À la Poupée
A method of inking an intaglio printing plate by applying different colors onto the same surface by hand. Traditionally small cotton daubs (dollies) were employed to apply ink, but a number of methods are used. While adding color to just one plate solved registration problems and increased production speed, sharp and precise color delineation cannot be achieved. The coloration of individuale prints using this method will vary.

Albertype
A trade name given to the first workable collotype process by its inventor, Josef Albert in 1873. It was used widely for book illustrations and postcards.

Albumen
An animal protein mostly obtained from egg whites. They contain long chained amino acids whose bonds create large molecules of protein (polypeptides). When heated each molecule comes apart and forms new bonds with the other unraveling proteins creating gelatin. Albumen is often combined with dichromate or silver nitrates to produce photosensitive emulsions. These emulsions have very short shelf life and were usually prepared just before use. Louis Desiré Blanquart Evrard was the first to use it to create photo paper in 1850. Albumen’s high sulfur content causes these emulsions to yellow and was replaced by better alternatives starting in the 1890’s. About 85 percent of all photographs from the 19th century are on albumen paper.

Album Marks
The damage imparted to postcards by the albums they were once stored in. The most common form of this damage is a diagonal embossing across the card’s corners from the pressure of the slits that held them to album pages. These embossings may also be accompanied by black marks transfered from the dye in album pages or from yellowing caused by acid migration. As postcards were sometimes glued into albums pieces of the pages may remain stuck to a cards card’s back when removed. Acid migration from any remaining glue or paper will further damage the card.

Alien Contract Laws
Immigration to the United States increased in the 1880’s during a period of economic decline. This added stress inevitably brought about calls for Congressional legislation. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the Alien Contract Labor laws of 1885 and 1887 prohibited certain laborers from immigrating to the United States to work under contract. In 1891 the Federal Government assumed the task of enforcing these laws and created the Immigration Service. Operations began in New York Harbor at Ellis Island, which opened on January 2, 1892. Since most immigration laws were designed to protect American workers, Immigration responsibilities were transferred from the Treasury Department to the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903. Alien Contract law prevented the highly skilled artists and craftsmen of the German printing houses from working in this country. Instead, many of our own artists left America to work in Europe alongside them.

Alphabet Card (Letter Card)
A postcard featuring a single letter, often ornate, accompanied by an illustration or decorative graphics. These cards were issued in both full alphabet sets and individually. The origins of this style come from more than one tradition. The most obvious is that of alphabet books published to aid in the instruction of reading. But there are also more esoteric roots as letters can be endowed with magical meaning.

Alumino (Aluminum Cards)
A trade name for novelty cards printed on aluminum that were published in England.

Americhrome
Originally a trade name for a specific type of postcard printed with halftone lithography, and distributed by the American News Co. Most early Americhromes are characterized by their medium screen pattern, limited pallet, turquoise skies, and small red block lettering. Their soft look creates the illusion of continuous tone lithography. In later years white border cards and a fine textured linen type card were made that continued to carry the Americhrome name but not the old printed characteristics. Their only commonality is that they were all printed in the United States.

Anaglyph
A type of two dimensional image that creates the illusion of three dimensions that is produced when two photographs taken of the same scene at slightly different angles, one through a red filter and the other through a blue, green, or cyan filter, are printed together in different solid colors as a single image. A special pair of filtered glasses needs to be worn to experience the 3D effect. The red filter of the glasses makes the red ink of the image appear white and the blue ink as black. The blue filter has a complementary affect on the blue ink. The brain interprets the differences seen by each eye as space. Ducos du Hauron patented this process in 1891. Its popularity has been sporadic, used in such mediums as movies and comics. Its use on postcards has been minimal.

