Early postal regulations permitted only the name and address of the recipient on backs of postcards. Messages on the front often defaced the image. By 1907 the United States Postal Service began to permit the use of what is now called a divided back Post Card. The back of the postcard had a line down the middle to provide space for both the address and a message. This new regulation and others in the early 1900s started a national obsession in this country that lasted for almost two decades. American's were buying postcards at the rate of more than 700 million a year and it seems that they were saving most of them. Often putting them in albums and scrapbooks. Most homes in the United States had a special place for postcards, usually the parlor. A number of beautiful and pleasing postcards were made in Germany and Austria, where fine color reproduction was less expensive than elsewhere. Many postcards bearing the names of American publishers were printed abroad. Wherever their postcards were printed, American publishers continued to strive for unique topics such as town views and birthday greeting postcards. Now picture postcards were more than just a means of communication. They provided a portrait of life in America during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In 1913, American's bought over 900 million postcards. However, by 1914 postcard usage suddenly came to a halt due in part to four reasons. (1) German printers dominated the postcard manufacturing business until the enactment of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff which in effect cut off low cost imported postcards, along with many other goods. (2) American printers did not have the same printing technology that the German's possessed. (3) The arrival and introduction of low cost folded greeting cards with envelopes. and (4) World War 1. The end of the "Golden Age" of postcards (1901-1915) ushered in the American "White Border Era". |
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