Brownsville man tries his hand at making postcards
Brownsville’s Harold Richardson has an impressive collection of historic photographs showing scenes of Brownsville and other area communities. For that reason, I suppose it is not so surprising that in the early 1990s, he and a friend attempted to produce their own picture postcards from some of those historic photographs. During my recent conversation with Harold about the hobby of postcard collecting, he showed me the results of their effort. “Who worked with you on your postcard-making project?” I asked.
“Bill Patterson, who lives near Erie,” Harold replied. “He and I have collaborated on work with historic photographs for many years. On this project, I supplied postcard-backed Kodak photo paper and historic photos from my collection, and Bill supplied the technological expertise to turn my pictures into captioned postcards.”
“What gave you the idea to make postcards from your pictures?”
“Actually, it was not a novel idea. Years ago, they had what were called photo postcards. These were often produced by a local photographer rather than by a commercial postcard company’s photographer who would come to town for a day, take pictures, and then have his company produce hundreds of identical postcards. Locally-produced picture postcards often portrayed individual residents, buildings, or local scenes, and they were usually stamped on the reverse side with the standard look of a postcard. Some were done about a century ago by the Pratt Studio here in Brownsville. Pratt made photo postcards from his pictures and sold them.”
“So if person wanted to send someone a picture of himself, he could just get his picture taken at the local photo studio, have it developed on postcard paper, and mail it?”
“Right. They were called Real Photo post cards.”
As we were talking, it occurred to me that the modern custom having a holiday photograph of Mom, Dad, and the kids made into the family’s annual Christmas greeting card may not be such a new idea after all.
Harold showed me a 1985 article from Postcard Collector magazine. Its author, George Miller, explained the difference between the types of scenes used on commercially produced postcards as compared to the images chosen for locally produced postcards. Miller noted that because commercial cards were produced in such large volume, they had to have mass appeal. Those cards usually showed only the town’s main buildings, the railroad station, the schools and churches, monuments, hotels, and historical sites.
“But the full range of a town,” wrote Miller, “its side streets, its businesses, its delivery wagons and tradespeople, its ordinary homes, and its daily activities were rarely captured on the commercial view card, where the streets typically lack activity and even people.”
Miller noted that there was a reason that commercial postcard images were so impersonal and lifeless. They were often retouched to remove automobiles, people, or even buildings from the picture if their presence might help determine the date when the picture was taken.
“Anything which dates the card would be a serious disadvantage,” Miller wrote. “The same card, after all, might be offered for sale for several years or even longer.”
The image might also be subtly changed to make the postcard picture more attractive. “(The image) was often enhanced,” Miller explained, “through some careful retouching of the photographs from which the printing plates were to be made. Unsightly buildings to either side were simply cut out of the picture. Ugly telephone poles and wires were covered up.”
In contrast, postcards produced by local photographers did not face the same marketing challenges, because they did not have to be sold in such large quantities. “Because the cards could be printed in any quantity – one at a time – there was no danger of overstocking on a certain view,” Miller noted. “Small quantities reduced the temptation to ‘improve’ the image.”
Since there was no need to retouch the postcard image to make it more marketable, a locally produced postcard could feature pictures of individual residents, scenes of community activities, or photos of private residences or the town’s side streets and alleys.
Harold handed me a picture postcard showing a black-and-white panoramic view of late 19th century Brownsville taken from the hill above St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. A brief caption identified the scene and date.
“You made this postcard?”
“This is one of the postcards Bill produced from my pictures. We converted about fifteen or twenty of my photographs into picture postcards.”
“What did you plan to do with them?”
“We hoped to sell them through dealers or at postcard shows, but the project never got that far.”
“What happened?”
“As it turned out, the process of making these postcards was just too expensive. To recoup our investment and make any profit, we would have had to sell the cards for at least $6 apiece and then give dealers a discount on that. That wasn’t realistic, so we abandoned the project.”
“Harold, until now our conversation has focused on your Brownsville-related postcards, but your collection actually contains many non-Brownsville postcards as well, does it not?
“Oh, yes. For instance, look at this large group right here.”
Harold pointed toward the back of the narrow wooden file box in front of him, which was tightly packed with postcards.
“This category contains only postcards of the Uniontown area,” he explained. “I have several more large file boxes like this one containing postcards related to Connellsville, Ohiopyle (where my mother was born), Grove City (where I went to college), and many other area towns. I also have cards from communities up and down the Mon Valley, including Pittsburgh, and even some from northern West Virginia and western Maryland. I accumulated many of these cards while I was traveling on business in those areas.”
“I also have noticed,” I said, “that many of the file tabs separating your categories of cards have specific topics printed on them rather than town names.”
“That’s right. For example, this group contains only postcards with images related to the railroad. Some of the other categories in my collection are riverboats, locks and dams, coal and coke, iron and steel, the National Road, political cards from throughout our nation’s history, and novelty cards.”
“Novelty cards?”
“Yes. Some collectors are only interested in one specific topic. For example, a collector may be interested in postcards of amusement parks, or he may collect holiday postcards. Every major holiday had postcards. Even Valentines were made in the form of postcards. There were many different Santa Claus postcards over the years.”
He paused, reached into a worn brown paper bag that appeared to have been opened and closed many times, and took out an ordinary white envelope. From it he removed a handful of old postcards depicting various images of Santa Claus or St. Nicholas.
“The Santa Claus cards are the most sought after,” Harold said. “I don’t have a large selection of Christmas postcards, but since Santa Claus is the most popular, I’ve picked up several Santa Claus cards over the years. I don’t buy them individually, but I acquired them in collections of cards that I purchased because I was interested in other cards in those collections.”
“You also mentioned political cards . . .”
“Yes, political cards were often sent out by candidates as campaign advertisements. Here are some examples.”
Reaching once more intothe wrinkled paperbag, he pulled out another white envelope and withdrew from it a handful of political postcards. “This one’s from Taft’s campaign for president in 1908,” he said, handing it to me. “Here’s one touting William Jennings Bryan for president.”
“Bryan ran for president way back in the late 1800s,” I commented. “You really have some old ones here.”
“Here is a local card advertising John P. Moore for county controller in 1915,” Harold said, thumbing through the cards. “Here’s one for Woodrow Wilson, another for Lyndon B. Johnson.”
“And these are all cards that you inadvertently acquired because they happened to be in a collection that you purchased because they contained other cards you wanted?”
“That’s right. That’s why these postcards are in white envelopes in a paper bag instead of being kept in my file boxes. Each envelope – there are several dozen in that bag – is labeled to show what category of postcards it contains. When I would go to a postcard show, I would put this bag of cards in the car, just in case I found a collector whom I thought might be interested in trading for some of them.”
Since 1893, when commemorative picture postcards for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago became the first widely-circulated picture postcards in the United States, postcards have given collectors countless hours of pleasure while buying, selling, and trading them, as well as studying the history behind the cards’ images. We are fortunate that individuals like Harold Richardson have made postcard collecting their passion, for in doing so, they have helped to gather and preserve a precious visual record of their communities’ past. Thanks, Harold, for helping to safeguard so much of Brownsville’s heritage.
Glenn Tunney may be contacted at 724-785-3201 or 6068 National Pike East, Grindstone, PA 15442. Comments about these weekly articles may be sent to Editor Mark O’Keefe, 8 – 18 East Church Street, Uniontown, PA or e-mailed to begin mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com mo’keefe@heraldstandard.com end
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