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C - PUBLISHERS    page 1

California Art Co.   (1910-)
Monterey, CA

Published a wide variety of view-cards over the years depicting the California landscape. Some of their earliest cards were in black & white, published when they were still in Santa Rosa. They are best known for their artist signed view-cards of scenes near Monterey printed in halftone lithography. They went on to produce roadside photochromes for motels and restaurants.

Calpis, Inc., Ltd.   1919-
Tokyo, Japan

A manufacturer of fermented nonfat milk beverages based on traditional Mongolian drinks. In 1924 they initiated a poster contest in Europe for advertising their products from which they published the winning designs onto postcards. These lithographic cards are notable for their clear influence of the cutting edge of Western modernism, which they embraced more freely than most publishers back in Europe or the United States.

Camera Products Co.   1926-1958
Vancouver, BC Canada

Published real photo postcards of the photographer Joseph Frederick Spalding that were hand colored by his wife Ida Merle. Spalding had previously sold postcards since 1921 through the Gowen Sutton Co. These cards were manufactured in England.

Canadian Pacific Railway   1881-1978
Calgary, AB Canada

This was the first transcontinental railroad in Canada. Like many railroads they began publishing postcards for their passengers soon after cards became popular. Canadian Pacific eventually purchased a number of hotels to encourage tourism on their line, a move which further increased their need to publish postcards. But by 1967 this railway was predominantly a freight line and by 1978 all passenger service was discontinued. They worked with a number of different printers over the years so their cards do not have a consistent look.

In 1884 the Canadian Pacific Railway purchased its first steamship for use on the Great Lakes. This steamship line grew to connect their railheads to numerous ports across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As this part of their business grew it opened up a new market for selling postcards, not to mention new subjects to place on them.

Canada Railway News Co. Ltd.   1883-1961
Montreal, QC, Canada

They began as a local distributor of newspapers and magazines for steamships and later published souvenir photo books. By 1902 when they moved to Toronto, they had become an important catering service to passenger railroads and accompanying eateries. Through these establishments they began to market their own line of postcards. They continued to publish cards as they expanded their business into amusement parks and in 1941 into the first airport in Canada. In 1961 they merged with Aero to become Cara Operations Ltd.

J.M. Canfield   (1907-1909)
Willow Grove, PA

After 1896 when trolly service was established between Philadelphia and Willow Grove Park to the north, this amusement and picnic area became an extremely popular day trip destination. Canefield established himself there where he became the official publisher of postcards depicting Willow Grove’s points of interest and vast music programs.

Cape Cod Post Card Co.   1940’s
Provincetown, MA

Published linens, black & white images, and hand colored cards of southeastern Massachusetts. These cards were printed for them by the Albertype Company.

Capper Publications   1893-
Topeka, KS

Arthur Capper began working for newspapers at the early age of fourteen. He went on to the New York Tribune to gain more experience before returning home to Topeka where he purchased two newspapers of his own in 1893. He continued to publish additional newspapers such as Capper’s Weekly, and around 1909 he began publishing postcards as well. These were mostly local and foreign view-cards in tinted halftone until he began producing postcards to promote his own political ambitions. Though his first attempt to run as the Republican candidate for Governor ended in failure, he was later elected and served between 1915 and 1919, followed by five terms as a U.S. Senator. Capper died in 1951 but his firm continues to run.

Cardinell-Vincent Co.   (1909-1919)
San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles, CA

Published view-cards of California using a variety of printers. They were chosen as the official publisher of postcards for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. Their cards were printed in Germany.

Cargill Co.   (1911-1913)
Grand Rapids, MI

Published narrative postcards of popular sayings alongside images and similar cards of suffragists with commentary.

A. Carluccio   (1906-1911)
Montevideo, Uruguay

An important publisher of view-cards of Uruguay as black & white collotypes and in color lithography.

Carpenter Paper Co.   (1896-)
Salt Lake City, Utah

A publisher of view-cards. They produced many linen postcards with Western themes that were manufactured in the United States.

Carson-Harper Co.   (1890’s-1916)
Denver, CO

An early publisher of books and postcards. They produced multi-view scenes of the West as pioneer souvenir cards and private mail cards in tinted halftone. They later reproduced many early pioneer images as regular postcards.

