From the 1890s through the 1920s, the postcard was an extraordinarily popular means of communication, and many of the postcards produced during this "golden age" can today be considered works of art. Postcard photographers traveled the length and breadth of the nation snapping photographs of busy street scenes, documenting local landmarks, and assembling crowds of local children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in general stores across the country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America's history. This fascinating new history of Nashville, Tennessee, showcases more than two hundred of the best vintage postcards available.

Postcards provide an easy way to go back in time to the early days of South Dakota, to see what the place looked like, to catch a glimpse of how people saw themselves, to begin to understand what has changed and what remains constant. This is the first book to focus entirely on historical postcards from South Dakota, including images from more than 50 counties and 100 different communities.The book also explores how postcard images helped create and perpetuate myths about the "Wild West," and how South Dakotans accepted and adapted those myths. Included are scenes of farming, ranching, industry, and small-town life from the early-1900s. While postcards pictured busy streets, town festivals, and new civic improvements, they also captured periodic disasters-natural and man made. Postcards show the development of important tourist sites from their earliest years, including the Black Hills, Badlands, Corn Palace and Mount Rushmore. Residents and tourists alike will enjoy seeing South Dakota before interstates and billboards took over.

During the early years of the 20th century, American families witnessed amazing changes in their daily livesthe arrival of plumbing and electricity in their homes, the first automobiles, and thanks to the Eastman Kodak Company, the first affordable, portable, photographic instrument, the box camera. Many families purchased the box camera (for $1) and began to document their own histories. It is upon these histories that North Dakota places its focus. Nowhere were the changes so dramatic as on the Great Plains, and in the state of North Dakota especially. Due to the huge influx of immigrants, mostly from Scandinavia, the states population more than doubled from 1900 to 1940, roughly the period covered in North Dakota. But this was also a time of hardship and struggle, as the Great Depression, the Dustbowl, and war took their toll on North Dakota families. But through hard work and perseverence, most of these families survived, and thrived, and now share with us the story of that time.

As soon as postcards appeared for sale in the early 1900s, Black Hills residents and visitors began sending them to friends and family across the country. The images and messages on these cards now form a historical record of the towns, mines, ranches, and people that made up the Black Hills and Badlands region. The postcard images chosen for this book show the development of the Black Hills and Badlands from the gold rush to modern times. Long-time residents will enjoy seeing what familiar places looked like in bygone days, while newcomers can learn how today's tourist attractions developed over time, including the Hot Springs mineral baths, Wind Cave, Custer State Park, Badlands National Park, Mount Rushmore, and Crazy Horse Mountain Memorial.

Journal of the Northern Plains.

Today, no one seriously doubts the value, both aesthetic and historic, of the ubiquitous American photographic postcard. This was the medium that really brought photography to the masses; these cards were affordable, they were topical, and they could be sent for a penny anywhere in the country. The variety of imagery, much of it developed anonymously in small studios, much of it taken by inspired amateurs (these were the days when anyone could, and many folks did, own a camera) displays America in all its variety and vitality. Most postcards were mass produced and printed in ink by the collotype or halftone process. But a few were original photographic prints, exposed directly from glass plates or film negatives. Known as real photos these were real photographs, aristocrats of the genre and spectacular examples of vernacular photography. In this charming and scholarly book, Vaule selects the best of them, from all over the country, addressing their social and historical contexts, explaining the mysteries of their manufacture and dissemination, and describing the characteristics and identities of their makers, many of whose names and studios are listed in the book. But without doubt, it is the images themselves that still hold us: storefronts and townships, frisky children and sober adults, air ships and barn raisings. Over one hundred are reproduced here, each in fine-line duotone, each as fascinating and compelling today as when first fixed on paper.