TRAVEL POSTCARDS
'GREETINGS FROM EVERYWHERE'
In the summer of 1948 an Indianapolis couple sent a travel postcard with the word Wisconsin emblazoned in bold and bright letters across the front. On the back was this brief message:
"Dear Pearl and Bill: We finally got up here.
We are at Charley's Dad's place, will be going to Mary Etta's tomorrow. I dread the trip back. Liz and Charley."
Lots of messages were sent that way in the 1940's and 1950's, there was also a trend to just pick-up postcards along the way and eventually provide a sort of travelogue for the folks back home once the vacation was over.
Usually there was a vast array to select from at major tourist sites such as national parks, major cities, and historic locations.
They could truly be from everywhere.
Greetings from Santa Ana, California, heart of the Orange Empire on one, and Hoke's Truck Stop on the two-lane highway in Calgary, Alberta, on another.
One highly popular travel postcard which was available nearly everywhere were the large letter linens which spelled out greetings. Each letter in the location's name provided a view of a local monument or building.
During the 1940's and 1950's over 1,000 cities, sites and states were eventually portrayed on them, mostly by the Curt Teich Company.
Besides the colourfully printed ones, a few tourist hot spots like the Ozarks, the Wisconsin Dells, Smoky Mountain National Park, Niagara Falls Ontario and Key West, Florida began offering actual photographs on postcards in the 1950's and were starkly attractive in glossy black and white.
In the long run the actual photograph travel postcards were far fewer in number than regular postcards, mainly because they were more costly to produce, and consequently are somewhat higher on the collectability scale.
Every five and dime convenience store nearby a North American Courthouse would have a rack of courthouse postcards.
By the middle of the 1950's, they were not nearly as readily available, and tourists had to rely more on the major attractions and buildings of the larger cities nearby.
Major hotels, hospitals, fairgrounds, university structures and skylines remained top choices for nearly two decades.
Still other travel postcards came from rather obscure places, like a drug store, restaurant, motel, or even a truck stop. Typically, cards like these were sponsored by the individual establishment which was prominently pictured on the card. In most cases they were given away to customers or sold for just a few cents.
In his book on Georgia postcards, Abbeville to Zebulon, author Gary Doster explains, " in larger towns, and in many of the smaller towns as well, the cards were sold in drugstores, and indeed the town drugstore was frequently the publisher or the sponsor of the views."
"This no doubt explains why so many of these stores are seen in the views of main streets and business sections: the postcards were, or could be, an inexpensive means of advertising." One thing going for the possible resurgence of these types of cards is their use as eye-catching decorations. In a just recent designing with collectibles magazine depicted an entire rack of travel postcards as in a 1950’s Drugstore of all the places traveled by the house owners. "Ephemera such as travel postcards, many of which are highly colourful and richly illustrated, ad an off-beat splash of character to a room.
Unlike many collectibles such as toys and trading cards, travel postcards show no signs of attracting investors they are usually a wonderful view of fine memories or historic buildings that are no longer there.
