Postcards from the Sonora Border: Visualizing Place Through a Popular Lens, 1900s-1950s

Daniel D. Arreola

ISBN 10: 081655501X / ISBN 13: 9780816555017

Published by University of Arizona Press, 2025

About this Item

New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days.

Seller Inventory # B9780816555017

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Postcards from the Sonora Border: Visualizing Place Through a Popular Lens, 1900s-1950s
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Publication Date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081655501X
• ISBN 13: 9780816555017
• Binding: Paperback / softback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 501 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Young men ride horses on a dusty main road through town. Cars and gas stations gradually intrude on the land, and, years later, curiosity shops and cantinas change the face of Mexican border towns south of Arizona. Between 1900 and the late 1950s, Mexican border towns came of age both as centers of commerce and as tourist destinations. Postcards from the Sonora Border reveals how images—in this case the iconic postcard—shape the way we experience and think about place.

Making use of his personal collection of historic images, Daniel D. Arreola captures the evolution of Sonoran border towns, creating a sense of visual “time travel” for the reader. Supported by maps and visual imagery, the author shares the geographical and historical story of five unique border towns—Agua Prieta, Naco, Nogales, Sonoyta, and San Luis Río Colorado.

Postcards from the Sonora Border introduces us to these important towns and provides individual stories about each, using the postcards as markers. No one postcard view tells the complete story—rather, the sense of place emerges image by image as the author pulls readers through the collection as an assembled view. Arreola reveals how often the same locations and landmarks of a town were photographed as postcard images generation after generation, giving a long and dynamic view of the inhabitants through time. Arranged chronologically, Arreola’s postcards allow us to discover the changing perceptions of place in the borderlands of Sonora, Mexico.

About the Author

Daniel D. Arreola is a professor of geographical science and urban planning at Arizona State University. His many books include Postcards from the Río Bravo Border: Picturing the Place, Placing the Picture, 1900s–1950s and Tejano South Texas: A Mexican American Cultural Province.