from them. We will update this article if we do. (Anne Marie's story below, near the end of this article.)
JUNE 19, 2023 UPDATE: Here is info from bead expert Dr. Bettina Levin, who gave permission to share the following (originally a comment on our Facebook page; lightly edited, in red below).
I visited the Czech factory of DETOA (former company Schowanek, in communist times company TOFA) in Jiřetín pod Bukovou and the villa Schowanek. They are also architecturally very interesting (the shape of the factory should remind of a steamer), and in both there are small museums. In the factory you can take a guided tour of the production (no photos allowed).
I also did some research on the history of the Schowanek company. Sources for me were the inscriptions in both museums and various articles about the company (I speak German and some Czech).
The types of wood used for the wooden beads were birch in the beginning, later maple and beech. Speciality of Schowanek was a special varnishing of the wooden beads, which made them look like enamel (visible in the white and pastel colored wooden bead bags). The wooden beads were and are turned on automatic machines in the factory, then polished and varnished. In the 1930s, Schowanek was Europe's largest wooden bead factory.
The wooden bead bags became fashionable in the late 1920s and were probably produced until the 1950s. The beaded bags were not made in the factory, but were made by homework in the surrounding villages.
Today DETOA produces wooden beads, wooden toys and piano mechanisms. In the villa Schowanek was a kindergarten in communist times. Today the villa has been renovated and is also used for cultural events. In the neighboring village of Albrechtice v Jizerských horách (from which, by the way, the famous Swarowski family originates) is the mausoleum of the Schowanek family.
Be sure to read another update (in blue below) from Maria Schowanek Schulze.
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| Photos of machines used to make wood products in the Schowanek factory, taken by Doris Coghill during her visit to the museum. Left: horizontal drum drill, circa 1928. Right: semiautomatic lathe, circa 1910. Photos used with permission of Doris Coghill. |
Per Wikipedia (translated from German to English and lightly edited): “Among other things, (Schowanek) turned beads from wood, celluloid and galalith, round wooden buttons and wooden products for the textile industry. His son Johann Karl Andreas Schowanek joined the company in 1921 and became a shareholder in 1928. (The younger Schowanek’s) numerous patented inventions contributed to further successes in the manufacture of jewelry, enameled wooden beads and wooden toys. After 1927, Christmas decorations, yo-yos, knotted bags made of wooden beads, wooden buckles and clasps, ship and airplane models were also made. In 1934, the company had 1,000 employees and was Europe's leading company in this branch.”
Here is an early patent of the elder Johann Schowanek's: a machine that produced trinkets from wood. You can see the full text of the patent here. One sentence of the patent's text reads: "Such small fancy articles are used for ornaments and trimmings for gowns, hand bags, necklaces, ornamental strings and bracelets." Other patent applications were filed the same year, without accompanying photos, including one that specified "Device for making beads, buttons or other similar articles of wood, celluloid, natural or artificial horn, or other similar materials."
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| Drawing screenshot from Google Patents. |
The son, Johann Karl Andreas Schowanek (1906-1964), often used the nickname Hans, which is also the name that appeared on many of his patents. Among Hans Schowanek's patents was a "pearl" bead threader, which you can see on Google patents here. The company's wood beads were sometimes referred to as "pearls," so this invention may have helped with the intricate process of handbag and jewelry construction. (Hans Schowanek would file numerous patents up until his death in 1964.)
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| Needles, beads, string and findings used to make bags and other items, included in The Vintage Purse Museum's 1937 Walco craft kit. |
Despite the younger Schowanek using a nickname, there’s bound to be confusion when father and son have the same first and last legal name, but it appears that the majority of handbags were exported after the 1934 death of the elder Schowanek. As to the potential relationship between the Schowanek brand of handbags and the Suzanne wood bead brand of the same era, we could not establish through a genealogy website that the family had a relative named Suzanne (or a Czech or German derivative) as a potential namesake. This was one of the questions we asked of the Schowanek Villa museum, which, as of publication of this article, has not responded.
The elder Schowanek's youngest granddaughter's birth name was an Armenian version of Suzanne. (Her father was of Armenian descent; the child's first name was changed after emigrating to the US.) However, she was born in Austria in 1942, which rules her out as the brand's namesake. While it's possible she was named after a Schowanek relative who inspired the brand, Suzanne may have been a random name chosen by Johann Schowanek as an alternative label. Or, perhaps it was an unaffiliated company under different ownership. We're leaning toward it being a Schowanek product, created as a secondary business name, possibly to avoid the US customs sanctions mentioned in the 2020 article, but we can't say for sure. We’ll update this article if we find out. Important update re the name Suzanne below.
According to the 2020 article, Johann Schowanek became wealthy from sales of the wooden yo-yo, a popular early 1930s child’s toy. (The yo-yo is said to have been in existence since at least 440 BC, but popularized in the US in 1928 by Filipino immigrant Pedro Flores, whose invention was purchased and mass produced by the Duncan Toys Company.) After the elder Schowanek's death in 1934, his son Hans took over the company. Schowanek wood bead handbags were a huge trend in the US until the latter half of 1939 and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia.
