100 posts tagged with postcards.
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What is a secret?
In the fall of 2004, Frank came up with an idea for a project. After he finished delivering documents for the day, he’d drive through the darkened streets of Washington, D.C., with stacks of self-addressed postcards—three thousand in total. At metro stops, he’d approach strangers. “Hi,” he’d say. “I’m Frank. And I collect secrets.” Some people shrugged him off, or told him they didn’t have any secrets. Surely, Frank thought, those people had the best ones. Others were amused, or intrigued. They took cards and, following instructions he’d left next to the address, decorated them, wrote down secrets they’d never told anyone before, and mailed them back to Frank. All the secrets were anonymous. Initially, Frank received about one hundred postcards back. They told stories of infidelity, longing, abuse. Some were erotic. Some were funny. He displayed them at a local art exhibition and included an anonymous secret of his own. After the exhibition ended, though, the postcards kept coming. By 2024, Frank would have more than a million.Dark Matter: For twenty years, PostSecret has broadcast suburban America’s hidden truths—and revealed the limits of limitless disclosure. [more inside]
Guid Luck tae ye this Hallowe'en
The venerable Public Domain Review [PREVIOUSLY] is highlighting Hallowe'en Postcards, 1900-1920. Just don't stare too hard at "Mister Toad Turned Into A Pumpkin"!
The Hotel Majestic: Philadelphia's Lost Marvel
The story of a long lost hotel told through newspapers, postcards, and tin plates. What little remains of its once great presence leaves a lot to the imagination about what it might have been like to stay in the luxurious 1920s hotel.
The mystery of the “same sky” postcards
A collector noticed something strange in his collection of 11,000 vintage postcards: Many of them all had the exact same sky.
TONIGHT WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING A CLOWN-DISCO.
Tom Jackson’s Postcard From the Past Twitter feed features old British postcards with captions taken from the messages written on the back. A lot of the cards are very funny but I’m not laughing at anyone but myself. It’s our own lives that are written on these cards … It strikes me that the past is funny and odd and serious and heart-breaking and packed full of people who feel a lot like us. Jackson also hosts Podcast From the Past, “the weekly podcast where we discover the memories, mysteries and stories held by postcards that for some reason we never threw away. Each time, host Tom Jackson – the creator of the Postcard From The Past twitter feed and book – welcomes two guests to the studio to share their cards and tell their stories.”
Polish Sound Postcards
Techmoan looks at a unique music format from Poland - records pressed into thin plastic, originally with a cardboard backing. They were designed/intended for mailing. More from PRX. [more inside]
Hail Santa
“Her books are full of passion and disaster.”
Nathan Gelgud honors Dame Iris Murdoch, born 100 years ago this week, with a graphic appreciation of his “favorite writer” in the NYRB. Elsewhere online: “Iris Murdoch at 100” in The Guardian, “On the Centennial of Iris Murdoch’s Birth, Remembering a 20th-Century Giant,” in The New York Times, and “The Moral Vision of Iris Murdoch,” in the Jesuit review America. [more inside]
Remembering La Plaza de los Lagartos, the El Paso Alligators
San Jacinto Plaza (Wikipedia) was home to live alligators, from the day that three live alligators arrived in 1883 (KVIA), to 1965 after they were attacked (El Paso Times article morgue, with semi-graphic recounting of violence to animals). I couldn't find any video of live alligators in the plaza, but they were featured in a number (PicClick) of old (eBay) postcards (HipPostcards), many linen (Collectors Weekly) and some newer-ish (Flickr). Gators were brought back in 1972 (Texas Tribune) and kept under a protective plastic shell for a few years, but they were then returned to a local zoo. A commemorative statue, Pile o' Gators (Roadside America), was dedicated in June 1993.
Dancing With Death
These vintage photographs and postcards of women dancing and flirting with skeletons (NSFW) are more than mere memento mori or snapshots of ladies at carnivals having a jolly wheeze in the face of death—they are in some respects quite transgressive. Some of these pictures were intended as, well, shall we say, “educational erotica” giving the viewer a frisson of arousal while at the same time battering them on the head with the salutary warning that the wrong kind of boner could lead to disease and death. Something those Decadent artists used to bang (ahem) on about in their paintings.
"Mr. Frees attributes his success to kindly treatment of his models"
One hundred years before e-mail inboxes crowded with pictures of cats adorned with text like “I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?” and “CEILING CAT IS WATCHING YOU,” lolcats (and loldogs and lolrabbits) were already at the height of fancy. The rise of postcards at the turn of the century enabled Pennsylvanian Harry Whittier Frees to build a career out of photographing cute animals donning hats and britches.