Aniline Inks
An inexpensive printing ink consisting of synthetic organic pigments produced as derivatives of nitrobenzene, dissolved in a methylated spirit, and bound with a resin. This ink is available in all colors but it has poor light fastness and is considered fugitive. Its fast drying time made it compatable with high speed presses, which drew the interest of printers of linen postcards. In the 1950’s many health hazards were associated with these dyes and a switch was made to pigment based inks. If dampened, Aniline ink will often run leaving pink stains behind (Pinking).

April Fish (poisson d’avril)
A name applied to the victim of a practical joke on April Fools Day (All Fools Day) in France. Many postcards were made to celebrate this day and those from France almost always contain a fish within the image. There have been many explanations given for this ranging from the change to the Gregorian calendar to Zodiac signs but they are all problematic. The connection of fish to April Fools Day dates back at least to the Middle-Ages but little else is known for certain. The character of the fool is an archtype found in many cultures since ancient times.

Aquarellchrom
A trade name used by the Aristophot Company for their continuous toned lithographic postcards that resemble watercolors or pastels. This technique was usually reserved for artist signed cards that were printed in Leipzig.

Aquatint
An intaglio process in which a metal printing plate is dusted with a fine powder, usually of rosin, and then it is adhered to it’s surface by melting to form a resist. This creates an irregular pattern of exposed plate surface that can now be incised with acid. This pattern can be somewhat controlled by varying the amount of dust applied, the size of the crystals in the powder, or by the amount of time the plate is exposed to heat, and of coarse the time it is etched in acid. Aquatints can produce a full range of tones but its surface is very delicate and does not hold up well to the large press runs required by commercial printing. Outside of the fine arts, it is most often combined with other printing methods such as photogravure, which give it a longer life on the press.

Arcade Card
A card that is distributed through penny vending machines usually found at amusement arcades. They mostly depict images of sports figures, movie stars, suggestive cartoons, and pin-up girls, though a wide variety of subjects were covered. These cards were often poorly printed, usually in black & white or bright monochrome tints, and most cards had blank backs. Though basicaly produced for collecting, they were often mailed because of their similar size to postcards. Some arcade cards however were printed with postcard backs but these are far less common. Around since the turn of the Century, they became very popular in the 1930’s and then faded away during the 60’s.

Archival
A term often used to describe the property of an object that insinuates its long-term stability, or the quality of not affecting an objects stability. There is no internationally accepted definition.

Argentotype
See Kallitype

Arisierte (Aryanized) Business
A business that was formally owned by Jews but currently run by Aryans, and whose transfer was broaght about through coercive measures. When the Nazis came to power in Germany they called for a boycott in 1933 of all goods produced or sold by Jewish merchants. The boycott had little practical effect but by 1938 violence was being used to scare Jewish business owners into fleeing or in killing them directly, then turning their so called abandoned property over to new Aryan owners at little or no cost.

Aristo
A brand name for a silver chloride printing out photo paper, with a collodion or gelatin base, introduced by the American Aristo Co. in 1890. It usually required gold toning producing warm purplish hues with a low gloss finish but the color could be manipulated in other ways as well. The Aristo Company was purchased by Kodak in 1899 where it was turned into a subsidiary renamed the General Aristo Company. Aristo paper was used for many cabinet cards and by 1903 it was mamufactured on a heavier stock to support real photo postcards. Kodak later introduced self-toning versions of this paper with a pure collodion emulsion.

Aristotype
A type of photograph printed on a silver chloride gelatin emulsion.

Art Colour
A trade name for a type of postcard issued by Valentine’s during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Art Colour cards had a distinct RGB pallet and were printed in halftones that produced a rosette pattern. They may have been an early form of offset printing.

Art Colortone
A trade name used by the Curt Teich Company for the method they employed in producing Linen postcards. They were often labeled C.T. American Art Colortone. Their identification numbers incorporated the letter H.

