Nostalgia: Vintage Thanksgiving Postcards

At the beginning of November, I decorate the sideboard in the dining room with my collection of vintage postcards that celebrate Thanksgiving.  The images of turkey dinners, with all the fixings, Pilgrims and autumn landscapes are graced with greetings both traditional and fun ("Toast: May the turkey look thinner/At the end of this dinner”)

More than the wonderful illustrations, I like the messages written on the back in the fading lines of a fountain pen or hard press of pencil that have crossed miles and time.  In celebration of Thanksgiving, I thought I would share these messages that delight me every year.

The most playful of the postcards, with some strange illustrations that interpret the full Thanksgiving meal (note the chicks next to the empty soup bowl labeled "chicken soup") was written in 1912 from (I suspect based on handwriting) a young Chas Brown to his "Grandma."

"Grand Dinner in honor of Thanksgiving"

"Dear Grandma, I wish thanksgiving day was here and I would eat chicken for diner [sic] it is good to eat. Chas Brown" To Mrs. L. J. Brown, postmarked Pittsburgh, PA November 25, 1912

Embossed in a green metallic ink, a scene of Pilgrims and a bountiful harvest frame lines of poetry from Whittier.

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof / Best Wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving

The postmark is faded but I can roughly date it to 1910.  The message in ink reads:

Dear Elsie, We are well, hoping that this will find you all the very same.  It is soon time that you all come to see us again. From, Anna Lauchat"  To Mrs. Elsie Rife postmarked York, PA, November 22, 1910 (approx.)

This peaceful scene of autumn and greeting verse was also sent from York, PA in the early 1900s.

 In one of my favorite little notes on the reverse, a mother writes to her daughter on Thanksgiving:

"Dear Hazel, This leaves me feeling better able to eat dinner and enjoy it very much. I will close with love from Mamma." To Miss Hazel Day, postmarked York, PA November 28, 190?

Sent in 1908, this richly colored postcard with its generous helpings of pie and a mystery side-dish (is that butter or potatoes in the middle left?) is from that miraculous time when the mail came twice a day.

 "Hope you are all having a nice time this fall.  Have you had any parties yet? Would like to run in an see you all tonight.  Lovingly, Hattie" To Miss Laura Lohnis, postmarked Springfield, MA November 25, 1908

Maybe these vintage postcards will inspire you to send your own greetings to friends and family both near and far this holiday.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Nostalgia: "Before You Were Here" Vintage Postcards and Capturing the Spirit of a Place

The Sea Island Casino, vintage postcard roughly 1940/50s

History fascinates me as much as paper nostalgia, especially vintage postcards, which is one of the reasons I started The Paper Compass.  When someone speaks about history, I am all ears.  When I travel, I often read up on the location, my curiosity driven by questions such as how did this place come to be? What did the people who shaped it see and think and do?  This is why, very naturally, and gradually over the course of the last two decades, I have unsurprisingly found myself a collector of vintage postcards.

My first vintage postcard set the trend.  I found it in a thrift store in Lake Worth, Florida my senior year in high school.  It was a view of Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, looking towards the Boston Public Garden from Kenmore Square, with a statue rising out of a fountain as the foreground focal point.  I bought it with the romantic notion of finding the scene featured once I arrived at Boston University, and I pasted it to my new dorm room filing cabinet.  As synchronicity would have it, “the end” of the Commonwealth mall, part of The Emerald Necklace, was about two blocks away from my dorm.  I recognized the statue one evening after leaving my friend’s apartment in The Braemore.  It was smaller than I thought it would be, the fountain was dry, and the grandeur of the view was marred by the overpass to Storrow Drive.  But I had found it!  I was captivated by the fact that this view of the city was still there 70+ years later.  So began the trend of collecting vintage postcards of places that I wanted to visit, dreamed about (the original Coney Island), or had been.

My recent travels (the inspiration for my last post) took me to back to Georgia’s Golden Isles, where I consistently visited my grandparents, once a year, for the first 25 years of my life.  My memories of time spent on Sea Island, at the hotel, The Cloister, located there, and also on St. Simons run vivid and deep.  They are some of my most favorite memories with my family and of my childhood.  And because time always marches on, so many of the locations, are truly that now—just memories. 

The courtyard of The Cloister roughly 1930/40s--you can
still see the wilderness of the island off in the far distance

Built in the 1920s by famous Florida architect Addison Mizner, The Cloister, a casino, a pool and a resort, soon became the summer haunt of Atlantians, and some of Hollywood’s and Washington’s rich and famous.  The hotel (and island community) survived The Great Depression by printing their own money.  After WWII the hotel continued to expand, and by the time my childhood memories of Sea Island and The Cloister began it had grown into a thriving resort and cottage community.  So highly was it regarded, along with the beauty of the island, that The Cloister hosted the 30th G8 summit there in 2004.  After that, the hotel decided to expand, to upgrade and improve.  The original Mizner hotel was torn down, a new hotel built with more modern amenities and better views.  Next, the original Beach Club was torn down, a new pool area built (minus diving boards—too much of a liability).  And, last but not least, a gate house was built so that only those with special access can get on the island.  Everything that was once there is completely razed.  Everything is new.  Modernized.  In what feels like having a waking dream, everything there is inspired by the same rooms, hallways, pool decks, and dining areas that came before it—so that it seems familiar, smells the same—but doesn’t feel right. 

