With all the federal and state regulations imposed on the food supply today Americans have few concerns over the food we purchase for our families. That wasn’t always true. In the early part of the 1900s, milk purity was a real concern. In some cases, “milk” was killing us.
“Aurelio Item” appears on a very old postcard and provokes a question with five answers. “Aurelio,” a boy’s name of Spanish origin, an Italian postcard, and a story of two old fools who mess with Mother Nature are all pieces of a search to learn what “Item” means!
Last September, here at Postcard History’s Editor’s Desk, we started to whittle-down a pile of postcards that have been found, bought, or donated. There are short stories in every card. Some are wonderful, some are horrid, and others are ho-hum. Today we present one of each, but we’ll let you decide which is which. Cast your vote in the comments section below.
The British Postal Museum has a spiffy new video, “Wish You Were Here: 151 Years of the British Postcard.” It’s a promotion for the Museum’s exhibition that started in May 2021, but you can still catch it (until January 2, 2022) at the Museum in London. The exhibition covers the story of the postcard in various snapshots, including early cards, wartime messages, Bamforth “saucy postcards,” postcrossing, and the various ways that postcards are being made today by artists and commercial publishers. The image above shows the post office in Yarmouth, Norfolk through a driveway of the town’s harbor.
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday blew right past us, so we now find ourselves in the grip of the Christmas buying season. Not the way you’ve envisioned the holidays? Neither did we, but consider what it was like to be in the trenches during World War I. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Allison Devereaux’s short piece on Christmas postcards from World War I. The poignancy of the hope to return home for Christmas shown in the illustrations reveals so much about the wartime and the home front.
Thanksgiving is a time of reflection. “We the People” have accomplished some wondrous things in the 245 years since declaring ourselves independent of the British Monarch. The American system of national parks is one accomplishment we can reflect upon and be exceptionally proud. Yellowstone National Park was the first (1872).
Long before the solitudes of western New York were disturbed by the presence of the white man, it was custom of the Indians to assemble occasionally at Niagara, and offer sacrifice to the Spirit of the Falls. The sacrifice consisted of a white birch-bark canoe, being sent over the terrible cliff, filled with ripe fruits and blooming flowers, and bearing the fairest girl in the tribe who had just attained the age of womanhood.
Postcard History is a free online magazine dedicated to vintage and historic picture postcards and the many stories associated with them. We feature richly illustrated articles designed to both inform and entertain postcard collectors and history buffs. We also provide the most comprehensive listing of forthcoming shows around. And there’s a rich trove of links to institutional and personal online postcard collections. There’s also a comprehensive, verified listing of active postcard clubs in the U. S. and Canada, which we’re working on expanding worldwide.
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