Collecting
-
Tennis, Hammocks, and Young Love
Katheryn McMahon Newton Album, cards 8 & 9 These cards offer a second instance (so far) where Fred Newton sent Katheryn more than one postcard on the same day. These are dated to 22 March 1908, by which time he reached Seattle. Combined with the previous cards’ postmarks and the date and location inscribed in the album, he’s traveled quite a bit in three months’ time. Chicago, Colorado Springs, Portland (OR), and Seattle. Plus, I peeked ahead and he was also in Salt Lake City long enough to send at least one card in February. I haven’t figured out what he did just yet, but I’m guessing some kind of…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
Well? Happy Birthday, New Year, and A Swell Postal Album
Katheryn McMahon Newton Album, post 3, cards 4-6 In my last post, I indicated Fred sent Katheryn two postcards on her birthday in 1908 (along with a letter and box). Correction: he sent at least three. Someone tucked the third into the album a little further along (#6). Under normal circumstances, I’d have processed the whole album before posting anything here and thus I’d have presented all three together, probably as part of a chronological arrangement. You’re getting the “in the weeds” version instead, where I post as I go along. History in the writing! (Or at least in the research.) Let’s jump to the third birthday postcard, aka card…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
Dearie: Introducing the Katheryn McMahon Newton Album
With the start of the new year (2021), each blog post will focus on one or more postcards from the Katheryn McMahon Newton album. This post will introduce you to the main “characters” we’ll meet in the postcards going forward, offer an overview of the cards and album, and set forth rules about my posting. Lets start with the album, actually. I consider this one of the best deals I’ve made. I’m not going to specify the exact amount I paid, but it was one of the lowest amounts even before taking into account the number of cards the album contained. Of equal or more importance, at a guess (i.e.…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
Keeping Secrets? Messages in Shorthand on Postcards
Last post introduced Clara Stahl and Agnes Naylor, two stenographers in Grinnell, Iowa, in the early twentieth century. Both collected postcards, and agreed to exchange cards (i.e. send them to each other) to help increase their respective collections. We know this thanks to a typewritten card Clara sent to Agnes. Typewritten cards offered highly legible messages for recipients to read. (Typewritten messages are also much appreciated by many historians.) Clara clearly didn’t mind anyone and everyone reading that message. Nor did she likely worry about messages she composed in handwritten English. After all, the very nature of postcards meant anyone who got their hands on one–such as a postal worker…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
Typewritten Irregularities: Filling a Postcard in Type
If you sat down to write a postcard and send it, how would you fill the space. With a pencil? Ink pen? Marker? Crayon? How about typing? True, in the modern world we can design postcards and have them printed, but this wasn’t an option at the turn of the twentieth century. The vast majority of postcards that I’ve seen have handwritten messages, in pencil or ink, sometimes crayon. (As an aside, my personal preference is ink pen because pencil messages can be a pain to decipher.) There are some with pre-printed messages or blank forms (I’ll share some here sooner or later) and others with stamped messages, as in…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
Special Rate Train Trip Tennessee to California–Write Today for Particulars!
Many a marketing and/or advertisement campaign included postcards. I’ve got a variety of postcards advertising one or another product, plus various postcards announcing gift subscriptions, and more. Today, however, I’m focusing on a travel tourism endeavor for which I happen to have not one but two connected postcards sent to the same person. The recipient was Emma Looney, then living in Decherd, Tennessee. Alas, in her case the U.S. Census is not particularly helpful. I have 78 postcards from an album she kept, but there’s no ready match for her in 1900 given the dates of the postcards and names/initials of family members versus the potential hits in the Census;…
-
Housewives and Handiwork: Tracking Domestic Friendships Through a Doily
Something a bit different for this third Real Photo Postcard (RPPC) in a row — there’s not a person in sight. People used cameras and postcards to document and share all manner of things including dead pets (I don’t own any, but I’ve seen them), caterpillars under canvas (from a research site), and . . . doilies. I don’t know enough about handicrafts such as this to say much about it. What follows here is largely speculation. If you look closely, you can see the cloth features a rose pattern. It may be damask or some other heavier fabric, for whomever cut, trimmed, and hemmed it managed to make a…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
Remembered Love: Death and Real Photo Post Cards (RPPC)
First post – birth; second post – marriage (proposal); so, yes, this third post is about death. More specifically, it’s about sharing news of death. Yet in sending this card, Angus M. Baker memorialized his late wife Rosa E. Merly/Merley/Mesley Baker–and tells us quite a bit about life, death, and postcards. Let’s start with the card itself. Angus Baker provided his wife’s vital dates: birth, marriage, and death. Rosa married at age 28 and died seven years later. He doesn’t tell us what she died of, merely that it was “[a]fter a short illness.” This information survives by way of a Real Photo Post Card (RPPC) which presumably shows Rosa…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
“How would mine suit you?”: Proposing Marriage by Postcard
Since the first post centered around a birth announcement, today we’re moving on to another key life event for many (not all) people: marriage. As with the birth announcement, this is a semi-random card. I admit that I picked it up largely for the text–but I have no other cards sent to or from the recipient and sender. It’s a lonely-only. By lonely-only, however, I mean strictly in terms of sender/recipient/inscription. The card itself was mass-produced, after all. I have at least one other instance of this same card sent by someone else to someone else. I might even have two. I remember many of my cards, but not all–I’ve…
You May Also Like
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
-
It’s a bouncing baby . . . blog!
Welcome to a new blog organized around one of my research interests: early 20th century postcards, particularly those exchanged among people in the United States. I credit (blame) a coworker for my getting hooked on these. Thus far my research suggests most (not all) scholarship on postcards has focused on the images and makers. Many people collect postcards for these–gathering cards related to particular places, manufacturers, themes. I, on the other hand, am as or more interested in the reverse sides of postcards. A little over a year ago, I started collecting postcards that were directed to the same individual or family. Some discussions of postcards diss the inscriptions, lumping…
