Handbill:Thain's Double Bubble Pipe

The playful practice of blowing bubbles has been part of our civilization for hundreds of years. Artist Jean Simeon Chardin painted a picture of a boy blowing bubbles from a pipe in 1744. And the A. and F. Pears Company used a similar painting by Millais to advertise its famous soap in 1886. During that same year, an advertisement for another soap company appeared, marketed in a handbill along with a bubble pipe design that the company patented. The Pura Manufacturing Co. made a tin bubble pipe capable of placing a bubble within a bubble, or a "double bubble." Text in the ad recommended only Pura's brand of soap for optimal quality bubbles. Just 23 years later, a trio of Tin Pan Alley songwriters penned the unforgettable tune "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles," and the world listened. The song is still played all around the world, and children are still happy to blow soap bubbles.