Rural Delivery: Real Photo Postcards from Central Pennsylvania, 1905-1935

Rural Delivery: Real Photo Postcards from Central Pennsylvania 1905-1935 shows rural America at its best during these years and relates the history of photographic techniques to the country's craze for postcards. Over 200 duotones.

Rural Delivery: Real Photo Postcards from Central Pennsylvania 1905-1935 examines small-town life as reflected in photograhic images that were made into postcards in the early twentieth century. Over two hundred real photo postcards have been selected to recreate a sense of place when Union County, Pennsylvania was prosperous, progressive and growing. This was also the era when so-called "corresponding photographs" were at the height of their popularity and neighboring towns competed with one another to have their best "souvenir views" available.

Area residents are shown on the move-in trains, buggies, and cars-and at play-at Bucknell class rushes, picnicking in the Narrows, or ballooning in Allenwood. Catastrophic events and patriotic celebrations are also shown in these rare visual documents, which rivaled newspapers for their timeliness.

The essay by art historian, Jody Blake, relates this photographic correspondence to technical, social and artistic developments in the history of photography. The essay by Jeannette Lasansky places the images on the postcards into the local historical context of Union County, Pennsylvania.

Most of the photographs have not been reproduced since being issued as real photo postcards. Extensive captions cover issues ranging from photographic techniques to historical background to rarity. Photographers, Grover Bierly, Nelson A. Caulkins, Urs H. Eisenhauer, Edwin S. Heiser, Stephen B. Horton, Arthur R. Ishiguro, Ellen H. Shields, John C. Slear, and John D. Swanger are among 26 whose biographies are included.