• Miscellaneous

    How Many Pages in a Postcard Book?

    At some point in the early twentieth century, someone sent Miss Bertha Hazelton of Mooreland, Indiana, a Postcard Book. For some people, the phrase “postcard book” conjures up an image of a book of postcards: the kind of thing for sale at many tourist attractions that holds eight, twelve, sixteen, or more souvenir postcards. This isn’t that kind of postcard book. As you can see, it is quite literally a postcard featuring a small book. In person, the card appears quite flat. If it were put through a modern mechanical mail sorter, it might survive–so long as it went through the right way. The wrong way would risk tearing off…

  • Real Photo Post Cards,  Vitals

    Real Photo of Man in Fallen Tree, Per Promise

    Real Photo Postcards (RPPC) are pains and joys in collecting early postcards, at least from my perspective. On the good side: they show “real” people and scenes as their name indicates. Many are posed (hence the use of quotes above) but they’re also often intended to be shared between families, friends, and acquaintances, particularly RPPC of people. Those may represent intricate networks of connections. Frustratingly, such cards also frequently lack sufficient information to tease out the networks. My collection contains more RPPC than I like with nothing written on the front or back. Whomever gathered the cards and placed them in albums knew the subject and/or meaning and didn’t need…

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