How Old Is My Postcard? Part 3

By: Richard Moody

The third era I will discuss is called the "Undivided Back Era 1901-1907" but just keep in mind that the two previous eras I discussed also were undivided back eras. On 24 December 1901, the United States Congress granted permission to use "Post Card" on the back of privately printed issues and allowed the regular size postcard of today but still limited the back of the postcard to just the address. Since the message from the sender was still restricted to the front of the card, most of these cards still have writing on the front with many of the cards setting aside a white space for the message. This era marked an increased interest in postcards by the publishers of the day and by the general public. Large numbers of cards were still printed in Europe but American publishers grew their business and new publishers arrived on the scene but the quality of most was inferior to the overseas competition. Detroit Publishing Company became one of the dominant publishers of the day with their "phostint" process which used lithographic stones to print their postcards in a process brought from Europe. Another dominant publisher at this time was Raphael Tuck and Sons from England but they had a large office in New York and produced lots of US postcards.

While postcard views produced prior to this period resembled European postcard styles, the early 1900s saw the US lean heavily on view cards and serious art was not seen on American postcards. While French postcards reflected the Art Nouveau movement the US limited itself to postcards of classical paintings from museums and no serious contemporary art appeared on our postcards.

The fourth era is the Divided Back Era which is also referred to as "The Golden Age of Postcards" and ran from 1907 - 1915. It began on 1 March 1907 when the divided back was allowed on the postcard and America was late to this party as most of countries of the world had already adopted this format. During this period the image normally covered the entire card and, since the message could be written on the back, collector enthusiasm for postcards increased. Almost every home had a postcard album on the parlor table for the family and guests to view and see the wonders of the world. The Victorian age flourished in the US along with great optimism. Postcards were sold by the millions and clubs were formed throughout the US to exchange postcards with strangers from far away places. According to the International Postal Union, over 140 BILLION postcards were mailed from 1907 through 1919 and millions more were bought and collected but never mailed.

Article Source: https://www.collectibles-articles.com

Moody's Postcards has been accumulating vintage collectible postcards for twenty years. We specialize in United States view postcards but we also have thousands of antique foreign views, topical postcards and trade cards. www.moodyspostcards.com www.moodyspostcards.blogspot.com

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