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| This woman appears to be holding a colorful wood bead handbag. On the back of this original photo is handwritten "1939" and the woman's name. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
During the occupation (1939-1945), the Nazis commandeered the Schowanek factory for war use, including the manufacture of machine gun carriages, rocket components and bomber tanks. We found several American newspaper ads (such as the one directly below) that indicated this invasion would lead to shortages of wood bead bags in the US.
Note that this advertisement has both the Suzanne and Schowanek (misspelled) brands, and that a scarcity of these bags was anticipated.
After the occupation, Hans Schowanek left Czechoslovakia and opened a new manufacturing facility. One German website says he had a factory in Salzburg, Austria after the war until 1949, but most sources only cite the Schowanek factory's lengthy existence in Piding, Germany. Piding is just 11 miles (19 km) from Salzburg. The Vintage Purse Museum doesn't have any Schowanek labeled handbags in its collection; however, we have seen some labeled "Original Schowanek Made in Western Germany." So Hans Schowanek continued making wood bead handbags after WWII, which would correspond with the later newspaper advertisements. Schowanek also made wood bead belts. (Schowanek 1954 belt ad directly below.) We found wood bead belt advertisements as early as 1934 and through the 1950s, but most did not have a maker name. Wood bead jewelry was popular for decades as well. Wooden toys, however, remained Schowanek's primary products.
We found a 1960 letter to a newspaper columnist asking if Walco Bead Co. was still in business. The columnist confirmed that it was. The letter writer, who said they were an arts and crafts instructor, commented that the Czech beads available from Walco before WWII were of much better quality than the Russian-tagged beads they purchased during the war. Their query seems to be confirmation that Walco was importing wood beads from Czechoslovakia until the 1939 invasion. Again, we have no firm proof that Walco acquired its beads from Schowanek, but it is likely given the Schowanek factory's massive output prior to the war.
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| Unlined, unlabeled wood bead bags from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Picture of a handbag in the Walco catalog included with our craft kit. It is very similar to one of the unlabeled bags in the photo above. |
In 1962, British toy company Lines Bros. purchased the Germany-based J. Schowanek G.m.b.H. factory (G.m.b.H. is the German equivalent of an LLC), with Lines Bros. having 75 percent ownership and Schowanek, 25 percent. (Lines Bros. dissolved in the early 1970s.) There was a major fire at the Schowanek factory in 1963, then another fire in its sawmill bunker in 1977. The factory eventually moved about 9 miles (15 km), from Piding to Teisendorf. Hans's daughter Maria, under her married name of Schulze, took over the company at some point and it became Schowanek and Schulze. Maria Schowanek was also an inventor who held patents on wood toys.
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| Photo of Schowanek factory in Piding during the 1963 fire. Screenshot from the Piding historical website. |
The Schowanek company briefly had a New York location in the 1980s. We found a New York State business name filing in 1982, but it became inactive soon after. We initially learned that Schowanek was in business until at least the 1990s because of a 1991 Florida newspaper marriage announcement that said the groom worked for Schowanek Toys in Piding, Germany. Then we discovered that Hans Schowanek's daughter Maria Schulze officially dissolved the business in 2015. This dissolution may have been a formality and the business actually closed sooner. We're working on finding out and will update if we do.
The Schowaneks’ former factory in Albrechtrice, Czechoslovakia, which now operates under a different name, currently produces wooden toys and piano mechanisms. We reached out to them, but did not receive a response.
***
On the Schowanek Villa museum website, we learned that Johann Schowanek's daughter Anne Marie was born during his marriage to his second wife. His first wife, Hans's mother, died giving birth to Hans's younger brother, who died soon after. Anne Marie was Hans's half-sister, born when Hans was 14. The museum website says its knowledge of Anne Marie ends in 1945.
Here's what The Vintage Purse Museum could piece together of Anne Marie's story, based on newspaper articles, Google documents and a genealogy website.
Johann Schowanek's daughter Anne Marie Schowanek (b. 1920-d. 2002) emigrated to the US in 1947 by way of a ship that left Rotterdam, accompanied by her rug importer husband (name withheld for privacy) and their young child (name withheld for privacy). Anne Marie was an artist and sculptor who studied under renowned Austrian sculptor Josef Mullner. After living briefly in Switzerland, she fled with her family to the US in 1947 where they established residency. The family received political asylum seven years later, in 1954. When applying for asylum as "displaced persons," Anne Marie told US government officials that the Russians had seized her family's property in Czechoslovakia. (This would be the villa and factory.) She also told the story of their narrow escape from Austria to Germany in 1947, which included her husband and child, and her brother (Hans) and his wife and child. While this conflicts with the German website's report that Hans Schowanek's factory operated in Salzburg until 1949, old newspaper articles confirm that 1947 was when the Soviets assumed control of much of Austria. So it seems Hans did have a factory in Salzburg, Austria prior to the long-term location of Piding, Germany. It's unclear if he produced wood bead bags at the Salzburg site.