Carter & Gut   (1902-1906)
New York, NY

A publisher of a variety of view-card types. They are best known for an early numbered set depicting scenes of New York City in vignette form on rough textured paper. While some of these cards were printed as photo-chromolithographs, most used shading mediums to form an image.

C.N. Casper Co.   (1901-1923)
454 East Water Street, Milwaukee, WI

A publisher of books, pamphlets, maps, and postcards. Their tinted halftone postcards were printed in Saxony where they may have owned facilities in Leipzig.

Cassell & Co., Ltd.   1848-1998
La Belle Savage, London, England

A publishing house founded by John Cassell, that mostly produced books oriented toward the working class. They also published a few view-cards, a set of Cassell’s Art Postcards, and Saturday Journal Portraits within their La Belle Savage Series name. Unfortunately many of these cards suffer from the use of aniline dyes in their printing which can run. They were purchased by the Orion Publishing Group in 1998.

Henry Cave or Cave & Hurley
Sydney, Australia

See Frank Hurley

Central News Co.   1877-1996
Philadelphia, PA

A major publisher and distributor of newspapers, periodicals, and postcards through their regional branches. Produced many view-cards of the mid-Atlantic region. They were purchased by United Magazine in 1996.

Central News of Akron, OH was a branch that largely produced view-cards of Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

Central News of Tacoma, WA at 916 Pacific was a branch that produced local view-cards.

Central News of Wheeling, WV was a branch that produced local view-cards.

Century Post Card & Novelty   (1916-1919)
New York, NY

Published white border cards depicting scenes of New York City as tinted halftones.

J. N. Chamberlain   (1860’s-1925)
Miami, FL and Oak Bluffs, MA

John Newton Chamberlain, an artist and photographer began his career in his native town of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. By the 1890’s he had moved to Woonsocket, Rhode Island where he ran the town’s largest photo studio. There he and his staff produced all sorts of photography related products including a great number of cabinet cards. Chamberlain summered on Martha’s Vineyard where he soon began selling his images from a studio he opened there on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs. He was to become an early and important publisher of postcards depicting Martha’s Vineyard. Many of his black & white cards were contracted out to the Albertype company and Curt Teich printed many of his later color postcards. One of his best known sets were printed as collotypes in Germany and depicted scenes around Oak Bluffs in a deep monochrome.

In 1896 Chamberlain moved his main studio to Miami, Florida though he continued to work on Martha’s Vineyard during the summer. He captured many early views of Miami and of the Seminole Indians that lived nearby. While his work provides an important historic document of the city, much of it revolved around the Royal Palm Hotel for which he worked as official photographer. These images were used for illustrated brochures and souvenir books as well as for postcards. The black & white and color cards he published were contracted out to a number of different printers. In 1904 the Albertype Company published his work as a book in photogravure, Glimpses of Miami. Chamberlain’s photos were also later published in Miami, Jewel of the South.

F. Chapeau   (1910-1955)
Nantes, France

A photographer that began publishing his work as black & white and tinted collotype postcards and then later as real photo postcards.

F. Champenois & Co.   (1886-1917)
66 Doul St. Michel, Paris, France

An important publisher of art prints, posters, and artist signed postcards. They are best known for the seven series of cards they commissioned by Alphonse Mucha. Even though the images used for the Mucha postcards were borrowed from his larger works, they were all carefully redesigned with the artist for the new postcard format.

G.T. Chapman   (1861-1904)
Queen Street, Auckland, New Zealand

George Thompson Chapman arrived in New Zealand in 1948 as a missionary but quickly refocussed his attention toward making money. He returned to Scotland in 1853 but came back two years later after a failed business venture in Australia, and by the 1860’s he had become a bookseller and stationer in Auckland. He was an important publisher of guides to the country’s natural wonders, gardening, and on the Maori. He also published almanacs and a monthly science and literature magazine. Chapman died in 1881 but his family continued to run his business and eventually began publishing and selling postcards from their shop under the Chapman’s Series name. These tinted collotypes with an extra blue collotype plate were manufactured in Germany. His wife Margaret died in 1904 and it is uncertain how much longer his children carried on the business.