Art Deco
Art Deco is a decorative style, not an art movement. Its basic elements could be seen in work dating back to 1910, but it wasn’t until the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs Industriels et Modernes held in Paris in 1925 that it received international attention. Afterwards this style began to be widely implemented especially in architecture. It’s projection of luxury and affluence made it popular with a population leaving the austere years of World War One behind them. Though influenced by modern art movements, its designs were often based on classical motifs borrowed from ancient Egypt, Persia, and Native Americans, that were then reduced to highly stylized geometries. The style utilized strong symmetrical and very flat ornamentation such as sharp zigzags, rounded corners, stripes, and simple sweeping curves. It romanticized the machine age by incorporating their forms into design and by the strong use of man made materials. Art Deco’ popularity waned as it began to be mass-produced and lost its air of exclusivity. Consumer cutbacks during World War Two put an end to its use in the West, but at the war’s end a number of former colonies just began using the style as a symbol of modernism. There were also revivals of Art Deco in graphic design during the 1960’s and 1980’s. The term Art Deco was never used while the style was in fashion. Among its many descriptions it was referred to as Style Moderne most often. The British art critic Bevis Hillier coined the term Art Deco during the 1960’s revival. The definition continues to evolve.

Artist Signed Card
A reproduction of an illustration distinctly displaying the artist’s name. The postcard itself is not actually signed; the original art work is signed and the signature is reproduced along with the picture. The signature allows collectors to identify and seek out cards drawn by specific artists. These cards were not considered art reproductions for the artwork printed on them were specifically designed to be used on postcards. Some stretch the definition by considering any postcard containing an illustration made for postcard use to be artist signed whether an actual signature is on the card or not. Many artists designed entire series of cards, some numbering into the thousands but they may not have signed them all. While some artists worked independently, others stuck to one publisher.

Art Nouveau (New Art)
A major decorative art movement centered in Europe at the turn of the 20th century. While the term Art Nouveau was first associated with the symbolist influenced Belgian artists of Les XX in 1884, the name Art Nouveau as a decorative style was derived from the name of a Parisian shop, Maison de l’Art Nouveau, which promoted this type of work. As the movement spread it became known as Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, and Modernismo in Spain. Its progressive designs were first glimmered in the 1880s rising out from the English Arts & Crafts movement. It came about as a reaction against years of historical and moral emphasis on art. After its exposure at the Universal Exposition of 1900 in Paris, and the 1902 Exposition in Turin, Italy, its popularity quickly grew. Though heavily influenced by Japonisme, the English Pre-Raphaelites, and Symbolist painters, Art Nouveau was more consistent in style. It emphasized dynamic and flowing curves inspired by the natural forms in nature from such unconventional items as insects and seaweed. The style was richly ornamental and asymmetrical. This imbued many of the objects that carried this design with a living growing presence. It was widely used in design on everything from jewelry to furniture to glassware. It was also applied to architecture where it often incorporated modern technology, producing wildly cast iron and glass. The Art Nouveau style had great influence on the graphic design of postcards made in Europe during the Golden Age. But the end of World War One brought on a social crisis where many of the established values of the pre-war age were now discredited. Art Nouveau was too closely associated with the ideals and class that carried the world into a disastrous war, and the style faded away as the new forms of decorative modernism took its place.

Artotype
A modified form of the collotype printing process.