Paleophilatelie
paleophilatelie.eu is an online collection of philatelic material (stamps, covers, post cards, postmarks etc.) depicting prehistoric animals, plants, fossils, dinosaurs, human ancestors, paleontologists, museums with significant paleontological collections, etc. Does what it says on the cover ...
The Sjoerd Koopman Collection of Postcards of Libraries
The Sjoerd Koopman Collection houses approximately 1000 postcards of libraries in the United States. You can browse the collection here. Part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Digital Image Collections. [more inside]
New Year was three months ago
לשנה טובה תכתבו. Back in October, the podcast for the Yiddish Book Center (The Schmooze) interviewed Hannah Pressman of the University of Washington, who has a longstanding interest in Jewish postcards, especially those for the Jewish New Year. [more inside]
I want to vote, but my wife won't let me! ~copyright 1909~
Here’s a collection of totally ridiculous vintage postcards and posters dated from around 1900 to 1914 warning men of the dangers associated with the suffragette movement and of allowing women to think for themselves.
Report All Obscene Mail to Your Local Potsmaster
collectpostmarks.com is a US-focused introduction to the hobby of postmark collecting. The site includes a detailed how-to guide for collecting USPS postmarks, a calendar of time-limited pictorial postmarks (gleaned from the USPS Postal Bulletin), and a gallery of postmarks to whet your appetite. [via mefi projects]
Slow, Beautiful Data
Dear Data. A post card project of analog data visualizations.
Tour the US with the Tichnor Brothers' full color postcards, ca. 1930-45
From the Boston Public Library's Postcard Collection, enjoy approximately 25,000 office proofs of postcards of the United States published by the Boston firm Tichnor Brothers Inc. The collection is sorted by state, plus a few miscellaneous US-related cards and other postcards, including two different color charts. Some images are also available on Digital Commonwealth, and Wikimedia Commons.
to end all wars
First world war – a century on, time to hail the peacemakers
"On the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War, we should remember those who tried to stop a catastrophe" [more inside]
feeding time
Introducing bowoodling, friskadoodling and alabamaraminating.
The Love Life of the Spumifers. (NSFW)
A series of hand-painted photographic postcards produced by surrealist artist Georges Hugnet master of collage between 1947 and 1948.
A series of hand-painted photographic postcards produced by surrealist artist Georges Hugnet master of collage between 1947 and 1948.
All this energy calling me, back where it comes from....
The Cleveland Memory Project is an archive of photos, postcards, videos, recordings, clippings, ebooks, personal papers, maps and other historical "goodies" about the city. "It's a collaborative endeavor of many local historical societies, public libraries and government agencies who have mounted their own local history." On Flickr. [more inside]
The Mi-Go are greater beings than we, but then again, who ain’t?
Brattleboro Days, Yuggoth Nights: an interview with H. P. Lovecraft on a single postcard.
Art for your suffrage.
"Now, in 2012, it’s possible the women’s vote could effect the outcome the U.S. presidential election. You would think we’d also have moved beyond gender stereotypes depicted in these postcards, but they’re still strong."
War on Women, Waged in Postcards: Memes From the Suffragist Era
Ephemeral New York
Ephemeral New York 'chronicles an ever-changing, constantly reinvented city through photos, newspaper archives, and other scraps and artifacts that have been edged into New York’s collective remainder bin.' [more inside]
Tall Tale Images from the Golden Age of Postcards
Several factors came together to bring about a Golden Age of postcards (Google books), including the introduction of inexpensive cameras and film development from Eastman Kodak. From around 1906 to 1915, the publishing of printed postcards doubled every six months. Along with pictures of real people and places, tall tale postcards were also made in increasing quantities. William H. "Dad" Martin was the first to make and sell outlandish postcards (previously), making collages of real images and photographing the result, dodging and burning the new image to make the composite images blend into something vaguely believable. Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr. followed Martin's success, but they weren't the only ones to make tall tale postcards.
I'm gonna sit write down and write twenty-four letters...
A Month of Letters is a challenge with two parts: mail something (anything!) every day the post runs in February and respond to every letter you get.
"It might have been designed to illustrate her love for the gaudy and unsettling."