J. Howard A. Chapman   1895-1936
Victoria, BC Canada

John Howard Arthur Chapman was a traveling salesman who photographed a wide range of places and subjects while on his journeys. He had many of these photographs printed as black & white postcards in collotype.

Chapin News Co.   (1905-1910)
Hartford, CT

A local publisher and distributor of black & white and color postcards for the American News Company.

Lal Chand & Sons   (1921-)
Dariba, Delhi, India

These hotographers of local scenes had much of their work reproduced in books and used for finely printed black & white collotype postcards that were printed in Saxony.

E. P. Charlton & Co.   1899-1912
San Francisco, CA

Earl Perry Charlton and Seymour Knox opened their first 5 & 10 cent store in Fall River, MA in 1890. Highly successful they had 9 east coast stores when they sold their business out to F. W. Woolworth in 1899. Charlton headed west with his proceeds to open up a new chain of stores. The Lewis & Clark exposition in 1905 provided impedes for him to start publishing postcards. Afterwards he continued to publish and distribute lithographic cards through his 52 chain stores until he merged with Woolworths in 1912. Charlton served there as Vice President.

Chicago Aerial Survey Co.   (1921-)
Elk Grove Village, IL

This mapping and surveying firm produced many aerial photographs of Chicago that were used by a number of publishes to create a variety of postcards.

Chicago Daily News   1876-1978
Chicago, IL

A major daily newspaper serving the city of Chicago. In 1898 they became one of the first papers to set up foreign bureau offices. This helped them amass a tremendous collection of photographs of which only a small fraction found its way onto the newspapers pages. Some of the remaining photos were published by the paper as black & white postcards. They produced notable sets depicting American soldiers during the First World War an of Chicago’s A Century of Progress Exposition.

Charles R. Childs   1906-1950’s
Chicago, IL

After working for the Joliet Daily News, Childs opened a commercial photo studio when he moved to Chicago in 1900. Six years later he began publishing real photo postcards of Chicago views. As the years past he took on more employees and began to expand his inventory to cover scenes from the outlying Chicago suburbs and then the midwest region. His shop is thought to have produced between 40-60,000 different postcard images.

Chisholm Brothers   (1876-1938)
Portland, ME

Hugh J. Chisholm was originally a large distributor of printed news materials sold on railroads and steamships throughout the northeast. In 1876 he started a lithographic printing company with his brothers that produced many pictorial tourist guides. While their lithographic material was printed in Portland, they imported engraved material in from Germany. At the same time they became heavily invested in Maine’s wood pulp industry. By 1892 they had become an early pioneer in publishing view-cards of the Northeast. Many of their cards were made as heavily retouched photo-chromolithographs.

Luigi Cicalese   (1905-1930’s)
Ravello, Italy

While working as the head gardener at Villa Rufo, a large estate rehabilitated by the botanist Francis Nevile Reid, he also developed a career as a photographer. He captured images of the estate and the surrounding countryside, which were turned into black & white and color postcards. He is said to have been the first to produce postcards of Ravello.

City History Club   (1900-1953)
23 West 44th Street, New York, NY

This Club was formed in the face of large numbers of immigrants who arriving in New York with little more than notions of fulfilling immediate economic concerns. It was thought that by providing all New Yorkers with an understanding of its history greater civic pride would develop, which in turn would help safeguard the City’s future. The Clubs many activities, lectures, and commemorations were often oriented toward children. They published historic guides to the city and a series of monotone postcards depicting events from New York’s past.

Clarence Christian   (1930’s-1950’s)
2818 NE 31 Avenue, Portland, OR

A photographer and jobber who with his partner Robert Lane published many real photo postcards and souvenir books of Oregon. Many of his photographs carry no name.

R.H. Clarke   (1901-1930’s)
High Street, Royston, England

A publisher of view-cards depicting Great Britain. Their cards were issued in a number of techniques and were printed in both England and Germany. They acquired many images when they bought out Alfred Pumphrey’s inventory of lantern slides.

