What Do Postcards Say?
Postcards, as we know them today, capture an image in time and allow the sender to reflect briefly and openly about their visit. This concept and general layout has existed in the United States roughly since 1865. Yet the idea of sharing a journey with another dates back much earlier, to a medium known as calling cards, or visiting cards. Just like modern postcards, these earlier postal correspondences were often collected and displayed by the recipient. While some look at a postcard and see merely an image in conjunction with "Wish you were here!", the postcard itself is capable of conjuring up so much more. (1)
Spending time away from a loved one, no matter how great the journey or adventure, can cause pain and disruption in one's life. The simplicity of a postcard at once creates a sense of presence, intimacy, and identity, all wrapped up in a colorful 4x6 piece of paper. Holding an image of a faraway place, knowing that your friend or loved one is possibly gazing at that same sight, immediately establishes a connection, no matter the distance. The limited words scrawled and squeezed on the opposing side offer a more intimate bond with that person, a somewhat "corporeal presence" that transcends the mere meaning of the words. (2)
The postcards from the Mary Boyer collection offer a variety of insights, including those of presence, purpose, and representation. Visitors of Charlotte during the 1910s-1940s came from nearby Asheville, NC and faraway Burlington, VT and other small towns throughout New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New York, Alabama, Ohio, Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. By sending postcards of Charlotte back to friends and family, a sense of presence is established. For future generations, these postcards present an additional purpose.
In a world before television, photography was the only way for people to experience another place without ever leaving their house. Postcards represented one of the ways that cities were transported visually across the country.
According to John A. Jakle, postcards are "instructive as to what places once had been. More importantly, they were instructive as to how places had been represented." For our purposes, Mary Boyer's collection allows us to see Charlotte before the Louis Asburys and Martin Boyers and Charles Hooks implemented their own vision of the city. Whether through photographs of streets by night, suburban homes, or lush gardens, the postcards in this collection offer insight into those who visited Charlotte and how Charlotte was sent throughout the country. "Like all historical photography, postcard views offer an invitation to step into a scene captured by the past, perhaps the closest thing that we will likely ever have to 'time travel.'" (3)
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1. Milne, Letters, 94.
2. Ibid., 95.
3. Jakle, Postcards, 8-9.