Anne Marie and her family lived in New Jersey where her husband had a rug business. We found a record of Anne Marie's brother Hans coming to the US with Gerta M. Schowanek and Maria Schowanek for a visit in December 1952. We found a January 1953 New Jersey newspaper's social column that said Maria was in New Jersey visiting her cousin, whose name matches the young child of Anne Marie.
We could find no record of Anne Marie's child after 1955. There is evidence that Anne Marie moved to California after 1962, and returned to her birth name of Schowanek in 1969. It appears that she and her husband divorced. She died in Los Angeles in 2002. We found possible family members of Anne Marie's husband in Austria, and messaged them, but they did not answer. We also found Anne Marie's (former) husband's gravesite in Austria.
***
IMPORTANT UPDATE JUNE 24, 2023
The Vintage Purse Museum located Hans's daughter Maria! She very kindly responded to our emails and sent us the following information, which we have translated from German to English. In addition to telling us much more about her family's history, she solved the mystery of the Suzanne label! Her response in blue below.
Your statements about the founding of the company are correct. My father expanded the company and turned the Schowanek company into a company known worldwide. Business with the USA was significant from the start.
In 1945 my father was taken prisoner in the Czech Republic. His sister, called Susi in the family, went to Austria with her husband in good time and from there to the USA. When my father was in Czech captivity, my aunt's husband brought my mother and I, born on June 7th, 1945, to Austria under dramatic circumstances. Here we found shelter with the Armenian relatives. My father was freed from captivity with escape helpers.
When he arrived in Salzburg, he had worked as a consultant in the Geselle company until the Bavarian state offered him to set up a new plant in Piding. He accepted the offer and set up a new company, Schowanek, in 1949. When former employees found out about this, they came to Piding and helped set it up. My father was able to develop the company to a considerable size again until he died unexpectedly in 1964.
My father's death took my mother and me completely unexpectedly and we didn't know how to continue. I was doing my apprenticeship in the company and my mother had nothing to do with the company before but in this new situation she decided to work in the company. As our shareholder Lines Broth. went bankrupt in 1970, we had to reschedule. Our managing director was looking for a new partner, who was found in the Schörghuber group of companies. With this change, we decided to sell our shares. After this change of ownership, the company went downhill. It was sold a few more times.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Schowanek company, the municipality of Piding organized an exhibition. There is information about this in the municipality.
In 1970 some old employees of the Schowanek company founded the company APS - Schowanek in Teisendorf.
(Re: Hans's sister Anne Marie, nicknamed Susi:)
In 1952 we visited my aunt Susanne and her husband in America. Where my father got his American business going again. After my aunt's divorce, her husband went back to Vienna with her daughter Lillian (later called Schuschanik or something similar), where her ex-husband remarried and later her daughter too. My aunt stayed in America and lived poorly until her death. She was financially supported by my father and after his death by my mother and I. Being an artist, she earned her living by making elaborately designed carpets.
When it comes to the bags with the name Suzanne, I assume that it derives from the name Susi, my father's sister. I also suspect that the bags without a designation of origin always came from Schowanek at this time. Because the processing of the pearls and their polish were unique.
(Re: Types of wood)
The wood used for the intensely colored beads was mostly maple or beech, as this is very light and hard and the colors covered well. With the other types of wood, the intention was to bring out the grain well.
I hope I was able to help a little with this information.
Best regards
Maria Schulze
***
The ad below is from 1950, and says the wood bead handbags were imported from Czechoslovakia. We don't know if another Czechoslovakia-based company tried to take up the mantle of the Schowaneks after the war, or if stores were advertising the later Schowanek German-made bags as Czechoslovakian because this is how they were marketed in the 1930s. There is no maker name in this ad. Note that the styles differ from the earlier wood bead handbags.
Wood bead handbag advertisements reappeared in newspapers from about 1948-1950 (coinciding with Hans's escape from Austria to Germany), but the trend was over by the early 1950s. It returned in the late 1960s, with wood bead bags imported to the US from Japan and Italy, in designs and colors significantly different from those of the 1930s. As fashion is cyclical, these bags, mostly made in China, are in style once again. We recently saw a well-made example currently being sold by a popular contemporary maker. In the bag's online description, this company says its version was inspired by vintage Czech wood bead handbags. The Vintage Purse Museum appreciates this thoughtful way to pay homage and acknowledge the impact of a fashion trend that was also a genuine art form.
We are extremely grateful to Maria Schowanek Schulze for her invaluable assistance with this article. Special thanks to Karlis Karklins and Stefany Tomalin of the Society of Bead Researchers, Bettina Levin, Doris Coghill, and the Wallach family. Other information was found on MyHeritage.com and Newspapers.com, to which we have paid subscriptions. Further documentation was researched via Google, and we have linked text to credit online sources. This article c2023 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use information or photos from our website without permission, info@vintagepursemuseum.com.
19 Mar 1938, Sat Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com
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