A penetrating analysis of the real-photo postcard phenomenon of the early 1900s. These cards depict the now vanished world of small-town America, but also represent a pivotal stage in the evolution of photography. Their head-on style inherits something of the plain aesthetic of the Civil War photographers, while anticipating the great 1930s documentary artists such as Walker Evans. Fusing his skills as a chronicler of early 20th-century America, a historian of photography and a keen critic, Sante shows how these postcards offer a revealing 'self-portrait of the American nation'.
The Real Photo Postcard Guide is an informative, comprehensive, and practical treatment of this wildly popular American phenomenon that dominated the United States photographic market during the first third of the twentieth century. Robert Bogdan and Todd Weseloh draw on extensive research and observation to address all aspects of the photo postcard from its history, origin, and cultural significance to practical matters like dating, purchasing, condition, and preservation. Illustrated with over 350 exceptional photo postcards taken from archives and private collections across the country, the scope of the Real Photo Postcard Guide spans technical considerations of production, characteristics of superior images, collecting categories, and methods of research for dating photo postcards and investigating their photographers. In a broader sense, the authors show how "real photo postcards" document the social history of America. From family outings and workplace awards to lynchings and natural disasters, every image captures a moment of American cultural history from the society that generated them. Bogdan and Weseloh’s book provides an admirable integration of informative text and compelling photographic illustrations. Collectors, archivists, photographers, photo historians, social scientists, and anyone interested in the visual documentation of America will find the Real Photo Postcard Guide indispensable.
"Carefully assembled from the collection of Harvey Tulcensky and including cards from all over the world, Real Photo Postcards consists of images of natural phenomena (floods, storms, fires), rural life, politics (parades and platforms), science, art (beautiful still lifes and collages), and wacky "exaggeration" cards (including a photographically manipulated giant rabbit!). Together these cards show an oddly personal and intimate perspective of the world at the turn of the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.
'Many years ago, Foster E. Weaver, a close friend of mine, discovered a postcard album among his aunt's personal items. Fascinated by the variety of cards and the messages written on them by both family and friends, he kept the album. Ultimately, his discovery led him into the adventurous world of collecting.'-----Gary W. Slear, Past President Of The Union County Historical Society And Chairman Of The UCHS Archives And Museum Committee, also the author of the Foreward of this book Rural Delivery.
Today, no one seriously doubts the value, both aesthetic and historic, of the ubiquitous American photographic postcard. This was the medium that really brought photography to the masses; these cards were affordable, they were topical, and they could be sent for a penny anywhere in the country. The variety of imagery, much of it developed anonymously in small studios, much of it taken by inspired amateurs (these were the days when anyone could, and many folks did, own a camera) displays America in all its variety and vitality. Most postcards were mass produced and printed in ink by the collotype or halftone process. But a few were original photographic prints, exposed directly from glass plates or film negatives. Known as real photos these were real photographs, aristocrats of the genre and spectacular examples of vernacular photography. In this charming and scholarly book, Vaule selects the best of them, from all over the country, addressing their social and historical contexts, explaining the mysteries of their manufacture and dissemination, and describing the characteristics and identities of their makers, many of whose names and studios are listed in the book. But without doubt, it is the images themselves that still hold us: storefronts and townships, frisky children and sober adults, air ships and barn raisings. Over one hundred are reproduced here, each in fine-line duotone, each as fascinating and compelling today as when first fixed on paper.
Postcards of a nation embracing a new democratic technology The ubiquity of photography and social media today makes it hard to imagine a time when it was not possible for ordinary people to take their own pictures and send them with short messages over long distances. But it was revolutionary when the Eastman Kodak Company, in 1903, unveiled a new postcard camera that produced a postcard-size negative that could print directly onto a blank card. Suddenly almost anyone, amateurs and entrepreneurial photographers alike, could take a picture--of neighbors at home and at work, local celebrations, newsworthy disasters, sightseeing trips--and turn it into a postcard. This book captures this moment in the history of communications--from around 1900 to 1930--through a generous selection of what came to be known as "real photo postcards" from the extensive Leonard A. Lauder Postcard Archive. As the formality of earlier photography falls away, these postcards remind us that the past was occupied by people with distinct and individual stories, dramatic, humorous, puzzling and surprising.
A Guide Book of Collectible Postcards "takes you on a unique trip into the past. Inside this book, you'll find cards of high society and lowbrow humor, natural disasters, social, political, and religious movements, popular artists' illustrations, newspaper comics, circus animals, early movie stars, athletes, planes, trains, automobiles, and the corner general store--and much more! Authors Q. David Bowers and Mary L. Martin share decades of experience in buying, selling, and collecting. They guide you from the earliest postcards of the 1870s to the Golden Age of the 1890s through the Great War, and to the modern chrome postcards found on store racks today."--Publishers website.
Snapshots and Short Notes examines the photographic postcards exchanged during the first half of the twentieth century as illustrated, first-hand accounts of American life. Almost immediately after the introduction of the generic postcard at the turn of the century, innovations in small, accessible cameras added black and white photographs to the cards. The resulting combination of image and text emerged as a communication device tantamount to social media today. Postcard messages and photographs tell the stories of ordinary lives during a time of far-reaching technological, demographic, and social changes: a family’s new combine harvester that could cut 40 acres a day; a young woman trying to find work in a man’s world; the sight of an airplane in flight. However, postcards also chronicled and shared hardship and tragedy––the glaring reality of homesteading on the High Plains, natural disasters, preparations for war, and the struggles for racial and gender equality. With a meticulous eye for detail, painstaking research, and astute commentary, Wilson surveys more than 160 photographic postcards, reproduced in full color, that provide insights into every aspect of life in a time not far removed from our own.
