Texts shown in a special exhibition
in connection with the International Fair
"Paperworld" in Frankfort / Germany in January 1999
The history of open to send postcards
1. The beginnings of the postcard
2. The collection of picture postcards
3. Best wishes for various occasions
4. The Post
5. Exceptional sizes and formats
6. Exceptional techniques
7. Cards with decorative appliqués
8. Beautiful women pairs of lovers children
9. Means of transport
1. The beginnings of the postcard
Communication among people was first made by means of gestures and language, later on in writing as well. Language enabled people to communicate only over short distances. Writing enlarged the radius of communication but took for granted that people were able to read and write. In the Middle Ages mainly clergymen had these abilities whereas most laypeople, even some emperors remained illiterate. Written documents, predominantly letters, were delivered by messengers, merchants, friends, etc; there have been regular licenced postal services since the 17th century. The letters used to be folded and sealed; envelopes have been used since the 18th century. Letters were handed over at the Post Office, the postage was usually paid for by the sender. Stamps have been used since 1840. After compulsory school education had been introduced in the 19th century, each and every child learnt to read and write after a fashion. In the second half of the last century stationery shops offered luxuriously printed, embossed and die cut letter sheets which were written on by children in their best handwriting and then handed over or probably sent by mail as well. At the same time the custom of presenting "godparents´ letters" developed. They were put into a richly decorated envelope together with a piece of gold and given to the godchild.
As a rule, letters were sealed without any decoration; as from the 18th century, however, drawn, painted or imprinted congratulatory wishes for various occasions have become common. All these simple or decorated letters differed from the latter-day postcard as they were not sent openly by mail. When the economy experienced a fresh impetus after 1850 and the lower social classes also started to send messages, the need for brief, open messages without envelopes arose. The Prussian senior post councillor of the time, Heinrich Stephan, presented a proposal for open "correspondence cards" with imprinted stamps on the occasion of a Post Conference in Karlsruhe in 1865. His proposal was not accepted; the reason being lack of confidentiality. In 1869, Dr. Emanuel Herrmann in Vienna resumed Stephan's proposal in a study concerning the Austrian Postal Services. Thus, the "correspondence card" with an imprinted two-kreutzer-stamp was introduced in Austria-Hungary on October 1st, 1869. It had an address and a message side; there were no pictures whatsoever, except the Austro-Hungarian double-headed eagle on the address side. Other countries followed suit:
1870: the North German Confederation, Württemberg, Baden, other German states as well as Great Britain.
1871: Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Canada.
1871 74: France, Romania, Russia, the Scandinavian countries, Spain, Japan, Italy, Chile, the U.S.A. etc.
At first, the "correspondence cards" were only able to be sent within one's own country. As from 1875 the World Postal Association began to establish itself which made it possible to send mail to other countries. Official "correspondence cards" with imprinted stamps were always offered by the post without pictures. But even at that time, there were people who subsequently affixed pictures either for private or business purposes, such as the purveyor of books to the Court by the name of Schwarz in Oldenburg in 1870. In addition, privately manufactured postcards were allowed to be sold as from 1872 upon which the sender had to affix a stamp; the postage depended on the various regions. This possibility provided an incentive to print a picture on one side of the postcard. The first postcards with a picture are called 'precursors' by collectors. They were manufactured in monochromatic lithographic print and were mainly sold in pubs and on stands near sights which were frequented by many tourists. Their number was very large but only a few of them have remained as they were not yet collected in those days. The picture postcard's hey-day did not start until around 1890/95. A certain number of cards was then also produced in chromolithographic (multi-coloured) print. The days when people began their collections had started.
