Doing a job that you love is one of life’s greatest rewards. One man who achieved such an honor was Theo Sohmer. He went home to his native California after the Great War in Europe to his old job as a newspaper photographer. This is the story of Theo’s first assignment.
Impatient young (and not so young) lovers have known since 1754 that Gretna Green was the place to go for a quick wedding. All they had to do was outrun the irate parents to cross the small river bridge into Scotland. “Gretna Greens” in Aberdeen, Ohio and Elkton, Maryland followed in their footsteps.
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.
But, Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley
And so it is, or was, with our plan for the re-design of Postcard History’s homepage. Robert Burns’ poem To A Mouse (excerpt, above) pretty aptly describes our situation. The re-design will still happen, but technical issues have caused us to postpone the launch until Thursday, December 3, 2020.
The home page of the Escanaba (Michigan) Postcard Museum gets right to the point: “Escanaba Postcard Museum is the premier website for exploring the colorful history of Escanaba, Michigan—perfectly preserved in a stunning array of vintage postcards from the early to mid 20th century.” And it delivers on this array of cards from a town that even today has 12,000 inhabitants. You can enlarge the images, of course, but what really charmed us is this: “Escanaba Postcard Museum welcomes visitors to download and use any of the images contained on its website, with limitations.”
“Push away the COVID-19 blues by writing a postcard” is the introductory sentiment of this article from this article in the Press-Enterprise newspaper of Riverside County, California. Tips in the article include being specific about feelings of gratitude, hope, encouragement, or even just plain personal news. “The picture on the front of a postcard is half the pleasure. The back brings what is most personal and precise,” the author of the article notes, and that, after all, is the point.
Ross Verlag was a German postcard publisher, renowned for the production and distribution of high quality movie star postcards throughout Europe of both American and European performers from 1919 to 1944. The website goes on to say that it “contains an image archive of as many of the thousands of Ross Verlag postcards as we have been able to find. It also details as much information as I have been able to obtain related to the history of Ross Verlag, and its founder, Heinrich Ross. As an added bonus, this website also contains images of postcards from many other European postcard publishers, and a little bit of information regarding them.” We cribbed all of the above from the home page of the website and, after browsing the German, English, American, and Russian entries we can attest to the extent of the collection. Several entries are in non-English languages, but the proprietor has helpfully provided a translation service.
Peter Helck, an American artist with the talent to make his art speed off the page, decided on a profession at age 13. Seldom does a man achieve childhood dreams with the success that Helck did!
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