1848-1872 1873-1897 1898-1913 1914-1945 1946-1990 1991-2008
Real Photo Postcards
1899
REAL PHOTO POSTCARDS 1899
Photographs were occasionally sent through the mail as handmade cards in the 19th century, but it is George Eastman who is most responsible for the development of the Real-photo postcard. Prior to the 1880’s negatives were produced on glass with a freshly made and still wet photosensitive emulsion. With the invention of the dry plate process and roll film, amateurs started taking pictures in great numbers. So many companies started up to supply them that they depressed the entire market. To survive in this highly competitive climate Eastman developed a complete and easy to use camera system he named Kodak, -You press the button, we do the rest. This marketing strategy not only allowed him to survive but also propelled him to the top of his field. While the first known real photo postcard made its appearance in 1899, these cards did not begin to be made in number until Eastman bought the rights to Velox photo paper. This easy to use developing out paper, which he began to seriously market in 1902 would now be produced on heavy stock to prevent curling and would come with a pre printed postcard back. A year later he put an inexpensive folding camera on the market that produced negatives the same size as postcards allowing for simple sharp contact printing. No other company put nearly as much money into advertising. Great efforts were made to distinguish the artistic quality inherent in real photos from that of printed halftone reproductions. Between 1906 and 1910, Kodak offered a fee based service where they would process and print real photo postcards adding greatly to their convenience and popularity.
Real photo postcards proved cheaper to make than the traditional cabinet cards the public was used to and they soon went out of fashion. With many people now able to create their own cards with simple Brownie cameras, studio photographers were feeling the loss of revenue from their portraiture work and most started publishing their own cards to make ends meet. All but the most important formal photographs were now shot in the postcard format. While some photographers became well known for their line of photo cards, most others had to become a master of many trades. Local events as well as scenery were captured, printed, and often sold out of the photographers own studio. Many times elaborate studio props would be made to attract customers for informal portraits. This was especially very popular at resorts and amusement parks where many photographers took up residence. Many became salesmen offering their cards to other local retail outlets, while others took up the itinerant life, traveling the country in search of subjects and sales.
Labeling real photo postcards was an expensive affair. Since no additional printing was actually required on the card, adding ones name or even a title was an extra step involving time and money better spent. Printers required minimum orders larger than the number of cards most photographers produced. Professional photographers had the luxury of printing real photos as they needed them, without the expense of maintaining inventory. Many cards were titled by scratching or writing on the negative, and sometimes a photo studio would emboss or rubber stamp their name on a card’s back, but more often than not it was just left blank. In 1914 Kodak introduced their Autographic camera that had a special door in the back allowing photographs to be easily labeled by writing directly on a negative with a scribe but it was never widely used. Because of this the quantities made of any particular image are often unknown, as many do not indicate who made them or where the photograph was taken. Many one of a kind cards produced by amateurs in their homes are indistinguishable from those made by factories in large quantities. But there are always those photos that possess such great personal charm that there is no doubt they were made by amateurs. Not concerned with art or style, they often give us the best look into the ordinary lives of people at that time.
During the First World War interest in real-photo cards did not decline as fast as that printed cards because their supply was not dependent on imports and they remained readily available and of good quality. The year 1914 also marked a turning point, for Germany’s Ur-Leica readapted motion picture film to create a 35mm still camera. It was not mass marketed however until the 1920’s, and only became popular during the 1930’s. The smaller negatives required postcard sized prints to be enlarged often with an easel to hold the paper in place, and white borders became more common. The increasing number of small sized negatives from a growing variety of amateur cameras continued to be contact printed adding some unusually broad borders to cards. With the invention of the PACO high-speed photo printer in 1910, up to 1,200 real-photo cards could be contact printed in an hour. But it was not until 1937 with the new Velox rapid projection printer that photo cards were mass produced by enlarging. In the 1940’s when continuous paper processors, based on motion picture technology were introduced, the rate of production doubled. A whole new generation of faster photo papers were eventually created to accommodate the growing interest in the enlarging process.
With the new found ability to produce many more cards faster and for less expense some companies reprinted images that were shot decades earlier. Though brighter, glossier, and containing more contrast, they lack the homemade charm of earlier cards. While the Kodak Girls encouraged many to take up photography, real-photos postcards started loosing their popularity in the 1930’s as other sources of photographic imagery became more readily available. After photo-like printed photochrome cards were introduced real photo postcards have all but disappeared.
Use the link below for a more compleate history of this period.