2. The collection of picture postcards
Picture postcards were not collected until they had become more attractive by means of more varied printing techniques. Monochromatic lithography was complemented by (multi-coloured) chromolithography. In addition, monochromatic phototypes based on photos, etchings, copperplate prints, flat/two-dimensional lithographs, autotypes or real photoprints remained. Phototypic reproduction and chromolithography were often combined. The variety was even enlarged by die-cuttings, embossments, appliquéd ornaments and other finesses. There were cards with a violet scent, some that squeaked when pressing them and others that could be changed by turning or pulling. "Greetings from ..." cards on which several views had been skillfully combined were regarded as treasures among collectors. At first, local view cards had been predominant, but then postcards including congratulatory wishes for various occasions were also introduced to the market: beautiful women, pairs of lovers, landscapes, animals, funny scenes, portraits of princes, generals, politicians, artists, etc. There was hardly any topic which was not depicted on postcards. Writing and collecting postcards became fashionable; between around 1895 and the First World War the collecting passion was caught by all "cultural nations". Collectors were given the melodious name of "philocartists"; special associations were founded; magazines were published; stationery and souvenir shops offered the latest novelties. The demand for collectors' articles was enormous: large and small albums, decorative tin boxes of postcard size, devices to have a closer look at the cards, etc. Their hey-day ended with the outbreak of the First World War. The quantity of the cards produced was not reduced; editions with a new range of motifs even increased in numbers: patriotic cards with war paroles, black-white-red ribbons and flags, war scenes, descriptions of soldiers' lives and sufferings as well as emperors' and military commanders' portraits. Yet, due to the shortage of high-quality material and qualified labour, the mass-produced goods lost their attractivity for collectors. After the war the old passion was not resumed; picture postcards which were produced by machines then dominated the market. A renaissance of collections has been experienced with the nostalgic movement since around 1970. People's awareness increased that picture postcards offer a wide range of cultural/historical development: they illustrate old views of the town, fashion, means of transport, pub culture, human life and the respective time's taste.
3. Best wishes for various occasions
In the course of life and within a year there have always been various occasions for celebrations with relatives and friends, to exchange presents and to wish them good luck either verbally or in writing. Some such occasions have remained from old times, others have been changed in and/or over time. As from around 1900 best wishes postcards have played an important part. As far as we know, best wishes letters and cards date back to the 17th century. Since then, they have been sent in envelopes in considerable quantities. They were often hand-made and inscribed artistically. The most common occasions were: Christmas, New Year, birthdays, weddings and baptism. Baptismal letters in particular had a variety of rich and luxurious designs. Many of the old techniques, such as collages, appliquéd ornaments, pulling and folding mechanisms, were still used for the openly sent cards of later times. The use of fast, multicolour printing techniques, however, required an increased number of copies to be made so that additional work done by hand was no longer suitable; it became an exception. Openly sent cards were still rare during the nineties of the past century, but the market grew explosively after the turn of the century. The main occasions for which cards used to be sent were Christmas, New Year, Easter, Whitsun, birthdays and Days of one's Patron Saint as well as Confirmations. Cards including best wishes for a marriage or baptism were generally not sent openly.
Best wishes for a Happy Christmas: Christian motifs used to be rare or appeared as kitsch: the birth of Christ, angels and bells. Father Christmas, the family around the Christmas tree, candles, winter sceneries, snowmen, etc. were predominant.
Best wishes for a Happy New Year: Common motifs were: the 1st of January, 12 o'clock and the respective number of the new year; "Happy New Year"; a hilarious party or symbols of good luck, such as chimneysweeps, horse-shoes, four-leafed clover, pigs, magic mushrooms or lucky pennies. Health, wealth and professional success were difficult to depict.
Best wishes for a Happy Easter: Christian motifs are rare. Most cards show folklore Easter symbols, such as Easter eggs, chicks, bunnies or spring symbols (green and blooming landscapes, paschal lambs).
Best wishes for Whitsun: Apart from the May Beetle, there were hardly any fixed symbols. Spring sceneries and flowers used to be of particular significance. Christian motifs were not used.
Best wishes for one's Confirmation: Have been sent on open cards as from around 1910. A well-dressed female or male confirmee is usually standing in front of the altar praying; in the background, a guardian angel appears or a pastor is giving the young boy or girl his blessing.
Best wishes for the first day at school: Were not sent on open cards until after the First World War. They always show school beginners who are carrying a satchel on their backs and a large cornet in their hands. On some cards, only a slate and a sponge are depicted.
Best wishes for a Happy Birthday: There are many different motifs: Bouquets of flowers, children, postmen, pigeons or swallows carrying best wishes in their beaks. An inebriated "Three cheers for him!" can also be found in many pictures.
