Postcards from Vermont: A Social History, 1905-1945

by Allen F. Davis

The golden age of the postcard coincides with a rapidly evolving time when the world was being transformed by the introduction of telephones, cameras, fountain pens, automobiles, trains, and modern magazines. By 1905 the Rural Free Delivery system enabled even Vermont's most remotely located residents to receive these cards in their roadside mailboxes, along with letters and Sears Roebuck catalogs. Very much a part of the emerging world of consumption, advertising, and accelerated communication, early postcards tell us about a particular time, and the cultural revolution that was going on in Vermont and the nation in the first decades of the 20th century. Postcards helped promote Vermont as a tourist destination and also reflected pride in modern factories, busy commercial centers, and efficient transportation systems.

On one level, Postcards from Vermont is a family album of carefully-posed ordinary people looking out at us from the past. It is also a memory book that documents the transition from horse to automobile, shows changes in the landscape and Main Street, and records clothing, material culture, and vernacular architecture from another era. And finally, its 323 images provide an unusual feast for deltiologists (postcard collectors) and Vermontophiles to view a small New England state in a new way.

336 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2002