Gutenberg experimented with polychromatic printing, with red letters leading verses, however this was dropped.
Teich & Co early front of mass production, popularizing many stapes of the form including “Greetings from” text in bubbly letter and cataloged American minutiae. Reached point of derision, “epistolary sloth” by critics of the form.
Ephemeral print and participatory paper (forms, postcards) showcase the day to day in a manner not fully captured in other archival formats.
Publicity and Propoganda
Real Picture Postcard (RPP) subset of cards with a pre-printed photo backing, developed on paper instead of process of inking through lithographic methods or glass plates. For the budding entrepreneur, one could find a niche and develop a card around it. Eastman Kodak Company issued postcard sized photographic paper in which images could be directly printed. Small, individual scale postcards opened the space for amateurs. “Kodak as you go” Obvious parallels.
Horne documented the Mexican War. His RPP collection showcased Juarez and conflict. Postcards of texas rangers, exotic animals and charred bodies, executions and stereotypes. Horne’s card altered. “Execution in mexico” is in fact doctored by notorious pirate HH Stratton, after purchasing a copy of a negative and changing the scene (removing a left hand and three Americas).
Early suffrage movements understood the value of postcards. In mass print last line on the card “Admit Bearer and Friends” served not only to inform, but as a ticket of entry. With local papers not printing images, postcards offered avenue of dissemination. Anti-suffrage movement also took to it, producing memes and misogynistic slogans. Ties to Emmeline Pankhurst. Having a Wonderful Time, Wish You Were Here
Tourism performance of “why not show your friends and family that you were there, and that you ought to see it.” These glimpses also over time shape how a place is remembered, and imagined.
Ocean Liners had their own routes and network of postcards, stopping in ports. Travellers would send messages of the heat of the Suez and the Red Sea. Liners would be out for several weeks, resulting in gossip being sent back home.There is no real expectation of a response here, the importance is just the act of sending the message.
Guidebooks such as Baedeker’s of Berlin offered proscriptive, performative itineraries of what to see, and became popular with American tourists. The guidebooks pointed to postcard motifs, such as landmarks, which would be expected to be sent home or simply collected.
Postcards of this type could be seen of having a particular power dynamic. You, demonstrating local people and landscapes are something to be seen, checked off and commodified. Sense of exotics. “Can you imagine a private family photograph being turned into a tourist souvenir?”
Postcards From Countries That No Longer Exist
“Although I do collect stamps, my interest in dead countries arises from the fact I was born in one - Newfoundland.” Postcards from dead countries show a complex history of social reorganization as much as they demonstrate colonialism, empire–building and the making of national mythologies.
Trying to track down postcards for places like North Ingermanland is only possible by looking in collections that have been designated as “Finnish” or “Russian.” Now a large number of Russian cards remain in private hands, rather that libraries and archives. As once treasured parts of individual collections are slowly being discarded or sold off, the once owners fail to see the value of the “clutter.” The bridge of space between USSR and imperial Russia, a postcard at a time. NYPL has a digital and physical collection of many heavy drawers.Postcards as artifacts to people and places and times that no longer exist.
The Afterlife of Postcards
After a card has been sent and read, then what? Saving of postcard as haphazard. Cards were meant to be bought, sent and received but also for collection. However niche a subset of postcards might appear, someone has collected them.
“There’s something particularly personal about owning music rather than streaming it and I think postcards have the same sort of communication to collectors. It translates to younger generations.”
Author attempts an experiment in sending postcards. Though postcards are around, they’re not everywhere and often come up empty handed in a search. The inventory is unvaried. Today they resonate due to the effort required. They are the physical manifestation of “hey I thought of you”
Author believes the death of the postcard has been greatly exaggerated.