Here is another "Icon," everything you'll need to know to win the "Postcards" catgeory on Jeopardy!
Thus, I have kept up at least one of my New Year's resolutions.
In honor of this accomplishment, I shall violate the other one by drinking Scotch out of a crazy straw.
GOING POSTAL: From the unveiling of the Eiffel Tower to 10 bare-assed beach hotties captioned, “Sun Your Buns in Cancun,” the 3.5” by 5.5” cardboard pieces found in metal racks have a well-traveled history. The original postcard was made in 1861 by a Philadelphia native; then in 1873, the Man stepped in, and for more than 25 years only the government could issue “postals.”
POST-MORTEM: The big breakthrough for free postcards came in 1883 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago when illustrations from the event were sold as take-home promotions. Now we have oft-empty boxes of postcards that sauced-up scenesters gawk at while waiting for the pisser. The 1889 completion of the Eiffel Tower fueled the worldwide picture postcard craze. A year earlier stateside, Congress allowed for private mailing cards, reducing the two-cent letter rate to the government’s once-cent postcard price. Back then, urban areas often had two daily mail deliveries, so messages like “pick up cod liver oil” could be sent from wife to husband with same-day delivery. Also around that time Kodak introduced a pocket camera that took black-and-white photos that were printed onto paper with postcard backs. U.S. postal figures in 1908 cite 677,777,798 postcard mailings, more than 7.5 times America’s total population.
WAIT A MINUTE, MR. POSTCARD MAN: Here are five quick facts about the postcard. (1) Until 1907, it was illegal to write your honey a mash note on the same side of the postcard as the address – messages were scribbled on the front until the invention of the “divided back.” (2) National Postcard Week is the first week of May in the U.S. and the U.K. Send your Mother a “Wish You Were Here” pick-me-up from the Wisconsin Dells. (3) Postcard collecting is apparently the world’s number three hobby, trailing stamps and coins. The official term is deltiology, which is the Greek word for “I TiVo Antiques Roadshow.” (4) One of the all-time best-selling souvenir postcards is of the Western antlered rabbit known as the jackalope, a mysterious creature first spotted in Douglas, Wyoming, that mimics human voices, loves whiskey, and produces milk that’s a powerful aphrodisiac. (5) On eBay, a 1982 autographed U2 October promotion with a note ending “God Bless” from the lead guitarist was available for $88, meaning that you, too, could own a postcard from The Edge.
(Illustration by Julia Rothman)
(City)
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