A History of the Postcard

The concept of the postcard originated at the Austro-German Postal Conference of 1865. Small administrative cards came into circulation in 1869 and these were an overwhelming success with 140,000 copies sold in the first few days and 10 million copies in a single year. Many countries swiftly adopted the idea.

Following defeat at the Battle of Sedan, French statesman Léon Gambetta created a camp for the future Army of Brittany near Le Mans. Nearly 80,000 men were crammed together and correspondence with families provided comfort for them, until they ran out of paper.

A bookseller named Léon Besnardeau, who worked close to the camp, came up with the idea of cutting the covers of notebooks into small rectangles, since the pages had already been sold. This new resource was exhausted quickly, so he had blank cards printed at Oberthur in Rennes. The caption "Souvenir of National Defense" inscribed on the illustration suggests that the card was made after the war of 1870 for soldiers returning home. If Léon Besnardeau cannot be credited as being the inventor of the postcard, he at least deserves the title of "pioneer."

1872: the postcard was officially incorporated into French law.
Two designs were produced costing 10 and 15 centimes (cents). Copies started selling in the very first week and 7,412,700 were sold in total.

These cards were printed exclusively by the post office and sold in post offices and tobacconists. They were 8 x 12 cm, made of cardboard, with a blank side for correspondence and the other side printed for the address.

1875: production restrictions were relaxed. The only constraint was size and weight compliance for administrative regulations. Merchants seized this opportunity to have advertising cards printed. A decree prohibited postcards from being immoral and going against traditions.

It was an inhabitant of Marseille by the name of Dominique Piazza who took the initiative, using photography rather than engravings to send pictures of Marseille to an exiled friend. Piazza developed a commercial product, but was unable to register the patent.

His idea was taken up by Parisian publishers and printers and the postcard popularized photography, an activity just for the elite until that point.

The beginning of the 20th century marked a period of success for the postcard.

Free and compulsory public education gave new social classes access to reading and writing.

All villages became served by the postal service.

Tourism was gradually becoming more popular, thereby encouraging the growth of the postcard market.

The frequency of mail distribution made the postcard an important medium for disseminating information.

It cost less to send a postcard than it did to send a letter.

Postcards could be bought anywhere: jewelry stores, mechanics, tobacconists, grocers, coffee shops, shoemakers…even pharmacists were publishing them. Now priced at 15 centimes, the postcard was accessible to all and had already become a collector's item.

In 1900, France had 38-million inhabitants and published 8-million cards and 33 collectors' journals.

People had never written as many letters or postcards as they did during the Great War: six to seven billion were exchanged between soldiers and their relatives, an average of nearly 1,000 letters per soldier.

Produced by private publishers or official organizations, they spread propaganda and messages of love. Some publishers dared to produce satirical and anti-militarist cards, but these were censored from 1915.

There are multiple factors that explain the decline:
The automobile gave tourists freedom to visit new destinations where postcards were less prevalent.

Amateur photography allowed people to retain other memories.

Industrial production replaced more artisan manufacturing processes, meaning regional printing started to disappear and quality greatly reduced.

The postcard was no longer considered as a source of information following development of the illustrated press, the telephone, and the radio.

Color photography appeared in the 1950s, but it wasn't until the mid-1960s that the reproductions were of a satisfactory quality.

Unlike previous decades, technical progress meant greater quality. The widespread use of bromides made black and white cards more attractive.

In this era of shiny and serrated cards, photographers were able to offer aerial views.

In a rapidly changing society, publishers avoided depicting clichéd characters and cars in order to prevent postcards from going out of fashion too quickly. Having started in the 1930s and 1940s, this turning point gained momentum, making the pictures of towns and villages seem less lively.

Stimulated and inspired, publishers innovated with multi-picture cards, reproductions of paintings or posters, humorous cards, and more. These brought a new sense of appreciation of the old clichés and care in how they were presented. The 1990s saw new formats being invented, new qualities of paper on offer, and the emergence of e-cards.

Adjusted to the 10.5 x 15 cm format and to color, postcards became a social marker. They traveled from sender to recipient, and the latter, being proud of this friendly gesture, puts the card on display to show it off.