A Portrait in Postcards. Twenty years after her death, Angela Carter's literary executor and friend, Susannah Clapp, remembers Carter through the cards she sent, "These cards make a paper trail, a zigzag path through the 80s. They are casually dispatched – some messages are barely more than a signature – but are often the more telling for that: they catch Angela on the wing, shooting her mouth off. She would have hated the idea of a soundbite, but she had a gift for a capsule phrase, for a story in a word. " The postcard gallery.
Postcards From All 50 States
Women of the Future, 1902
Did your cactus die?
Picture Postcard
Surreal Babies
Babylon: Surreal Babies "Babies hatch from eggs, bubble from cauldrons, are fished from rivers, emerge in the cabbage patch, sit atop clouds, and ride in zeppelins. They play instruments, drive automobiles, fly in balloons, harvest the fields; an anarchistic world of baby heaven. The postcards were a source of inspiration to many artists in the 1920s and '30s, in particular to both the Dadaists and the Surrealists. They were collected by Paul Éluard, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Hannah Höch, Herbert Bayer, and Man Ray. The popular images excited inspiration in these artists because of their boundless inventiveness."
Global Warming?
Clement Valla uses Google Earth to zoom in on bridges and roads in a way which makes them appear warped. [more inside]
John Hinde
Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight: The John Hinde Butlin's Photographs "Long viewed only as a master of kitsch Hinde is now recognised, albeit posthumously, as a peerless social documentarian. Dazzling in their their colour intensity and strange clarity.... Visionary, Wonderful." Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, London "Extraordinary...the combination of aesthetics and promotion produced something that bypasses documentary and approaches an arresting British surrealism". David Jays, Financial Times "These phenomenal photographs...a cacophony of colour...Despite and because of their artifice, John Hinde's picture postcards are endlessly fascinating, exposing social trends, sartorial aberrations and a particular photographic vision. A delightful book". The Art Book. Large collection of his other work at the John Hinde Collection
A view into North Korea
This flickr user collection offers a look into North Korea, complete with translations of propaganda murals and cultural background on the images, plus two collections of old postcards.
A Lost Art of Days Gone By
Curt Teich (1877-1974) was a printer who immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1896. Curt Teich & Company, opened in 1898 in Chicago, was the world's largest printer of view and advertising postcards. Teich is best known for its "Greetings From" postcards with their big letters, vivid colors, and bold style. Flickr user amhpics has archived nearly 2000 Teich linen postcards in his set Vintage Curt Teich linen postcards 1930s-1950s. [more inside]
Mailbag Art Museum
Artist Sarah Musi sent little pieces of art to forty-five artists, along with a tiny blank canvas for them to create something and return it. So far she has received six back.
The man who posted himself
He showed that the Royal Mail will deliver things as small as a bee or as large as an elephant; he once posted himself home; and he invented the self-recirculating postcard - it had two sides, each with a different address. W Reginald Bray was a genius at mail art and the self-proclaimed autograph king. [more inside]
"Berlin is rather a part of the world than a city"
Postcards from Berlin is a call from a Berlin (Germany) design studio for virtual postcards from all of the places in the US named Berlin.
Images From the World's Most Failed States
Postcards From Hell — For the last half-decade, the Fund for Peace, working with Foreign Policy, has been putting together the Failed States Index (the 2010 version is out), using a battery of indicators to determine how stable—or unstable—a country is. But as the photos here demonstrate, sometimes the best test is the simplest one: You'll only know a failed state when you see it. [more inside]
OH NO THERE GOES TOKYO
Bad Postcards
Art of the Japanese Postcard
View examples of the Art of the Japanese Postcard (1, 2, 3) or browse the Leonard A. Lauder collection of them at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts website.
Small Trades of Salonica
At the American Farm School historical records they have a large collection of postcards. In amongst them are these small sketches of local traders.
It's real! You can touch it!
Remember Paper is a blog with photos of interesting magazines, books, and other paper-based ephemera. NSFW.
Historical postcards from Opava, CZ
You aliens get off my lawn!
PortlandFilter
PDX History is a veritable treasure trove of information about (and pictures and postcards of) the history of Portland (Oregon). Department stores, streetcars, long-dead amusement parks (yes, Jantzen Beach was once much more than a dying mall surrounded by big-box stores) and more. The web design leaves a bit to be desired, but the site is wonderful nonetheless.
Vintage Postcards and Ephemera
Moody's Collectibles sells vintage postcards, but they also make available a huge catalogue of their stock. You can browse geographically by US State, by country, and by topic. Or, you can search for anything from alligators to the California Zephyr. They also have a blog. [more inside]
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