Anna
Maria Island, December 2, 1987
Wish you were here!
By Gib Bergquist
All
of us at one time or another in our lives have received the above message on a colorful
picture post card from traveling friends and loved ones. Where and when did this bit of
Americana originate? What! You don’t really care?
Well, the Cracker would
like to tell you, anyway.
The picture post card made
its debut at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and has been an important means
of communication ever since.
For the first time, for
the price of only a one-cent stamp for domestic 
delivery, these colorful
cards were accepted for mailing by the U.S. Post Office Department. For two cents, the
card could be sent anywhere in the world. There was one important restriction: Only the
name of the recipient could appear on the blank or reverse side of the card.
Due to this postal
regulation, senders would write little messages such as “Luv ya!,” “Miss
You!,” “My hotel room is where the ‘X’ is,” and more often
“Wish you were here!” on the picture or in the margins of the card, much to the
chagrin of the serious post card collector.
From its introduction in
1893, the collection of post cards became a national craze and remained so until about
1920. It was not uncommon to find post card albums in the parlors of the most fashionable
homes of that era.
Finally, in 1907, postal
authorities recognized the mutilation problem collectors were facing and approved a new
design for the reverse side. The new card was printed with a divided reverse side —
the left for a short message and the right for the address. To the delight of the post
card collectors, this design has remained so for the past 80 years. Only the price of the
card and the stamp to mail it has drastically changed.
Post cards were once
printed for every conceivable occasion such as holidays, anniversaries, birthdays, etc.
Some of the fancy ones were even embossed. Also printed were cards depicting romance,
humor, patriotism, jingoism, animals, sports, important personages, fashions, elegant
women and even erotica — you’ve led a dull life if you haven’t seen Uncle
Harry’s collection of naughty French post cards brought back from World War I.
During the heyday of the
post card collecting hobby, one U.S. company had in its inventory 16,000 different scenes
made by photographers sent to every nook and cranny of our country to record “Main
Street, U.S.A.” and environs. Foreign countries also got into the act, since, at that
time, their engravers were better than ours.
Not all post card
producing companies were scrupulous, however, and the same scene has been known to appear
on more than one post card with only the caption changed.
“The River Queen
rounding the bend near Cairo, Illinois” might also be published as “The River
Queen rounding the bend near Vicksburg, Mississippi” and so on down the river all the
way to New Orleans.
In spite of the
charlatans, the post card remains to this day, the best pictorial record of the
development of our towns and cities and is an invaluable aid in historic restoration
projects. The Cracker, while not a serious post card collector, has a shoe box full of old
timey picture post cards chock-full of history, geography, nostalgia, and unsophisticated
humor.
“Wish you were
here” to share them with me.
From Cracker's Crumbs, ©1995 Gib Bergquist