The new hotel and beach club are truly beautiful.  Like something out of Architectural Digest.  In some cases I will agree that it is “improved.”  My memories, though, are of a place that was much more fun, full of traditions but also casual.  Inviting.  Which is why the two vintage postcards featured here are some of my collection favorites.  They are of the Cloister before I ever knew it, but they feel familiar because the old hotel always had the glamour that is present in vintage postcards.  Even without a message they seem to say, Wish You Were Here—celebrating the golden age of an era when handwriting and postcards were as common as fingerbowls on the dinner table.

 

It is not easy to capture the spirit of a place.  Especially, its place in time.  But I find that if you look in the right places—such as a dusty box in the corner of an antique shop—you just may be able to find the vintage postcard that does. 

For fun: a 1980s postcard of the Beach Club
that looks like it came right out of my childhood memories

A postcard of architectural renderings of the "new" Cloister hotel

                        

Nostalgia: Vintage Easter Greetings

These wonderful vintage postcards are part of my Easter collection.  The pastoral and cheerful natural images heralding the return of spring in the illustrations make me happy, especially when it means saying good-bye to winter with flocks of fuzzy, newly hatched chicks.  

The hatching chick card (above) originally caught my eye for its elaborate embellishments.  The lovely celadon paper is engraved with lavender metallic ink with a scalloped and bordered edge.  There is also lovely embossing that frames the oval which contains the illustration, which is pasted onto the card.  Having worked in the stationery industry, I appreciate the complexities of these embellishments and their overall subtly.  While the back is inscribed in pencil, “With best wishes for Easter, from Peggy” it is mysteriously not printed for mailing.   

The gathering of chicks around a be-ribboned egg (above) is a postcard that I found in Germany during my visit there in March of 2009.  I discovered it at the same market that I mentioned in my last post.  One of the more interesting details is that the illustration is signed by the artist, something that you don't see too often.

Last but not least, I couldn’t leave out these wonderful Victorian vintage die-cuts of flowering spring wheel barrows.  I found these at one of my local antique haunts and was inspired to use them on some spring-themed decorative boxes I was making.

Just like these little wheel barrows, I hope your spring is off to a bountiful start! 

   

Summer Challenge Week Six: Postcards

Challenge #6: Postcards. Whether you are traveling abroad, to the museum in the next town over, or just feel like adding an element of the exotic to your daily routine, writing a postcard to someone (even yourself) is a great way to capture your thoughts, document the moment, and connect.

With this as your touchpoint, this week take the time to write and send a postcard to someone (or yourself). If you are traveling this week, take the time to pick up some postcards as souvenirs and send them to a friend back home, or use them as a posted travel journal. Writing and sending a postcard from a local museum or attraction can make the difference between day trip and memorable adventure.

Postcards are also a great way to document artist dates, and I encourage you to send a postcard to yourself sharing what you did—through words, a sketch or even an idea. If being a homebody is in the weekly plans, use a postcard you have on hand and send it to someone who you have been thinking about (it will make their day). Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.

If summer was a piece of stationery it would be a postcard.

Short and sweet, rich with vivid imagery and a snapshot of vibrant thoughts, the postcard in all its casual practicality is the embodiment of summer. Filled with sentiments such as wish you were here, thinking of you, or the itinerary of travel, the postcard is a perfect vehicle for capturing and sharing your thoughts within a specific moment, whether mundane or memorable.

One of the things that I like best about postcards is that while letters have an illustrious history, the postcard has a slightly checkered past. It is believed that in 1840, the first postcard was sent by British writer and infamous rake Theodore Hook. Addressed to himself, from himself, and containing a caricature of workers at the post office, it is believed to be a practical joke on the postal service. As Hook was also known for the Berners Street Hoax, this sounds completely feasible.

Postcards as a popular form of souvenirs or for sending short messages began to catch on in Europe in the 1870s. By the late 1880s and early 1890s, images of the newly built Eiffel Tower at the World’s Fair and the exhibits at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, would ushered in what is known as the Golden Age of Picture Postcards.

While the postcard is most closely associated with souvenir images of tourist and architectural attractions, any illustration—from flowers to advertisements—could (and did) grace the front. By the 1930s, the “saucy postcard” was in its heyday with cartoon illustrations of bawdy imagery, and the use of text filled with innuendos, double entendres and bawdy images.

Postcards to this day remain an important part of the souvenir industry, but more importantly, they have come to embody the mythos of a person abroad, exploring, looking for themselves through the experience of new places. For author and prize-winning journalist Alice Steinbach, postcards became a key element of recapturing the narrative of her life as she traveled through England, France and Italy on a journey of personal discovery and reconnection. These postcards, sent to herself, make up the backbone of her book Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman. In the well-known PostSecret project, the mythos and public nature of the postcard is taken one step further to anonymous confessions that connect us with others and the complexity of our own humanity.

All of this is inspiration for the sixth summer challenge: postcards. Whether you are traveling abroad, to the museum in the next town over, or just feel like adding an element of the exotic to your daily routine, writing a postcard to someone (even yourself) is a great way to capture your thoughts, document the moment, and connect (or reconnect).

With this as your touchpoint, this week take the time to write and send a postcard to someone (or yourself). If you are traveling this week, take the time to pick up some postcards as souvenirs and send them to a friend back home, or use them as a posted travel journal. Writing and sending a postcard from a local museum or attraction can make the difference between day trip and memorable adventure.

Postcards are also a great way to document artist dates, and I encourage you to send a postcard to yourself sharing what you did—through words, a sketch or even an idea. If being a homebody is in the weekly plans, use a postcard you have on hand and send it to someone who you have been thinking about (it will make their day). Whatever you choose to do, make sure to record in your sketchbook any inspiration, ideas, illustrations, or thoughts—then share here on The Paper Compass.