Daniel Yang | Postcards & Visual Culture: What they say about London, travel, and ourselves

Musings

Postcards & Visual Culture

What they say about London, travel, and ourselves

While I was studying abroad in London, I couldn't but help notice the postcard racks everywhere since I lived next to the British Museum where tourists would often visit. I began to think about what role the postcard plays in culture, and how the postcards I passed by daily represented the city I was in. Other forms of photographic representation have been analyzed critically from fine art to cinema. I thought, why not postcards too? In an era of increasing worldwide travel, these artifacts are bound to carry some meaning. Everything we make and consume says something about ourselves.

Introduction

One of the staples of travel is the ubiquitous and unassuming postcard. They sit by the hundreds on racks outside tourist sights, convenience stores, and gift shops. Varying by size and shape, they are united by the familiar image on the front and the blank space on the back for a quick note. What differentiates the postcards of one place from that of another is the set of images on the front. The choice of images on a place’s postcards are how that place is choosing to represent itself to both those consuming the postcards at that moment, and to those receiving them through the postal service back at home. In London the images are typically those representing iconic architecture, modes of transportation, and royalty among others. However, even within London there are different, more specific representations depending on the location within the city and the postcard vendor. Through these postcards, London communicates that it is a unique place worth visiting, and that it is both a modern city and a place rich in history.

History of the Postcard

The postcard was originally created by postal systems around the world for use as a quick note that would be cheaper to send than a full letter. The first postcard is attributed to the Austrian Empire on October 1, 1869. ¹ From that point, much of the postcard’s history is then traced through its development in the United States. The United States Postal Service (USPS) introduced the postal mailing card to America in May 1873. No writing was allowed on the back except for the recipient’s address otherwise it would be charged the full letter rate of two cents instead of one cent. ² However, the front had a small illustration and blank space for a short message. Only the USPS could produce postal mailing cards until Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act of May 19, 1898. ³ This opened up the market to private companies to produce cards. Around this time, postal cards printed also started having the translation carte postale printed on them, signaling that these cards were now entering the international postal system. In December 1901, USPS Order No. 1447 shortened the term “postal mailing card” to “post card” and this is how the little pieces of cardboard have been referred to ever since.

In London, early postcards were used as a political tool. They were the “television of the Edwardian age” ⁴ depicting the news of Westminster through political cartoons and photographs of political candidates. Political sparring even took place amongst the European nations through postcards. “Continental countries had been using picture postcards for some years, particularly for propaganda purposes…cartoons on postcards which attacked the British Empire builders and saw Chamberlain as the arch aggressor. British publishers had responded by producing their own patriotic postcards.” ⁴ It would not be a giant leap from the political and patriotic propaganda function of the postcard during the Edwardian age to the postcard as a tool of modern commercial tourism.

The Modern Postcard

The most significant change to the postcard was ushered in with the Divided Back Era in 1902 in Britain ⁴ and 1907 in the United States. ³ This was a major change as it got rid of the blank space on the front and divided the back of the card for message writing and address. This change increased the size available for the image and made the image the most prominent feature of the card. The written message was no longer the main emphasis. Instead, the written message now supplemented the picture which could communicate far more than words could in the same space. According to UCLA Art Historian and Anthropologist Saloni Mathur, “The picture eventually came to dominate the postcard, reshaping it by the end of the century into a distinctively modern, and fundamentally visual, genre.” ⁵ The postcard continued to experience minor changes in texture and style and finally entered the current Photochrome Era in 1939 when the Union Oil Company introduced more photorealistic, color postcards at its service stations. ³ As the original reason for the postcard was to provide a cheap and quick form of communication, the postcard can be seen as the predecessor to e-mail before the age of personal computers and Internet. Even with today’s technology and cyber cafés, the postcard is still an important multimedia form communicating with images, captions, and the words of the note writer. However, we will be focusing this analysis on the visual language of the postcard and its relationship to the tourist and the potential tourist to be.

The temptation in studying postcards is to approach it through the same critical lens as photography or other forms of two-dimensional art. However, the postcard as visual medium is slightly more complex. “What distinguishes the postcard as a visual genre are its complex circuits of production, consumption, collection, and travel. Indeed…the ephemerality, collectability, and availability of the postcard is itself an important element in the way it functions as a form.” ⁵ The nature of the postcard as a mass consumed product sent all around the globe makes it necessary to examine not just the content of the images contained on postcards, but also how these images are consumed.

Tower Bridge

In the postcard of Tower Bridge at dusk by Kevin Muir, one of London’s most iconic and photogenic landmarks is presented. The photograph was taken after a day of rainfall that had recently ended as evidenced by dramatic clearing clouds and slick sidewalk reflecting city lights. This photographic strategy of increasing drama by photographing during light and weather transitions not only makes the image more aesthetically pleasing but reveals something about the city. It reinforces the notion of London as a rainy city, which is usually a negative in the tourism industry, but Muir has composed it in a visually evocative fashion turning it into a positive. The Bridge is also illuminated by spotlights and is framing London City Hall between its two towers. This contrast in architectural styles between the neo-gothic Tower Bridge and the modern City Hall communicates to the viewer that London is a city that comfortably merges the old with the new. It doesn’t matter that the Bridge was constructed relatively recently in the 19th century because most tourists don’t know that. Even if they did, the architecture still evokes a certain historical mythology of medieval London through its styling.

Up Big Ben, 3am

Postcard. (2005, November 27). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 28, 2005, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcard
Fricke, C. (1996). The 1907 dividing line for postal cards & postcards. Stamps, 254, 14.
Postcard Chronology. (2001, January 1). Postcards of the Smithsonian. Retrieved November 27, 2005, from http://www.si.edu/archives/postcard/chronology.htm.
McDonald, I. (1994). Postcards and politics. History Today, 44, 5.
Mathur, S. (1999). Wanted native views: collecting colonial postcards of India. In A. Burton (Ed.), Gender, Sexuality and Colonial Modernities (p. 95-116). Routledge: London.