Postcards

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Postcards

Perhaps no communications medium exemplifies twentieth-century popular culture more accurately than the unpretentious postcard. This simple message-bearer had tremendous public appeal during the final decades of the 1800s, and although it seemed to have reached a peak in popularity during the first 20 years of the twentieth century, now, at the turn of the millennium, the postcard's symbolic power and presence show little sign of giving way to e(lectronic)-mail or other potential electronic replacements. Readily available at any tourist destination along the way, at interstate truck stops, or in the revolving racks at local downtown shops, postcards are an icon of a culture in a hurry. Taped to our refrigerator doors or tacked to the office bulletin board, they have become commonplace signals that someone we know is off traveling. Expressions such as "wish you were here" have become popular parlance ushered into our vocabulary by virtue of being oft-utilized on postcards.

The postcard has a fascinating and well-documented history. Before the idea of a graphic face became popular, plain cards were used for brief correspondence during the mid-nineteenth century. The concept was officially recognized at the 1865 General Postal conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, and four years later the first card published by a government postal agency was issued by the Austrian-Hungary monarchy. It was a plain card with a printed stamp. In the United States, a federal law passed by Congress on May 19, 1898 authorized "Private Mailing Cards" with one side exclusively for the address. This allowed the other side of the card to be used for a picture or drawing. Prior to 1907, one whole side of a picture postcard was reserved for the address, leaving the only place for a written note to be across the picture itself. But in 1907 another law permitted a divided back, one half for the address and the other for the message.

With the sanctioning of a graphical front to the postcard by government postal agencies, picture postcards soon became very popular. This was encouraged by advances in printing and photography allowing mass production. Also, Rural Free Delivery was instituted in 1898, stimulating personal use of the mail system for spontaneous correspondence. People could always find the time to scribble a short note on the back of a postcard, and seemed to enjoy sending these pictures to each other. It has been estimated that more than a billion postcards were produced in this country during the decade preceding World War I. Such volume suggested a significant retail commodity for many commercial establishments, and marketing strategies took advantage of postcard popularity. In The Book of Postcard Collecting, Thomas Range reports that "the familiar revolving wire rack for the display of cards has been attributed to one E.I. Dail, who patented this product in 1908." After 1915, the use of postcards declined somewhat, partly due to the war but also because the telephone and the automobile were creating a revolution in communication and transport connectivity.

In the late 1990s, a revival of postcard popularity began in the United States, both for currently published offerings as a means of quick communication, and for the collecting of postcards from the past. Collecting postcards became very popular during the height of their production just after the turn of the twentieth century. Postcards lend themselves to collecting because of their generally uniform size and ease of storage. Postcard collector's clubs first formed during the 1940s, and remain a major storehouse of information and research. There exists a recognized field of study for postcards, which probably began as the popularity of sending postcards declined. As related by Marian Klamkin in the book Picture Postcards, "Randall Rhodes of Ashland, Ohio, coined a word in the early 1930s that became the accepted description of the study of picture postcards, 'deltiology,' taken from the Greek word, deltion, meaning a small picture or card." Today there are numerous newsletters and magazines devoted to the hobby. Many postcard collectors concentrate on various themes: railroad stations, city and town bird's-eye views, steamships, and other symbols of technological progress. These subjects often represent the spirit of the age, what seems or had seemed important to us at the time. Natural disasters commonly became topics for postcards, perhaps going along with what Morgan and Brown, in their book Prairie Fires and Paper Moons, have termed an "emphasis on the minor events in out-of-the-way places." Of course, whatever the subject, there was always an imbedded discourse within the image portrayed. And this hidden message continues in the postcards of today, especially for those cards with the "wish you were here" scenery.

Here are the glossy images of lakes, waterfalls, rugged mountains, or bucolic rural scenery. That the picture postcard is produced and designed to be sent through the mail is itself an act of reinforcement for popular perceptions of place, and as such, the lowly postcard can offer insight into both past and present geographies. The record they leave behind is indelible and unmistakable. Postcards represent a sequential snapshot of both the landscape's and society's changes over time. Not only do postcards impart information about trends and cultural shifts, but have themselves been used as vehicles for diffusion of new ideas and styles of artistic expression. Their use in commercial advertising likewise has a long history. The hobby of collecting postcards has resulted in additional value being imparted to them. Ultimately, however, postcards are fun to send and fun to receive, and therefore show little sign of disappearing from popular culture.

—Robert Kuhlken