Little Nipper Window History

The image of Little Nipper and “His Master’s Voice” originated with a painting by the Englishman Francis Barraud. In 1899, a gramophone company bought both the picture and the copyright for use in promotional material. Two years later, the Victor Talking Machine Company obtained the US rights to this image and Nipper began representing the company. RCA then merged with the Victor Company and became RCA Victor.

The company commissioned four large stained glass windows of the painting from the Philadelphia studio of the prominent stained glass artist Nicola D’Ascenzo. These windows were placed in the tower of the RCA building in Camden in 1915. The windows remained there until 1969, when the company decided to modernize their logo and the four windows were removed. At the time, one of Widener’s trustees was Eldridge R. Johnson II, the grandson of Eldridge R. Johnson, who founded the Victor Talking Machine Company. As a result, Eldridge R. Johnson II gifted Widener’s newly constructed Wolfgram Memorial Library with this historical artifact. A second window was donated to the Smithsonian Institution, and a third went to Pennsylvania State University. The final one was retained by RCA until 1988, when it was donated to the Camden County Historical Society.

The removal of the stained glass windows and their subsequent replacement with a more modern logo was not popular with the residents of New Jersey. Eventually, RCA returned to using Little Nipper as one of their logos, and in 1978 the company commissioned another set of Little Nipper stained glass windows from D’Ascenzo Studios. On April 10, 1979, the new set was installed, and, in honor of the day, the current Governor of New Jersey, Brendan Byrne, declared the date to be “Nipper Day” in New Jersey.