4. The Post
A well-functioning organisation was of particular importance for the transport of written communication. Its activities were depicted on numerous postcards. This was done to show the post's rôle in the relationship between people; often with romantic transfiguration. Next to tables with flowers, inkpots and plumes there is always the decorative blue letter box of the Imperial Post into which cards and letters are thrown by elegant men, fashionably dressed ladies or boys and girls with curly hair. The postman is turned into Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and the Imperial Post secretary by the name of von Stephan appears with a laurel wreath. The transport of written communication is also romanticized: The dear old mail coach and its driver with horn and whip are revived; pigeons holding letters in their beaks are gliding in the spring sky; a messenger is riding on a zeppelin and the postman in a smart uniform is courteously handing over the letters and cards to a lady who had been longing to receive them. In addition, there were some particularities: Hall postcards
Bild Saalpostkarten einfügen, siehe Poster
which were sent from one table to another in dance halls, and the old-fashioned telephone which was later to compete with written communication.
5. Exceptional sizes and formats
The common sizes of postcards used to depend on the format of the envelopes; where the cards stuck out too much from the postman´s pile of letters they might have been damaged. The precise dimensions of postcards varied a little and were dependent on the cut. The height was between 8.7 and 9.5 cm; the width between 14 and 14.4 cm. Any variant size did not fit into the bundle and had to be delivered separately.
From the very beginning, postcards in Great Britain were smaller than in Germany, i.e. 9 x 11.1 cm. It was soon realized that the cards stuck out of the pile of British standard letters on account of their width, so the format was changed to 7.7 x 12.1 cm. The format 8.2 x 11.8 cm was also available.
The size of long, slim postcards was 7 x 16 (17.3) cm. They were available both as phototypic prints and original photo cards.
Panoramic cards became fashionable around 1910, but they were not suitable to be sent openly. They did, however, have certain space for the address on the reverse side. The cards were up to approx. 72 cm wide and were to be folded several times up to seven times (i.e. eight times the size of a standard card). They were therefore also called fourfold, sixfold and eightfold postcards. The picture always showed the view of a landscape or town. The basis for production was a photo which had been taken using a strong wide-angle lens or been composed of several photos. The monochromatic phototypic print was then overprinted chromolithographically and some parts were given an occasional glitter.
Oversize postcards were available in various formats: from 17.7 x 24 cm to 22.4 x 30.2 cm. On the undivided reverse side there was space for the address as well as the printed remark "Oversize card printed matter". The cards were thus only to be sent with short greetings, not with detailed messages. All extra large postcards showed views of towns, landscapes or individual objects. Most of them were monochromatic phototypic prints; only a few were produced by chromolithography.
The smallest postcards with a size between 5 x 7.2 cm and 6 x 8.2 cm with or without imprinted stamps were included in the toy boxes which were commonly called "Children´s Post". Some of them were picture postcards with the view of a town or landscape. They were usually manufactured using phototypic techniques, rarely in chromolithographic print. It is well possible that the small postcards were occasionally sent by mail.
There were non-rectangular formats, but they were very rare. Round postcards (beer mats) were occasionally sent or cards shaped like the object shown.
6. Exceptional techniques
Most postcards used to be rectangular and had the same format with few minor deviations. But even within the common rectangle, the postcard designers' imagination was almost unlimited. In addition to various appliquéd ornaments, there were also techniques and mechanisms that can be well typified despite their sophisticated variety. The individual parts were often put together in home work.
1) On "Hold-against-the-light cards", details light up when they are held against the light. The lights may represent the moon, stars, windows, street lamps, flowers or handwriting. The parts which were to flash up had been die-cut, underlayed with thin paper and sometimes overprinted in blue as a "moonlight card". W. Hagelberg Company in Berlin was a kind of monopolist for this type of high-quality postcards.
2) "Turn" or "pull" cards have one or more die-cut parts of different shapes behind which various pictures can appear by turning a serrated wheel or by pulling a paper strip.
3) With Leporello cards (cards with concertina-like folds), a flap is die-cut out of a certain part of the picture (e.g. a postman's bag) from which a strip of folded pictures (usually views of towns) can be drawn.
4) Normal picture postcards for various occasions and with various motifs onto which small letters, telegrams or calendars were glued which had no connection to the picture. It is well possible that glueing was sometimes effected by the sender him-/herself.
5) Cards which can be folded out using various pop-up folding mechanisms so that landscapes or funny scenes may appear on several levels.
6) Silhouette cards were made by glueing portraits cut by artists at fairgrounds onto postcards. The senders also glued on models die-cut by machines and sold in stationery shops.
