Saturday, October 30, 2010

Vintage postcards

It's amazing the amount of time you can waste on a computer. One rainy morning, I was sucked down into the wonderful New York Public Library Digital Gallery, and came out an hour later with a stiff neck and glazed eyes. The library has already scanned and cataloged nearly a million images, and the Vintage Holiday Cards collection has nearly 2,000 postcards of idyllic winter scenes, Easter eggs, holly, horseshoes, shamrocks, chicks, cupids, cherubs, four-leaf clovers, turkeys, and bushels of flowers.

Around 1900, postcards were popular and also a way for starving artists and illustrators to make a living. Back then, postcards weren't about travel and vacations, but more like the Hallmark cards we buy to mark birthdays and holidays. Isn't it great that so many were saved in shoe boxes over the years?

Here's a few from the library Halloween collection:

Some give advice for warding off witches...
Some are goofy...
Or artsy...
Some are romantic...
Some are jokes...
Or spooky...
And all of them are fun. Have a great weekend!

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