Arts & Crafts Movement
Originally an English social and aesthetic movement of the late 19th century whose name derives from the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. It borrowed heavily from pre-industrialized times, especially from Medieval, Islamic, and Japanese design. Botanical subjects were the most popular motif often yielding designs that were multifaceted yet incorporated a simple elegance. In the face of declining rural handicrafts and a rising industrial society, John Ruskin and other writers began to call for changes. They believed a moral society depended on the skilled workers that produced creative products, not soulless objects from a machine. The Arts and Crafts Movement began as a search for a meaningful style that could stand up to Victorian moralism, but it soon took up the cause of the master craftsman, with his hand in every phase of production from beginning to end. But there was much debate among the Movements proponents on whether mass production could create affordable art for everyone, or if it threatened individual creativity. Many of the socialist designers, inspired by the Aesthetic Movement, did not believe in a connection between morality and art, and promoted its more democratic forms. This conflict dominated the design debate into the 20th century. The movement was criticized as elitist, and its impracticality in a growing industrial society doomed it to failure. The United States imported these ideas from Britain forming an American craft movement centered in Northern California and New York State. Native design such as the Shaker Style gave the work produced in America a simpler cleaner look. The works of the Stickley Style, Bungalow Style, Prairie Style, and Shingle Style all fall within the American Arts & Crafts Movement. While in Europe this design style evolved toward Art Nouveau, the many looks of Arts & Crafts in the United States held on to their popularity and largely remained unchanged. The style continues to be influential today. Design movements expressing similar ideas also rose independently at the same time in Russia.

Artura
A brand name for a developing out paper introduced by Kodak in 1905. It tended to produce greenish tones. In 1921 Kodak had to divest itself of this company as part of an antitrust settlement and production ended in 1924.

Autochrom
A trade name used by the Pictorial Stationary Company to describe their color lithographic postcards. While this name makes implications that these cards are produced from autochromes, their appearance is no different from that of any other retouched halftone cards of the period made from black & white photos.

Autochrome
A type of color photographic transparency on a glass plate, patented in 1903, and manufactured from 1907 to 1935 by the Lumière brothers. Autochromes were the first practical, and one of the few commercial means of creating color photographs during those years. Based on additive color theory, Autochromes are made by coating a glass plate with a layer of dyed potato starch granules that approximated primary additive colors. After shellac is applied and dried, the plate is coated with a panchromatic silver gelatin-bromide emulsion. When the plate is exposed, the dyed grain acts as tiny RGB filters before light reaches the silver emulsion. When the plate is developed a negative image is created. Afterwards the silver is bleached out and the plate re-exposed and redeveloped using an acid dichromate process. The result is a full color, one of a kind, positive transparency. These images were often viewed though Magic Lanterns or specially designed hand viewers called Diascopes, which were boxes that held the glass plate while the image was projected onto a mirror. This type of emulsion was moved from glass plates and on to film in 1932 when the Lumière brothers created Lumicolor. It was replaced in 1938 by the faster Filmcolor that utilized brewers yeast in place of potato starch, but it could not compete with Kodak’s Kodachrome introduced in 1935, and fell out of use by 1940. Autochromes did not capture all the nuances of color but produced subtle tonalities. Combined with its strange grainy effects, the resulting images appear to be halfway between paintings and photographs.

Autographic Camera
A camera manufactured by Kodak with a small door on the back that could be opened while taking pictures to label the negative. The open door would reveal an opaque red paper that could be scratched through with a supplied chrome scribe. It would then be held to light for a few seconds to expose the negative through the scratched out notations. This would appear as white lettering on the photographic print. The autographic door became a standard feature on Kodak’s Vanity Cameras. These cameras were not often used by professional photographers and played little role in real photo postcards. This feature was patented in 1902 but was only introduced to the public in 1914.

Autogravure
An intaglio printing process based on heliogravure.

Autotype
A trade name since 1868 for a printing process based on collotypes and carbon printing. Carbon or other colorants were placed in the gelatin emulsion photosensitized with potassium dichromate. The printing process utilized over fifty monochromatic colors with a wide tonal range. The Autotype Printing and Publishing Co. printed postcards with this process.

AZO Paper
A blue light sensitive, silver chloride photo paper introduced by the Photo Materials Company in Rochester, New York in 1898. That same year Kodak purchased the company. Because of its poor light sensitivity it was manufactured for contact printing rather than enlarging. Its very broad tonal scale makes it the finest paper ever made to produce black and white work on. This paper became the favorite of those producing real photo postcards. It has been in continuous production longer than any other photo paper, but as of 2007 it seems to be gone for good.