7. Cards with decorative appliqués
In general, picture postcards are made of rectangular multilayer cardboard with various printings. They can, however, be complemented by technical objects or especially by appliqués: textile material, embroidering, paper or dried flowers, sealing plates, feathers, hair, glitter, etc. Some appliqués were affixed in a manner so that the cards could be sent openly without being damaged. More sensitive cards were probably sent in envelopes.
Appliqués were mostly affixed to the cards by women and children at home for low piece wages. This was the only reason why appliquéd cards were able to be sold at reasonable prices, although they were still relatively expensive in comparison with other cards on account of their low number of copies.
Apart from embroidered French cards, the production of appliquéd cards was stopped to a large extent in the First World War because of the shortage of material and labour. After the war, during the inflation period and economic crisis, cheap cards were the only ones to be bought.
The wide range of appliquéd cards renders it almost impossible to classify them. The manufacturers' imagination was unlimited, so there are hardly any cards where the appliqués consist of only one and the same material which was uniformly arranged.
8. Beautiful women pairs of lovers children
On the whole, the motifs shown on picture postcards depict the cultural history of the positive aspects of human life. People are shown in the most varied situations but usually smiling, in their Sunday clothes and perfect hairstyle. The negative aspects are rarely shown and if so, then with a rosy tinge over and above the suffering: soldiers die as heros, men and women pray at the flower-decorated grave of their lover. There is no misery of military hospitals, no dead body in the mud of trenches, no hostel for the homeless, no mental home, no face of a dying person, no rugged beggar. The only exception: Numerous picture postcards of the First World War show destruction in the enemy's country and the miserable lives of the Polish and Russian rural population.
Beautiful women can often be found on picture postcards, always photos with a sweetish soft-focus lens and light-coloured overprint. In addition, there are painted or drawn women in seductive poses and depicted with exaggerated fashionable details. All the women are young, dressed according to the fashion of the time, with flowers in their hair or with huge hats. Frivolous situations are not seldom; one can feel a trace of pornography. Grey-haired mothers-in-law and grandmothers with wrinkles and lines in their faces can only be found as queer birds on funny postcards.
Pairs of lovers are also young and beautiful; love in an old people's home does not exist on picture postcards. Although love is shown in many different situations, it generally remains virtuous, even though traces of a risqué nature cannot be ruled out. Despite the embracement, the woman's hairstyle is not untidy, the man's bow tie is still in order. Love in underwear or even less is very rare.
Children can be found on picture postcards surprisingly often in most varied situations. All of them are neat and tidy wearing frilled dresses, sailor suits, etc. Dirty and torn seats of trousers are missing. The pictures of boys showing them as fatherland defenders in uniforms with spiked helmets or paper hats which were especially popular in the First World War seem ridiculous to us now; a terrible distortion of childhood nature.
9. Means of transport
When the picture postcard came into being, the technical progress of means of transport had already reached a remarkable level. Balloons became rare; zeppelins caught everybody's attention. Trains became faster; horse trams were replaced by electric trams. Propeller ships superseded sailing boats and paddle steamers. The ordinary bicycle was replaced by the smart English touring bicycle and cars roared in the streets. It goes without saying that the new technical achievements also appeared on postcards to enliven the pictures, or they were made kitsch of in a narrow-minded bourgeois way. On the one hand, zeppelins, for example, were retouched into the sky above towns and landscapes; on the other hand, the yellow mail coach and its driver with a horn, whip and top hat were very popular. Lokomotives and cars represented the wishes for a "Happy New Year" and almost disappeared behind roses and carnations. Ships carried beer barrels and cheerful seamen. Advertising postcards of shipping or automobile companies, however, were more matter-of-fact as well as pictures of commercial and war ships which used to be Germany's pride in those days. Prior to the year 1914, technology was rarely shown negatively. In road accidents on best wishes cards for the new year noboby was injured, but instead the cheerful people ended up in soft snow. Later, zeppelins dropped bombs on British towns, ships were torpedoed and burning planes crashed. The German soldier dies a heroic death for a good cause; in the end there is one's own country's victory and the enemy's defeat.
What
is the special meaning
of greeting cards
and postcards?
How do postcards and greeting cards take shape?
Greeting Cards
in the change of times
The history of open to send
postcards
An exhibition of postcards
during the "Paperworld" in Frankfurt 1999
The
development
of both the postcard
and the picture postcard
Sympathy
cards
from all over the world
An exhibition during
the "Paperworld" in Frankfurt 1998
The official measurements for envelops in Germany