Riddle solved!

It is raining cats and dogs so I will give you the solution of yesterdays riddle right away:

Thanks to Peanut8067 the little guy has a name now, it is a Billiken, and was the craze in 1908. The USP means that it was patented in the US on Oct. 6, 1908. To an art teacher, Florence Pretz. The whole story seethis link.
It then got patented for ten years in Germany with this special use as a little lamp.
It was supposed to bring good luck if you got it as a gift and fulfill a wish if you rubbed its little belly with your thumb.

Here you have the family Vermehren in 1901. My great grandparents were very well esteemed in Luebeck, where my great grandfather was a senator in the city counsel. who ever read The Buddenbrooks, written by Thomas Mann, might have a pretty good idea how life in those times and those families was. On the right side is the oldest son, Kurt, who later became a lawyer and got a little famous in the early Sixties, because he defended in court the lady who pretended to be Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the Tsar of Russia. It turned out that she was a swindler, but Kurt believed her. Proof of her being killed with the rest of the Tsar family in 1917 came only after his death when DNA analysis was possible of the bones found in Russia.
On the left side is Erich on top, who later emigrated to South America and disappeared there. Below him is Oskar, the 'black sheep' of the family, the fighter, the inventor, the pilot and an uncle with a very big heart. He graduated in 1908 and that might have been the reason why this Billiken was given to him.
My greatgrandmother was a Lady until she died. At the dinnertable she insisted that everybody spoke English, which caused her children to be rather silent.... She got 94.
The little girl is my grandmother. She grew up in luxury and pretty pampered , had many servants, married rich and enjoyed her life until the war took everything away (see my October posting 'Sic transit gloria Mundi') and she had to raise 3 kids alone as a pretty poor woman. She learned to be a massage therapist in her late Forties.
She was a wonderful and couragous grandmother that I loved dearly.