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We think of postcards as part of modern life, whether in their printed or electronic versions. Surprisingly, they have not been around that long! It has been just over a hundred years since the so-called “postcard revolution” hit the world. Before then postcards, or paper cards with a picture or drawing on one side and message or address on the back were largely unknown to the world. How they came to be is a fascinating historical story.

The predecessor of the postcard was apparently invented in America, by John P. Carlton of Philadelphia. These cards were mailed in an envelope, but were small and usually hand-delivered. Carlton’s copyright was later taken up by H.L. Lipman, and Lipman’s cards became a brand name (and patent applied for) until the early 1870s. The first truly “postal card,” one for which postage could be placed directly on the card itself, was conceived of by the Austrian Dr. Emanuel Herrmann in 1869. It was first used the next year by the Hungarian government to commemorate the Franco-Prussian War. During the 1870s the first advertising cards were also produced in the US and Europe. Businesses quickly saw the value of using attractive little cards to offer their wares. The US government offered pre-printed postcards with a one cent stamp on them, half the cost of a letter stamp, which helped to increase their utilization.

Nonetheless, we are still far from the postcard as we know it today, with a large image on one side and text and an address on another side of a thick piece of paper. In the US, this really began in 1893, when in the course of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, companies offered a number of cards to market their wares. Still, these cards were not meant to be mailed.

The next big change in the US came in 1898, when Congress officially permitted the sending of privately printed postcards, not just government ones, through the postal services. By now, a postcard industry was taking off in Europe. American publishers were already responding, as this 1897 postcard by the American Souvenir Card company of San Francisco shows. Note the card’s style, common during the late 1890s. The two images are probably from photographs. The large white space is intended for writing, as the back could only be used for addresses. The decorative swirls were also part of the card’s appeal. This would only change after 1900, when first the US and then different European countries permitted the back of a card to be divided, with one part for a message, the other for the address.

Another European innovation that made it to the US was the concept of “Greetings from,” or in the original German “Gruss Aus.” During the late 1890s, this kind of card became enormously popular in German-speaking countries. Cards like this were sent by tourists from every Alpine hamlet to friends and relatives at home. Towns and hotels benefited from this free, personalized advertising. The example above is a particularly beautiful one from San Francisco, with a black and white photograph framed by exquisite decoration. Published by Richard Behrendt, a San Francisco publisher, it was printed in Germany, as were the vast bulk of postcards around the world in the early days. German lithographic techniques and printing efficiencies made them the best source of early cards.

International trade (new faster ships and trains!) helped drive the adoption of the postcard. So did postal regulations that made it possible to send postcards between different postal systems, as national postal authorities needed to sanction the use of postcards in their domains and agree on financial terms.

By 1900, billions of postcards were being sent. Germany alone accounted for over a billion. In the US, consumption in 1906 was nearly 800 million postcards. One reason for the success of postcards was that a postcard received was also an invitation to respond with a postcard; much like email today, its spread was viral. Another reason was collectors. Postcards were often so beautiful that people liked to save them. They often offered the only images people could easily keep of distant places. Collecting networks formed, with members furiously exchanging postcards. One of Britain’s biggest publishers, Raphael Tuck & Sons, sponsored competitions among collectors, with large monetary rewards for those with the biggest collections. An early winner had over 20,000 postcards in 1902!

One of America’s most famous and best publishers was the Detroit Publishing Co. They managed to get the exclusive American rights to the secret Photochrom printing process from a Swiss owner. This lithographic process lead to beautiful cards like these two, above of the Public Library, and below of Grand Central Station in New York City. Detroit Publishing cards remain favorites among collectors today.

The postcard craze dimmed at the advent of World War I when tariffs against German goods often led to lesser quality cards in many parts of the world. Germany’s subsequent defeat led to the destruction and closing of many postcard manufacturing plants. Furthermore, even before World War I it had become so cost-efficient and easy to reprint photographs as postcards that some of the appealing decorative art of the early days was lost and the collecting fad waned. Today’s postcards are indeed almost exclusively photographic, usually in brilliant color. One can also say that the sending of photographs by email as digital postcards like those on this site, are extensions of the concept of the postcard - sending an image, from a place with a personal association together with a written message to someone else. This is a practice that is not likely to end soon!