In the United States, postcards could not be sent through the mail until 1872, and it wasn’t until 1898 that non-official, privately-printed cards could be mailed. With this new, quick, and attractive method of communication, a souvenir postcard industry soon flourished. Photographers in popular tourism locations created often exoticized images of sites, landscapes, street scenes, and residents, and collecting postcards, both mailed and unmailed, became a popular hobby.
Burns Library holds several collected sets of postcards. The cards reproduced for this exhibit date from the 1890s -1920s, and primarily depict Africa and Europe. This selection focuses on portraits of individuals, and features some hand colored examples.