Fred Payne Clatworthy   1905-1953
Estes Park, WY

After taking a bicycle trip across the American West in 1898 from his native Ohio, F.P. Clatworthy spent the rest of his life photographing the region. While he did early photo work of the Grand Canyon for the Santa Fe Railroad and traveled across the Pacific, he spent most of his time capturing the Grand Tetons of Wyoming. It was there in Estes park that he established Ye Lyttel Shop next to his house in 1905 that sold souvenirs and real photo postcards. While many of his cards of views and Native Americans were hand colored, he was also an early pioneer of the Autochrome process. Clatworthy would sometimes emboss his name into his cards.

Cleveland News Co.   (1902-)
Cleveland, OH

A local publisher and distributor of postcards for the American News Company producing view-cards of Ohio.

W.M. Cline Co.   (1940’s-1950’s)
Chattanooga, TN

A publisher of Southern view-cards as Linens and Photochomes. Most cards depicted scenes of Tennessee and North Carolina with quite a few on Cherokee Indians. They also issued a large series of real photo postcards with white borders.

Cluna Studios   (1920’s-1930’s)
Dublin, Ireland

An artist studio founded by Gertrude M. Grew that produced a wide variety of items including jewelry, enameled metalwork, stenciled fabric, hand painted woodwork, calendars, prints, and postcards. Grew was a member of the Guild of Irish Art Workers.

Coast Publishing Co.   (1907-1950’s)
Vancouver, BC Canada

A publisher of view-cards and cards of Native Americans. Their first cards were issued as tinted halftones and they latter moved on to linens, and then photochomes. All their cards were printed in the United States.

Herbert A. Coffeen   (1910-1916)
Sheridan, WY

A publisher of Western view-cards in monochromatic halftone. These cards were distributed through the Coffeen Schnitger Trading Company. Coffeen is best known for a series of postcards depicting the Custer battlefield at Little Big Horn made from photos taken years earlier by Stanley J. Morrow. Morrow had produced a large number of card photos on his own depicting frontier life. These same images were also published by Laton Alton Huffman, who succeeded Morrow as post photographer at Fort Keogh.

Sabetay J. Cohen   (1910-1923)
Smyrne (Izmir), Turkey

A publisher of tinted halftone postcards depicting regional views.

Cohn & Oakleaf   (1908-1916)
Titusville, PA

A department store that published calendars and view-cards depicting local scenes. Their cards were printed as crudely hand colored collotypes and halftone lithographs. They may have taken the photographs used to supply imagery for their cards.

The Cole Shop   1804-
Williamsburg, VA

After the 18th century home and shop of Charles Taliaferro was purchased by Jesse Cole in 1804, he used it as a post office and general store. It continued to be used as such by his descendants well into the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg that was begun in 1926. The influx of tourists led to the publishing and selling of local view-cards as part of this establishments regular business. These cards make reference that they are published by the oldest store in Williamsburg. The store has since been renamed the Taliaferro-Cole Shop.

The Collotype Co.   1907-1957
Elizabeth, NJ and New York, NY

Printed black & white view-cards of the mid-Atlantic States up to New England as collotypes. Some of their cards were crudely hand colored.

Colorado News Co.   1883-
Denver, CO

A publisher and distributor of regional view-cards for the American News Company.

Color Card Co.

(see Mike Roberts Studio)

Color Photographic Society, Ltd.   1911-1944
Stuttgart, Germany

The Color Photographic Society (Farben Photographische Gesellschaft m.b.H.) was founded by the photographer Hans Hildenbrand in 1911. He was an early pioneer of the autochrome process from which he produced color stereo-views and tricolor postcards. The society published view-cards, greetings, and artist signed cards but is best known for the many scenes that Hildenbrand shot during the First World War. He was the only official German war photographer that published postcards in natural color utilizing a simple RYB pallet. While many of the illustrated war cards depict dramatic battle scenes, the postcards made directly from photographs captured the war torn landscape and the lives of ordinary soldiers. The original negatives were destroyed in the Allied bombing of Stuttgart in 1944.

Color Post Card Co.   (1920’s)
141 W 33rd Street, New York, NY

A printer of simply colored local view-cards as tinted halftones. The design of their cards makes liberal use of ben day patterns.

Colourpicture   (1938-1969)
Boston and Cambridge, MA

A major publisher and printer of linen view-cards of the United States. They later went on to publish photochromes and small spiral bound picture booklets under the name trade name Plastichrome in the 1950's.

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