Postcards from Vermont: A Social History, 1905-1945 - Softcover

Davis, Allen F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 158465158X ISBN 13: 9781584651581

Publisher: Univ Pr of New England, 2002

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Publisher:

7 x 10 trim. 323 illus. (32 color) LC 2001-005973

About the Author:

A native of Hardwick, Vermont, whose father and grandfather ran the country store there, ALLEN F. DAVIS is Professor of History Emeritus at Temple University. He is a former president of the American Studies Association and author or coauthor of ten books, including The American People, Spearheads for Reform, American Heroine, and Still Philadelphia: A Photographic History. He spends summers at his camp on Caspian Lake.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 158465158X
• ISBN 13: 9781584651581
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336