Music

A few real photo postcards of bands.  That's because I just realized I have absolutely zero cards on the topic of Thanksgiving!  So, enjoy a favorite topic instead!

(And have a great Thanksgiving anyway!)

To Alice From Gladys

 

This real photo postcard is inscribed "A Merry Christmas to Alice from Gladys.  Lakeside, ME, 1905"

 

Merry Christmas, Gladys, from the Blog about the Postcards and all its followers!

 

 



Two Men - Two Guitars

I know nothing about these two men, posing with their guitars, in front of an old horse-drawn wagon.  They look proud -- the man on the right is nearly smirking.  I wonder how they sound?

Imperial Girls' Band

Brass Bands in the early 1900's provided much of the local musical entertainment in towns across America. These community organizations were formed by the towns themselves, clubs and organizations, and even factories. There are lots of great Real Photo postcards of bands of that era, and it's easy to imagine them just having bought all their instruments and costumes directly from Harold Hill, right out of "The Music Man."

This postcard is different, in that it depicts an all-girls' band -- a rarity in that nearly all the musicians in all these bands were boys or men. These young ladies look very proud of themselves, and all the more so because of their uniqueness!

Mother's Day

Handwritten on the back of this postcard made at home: "My dear Mother, around 1909/10"

Happy Mother's Day!

Making a Family Portrait

This family portrait includes everyone, even the dog. This card is an outstanding example of how you could "do it yourself," by taking a photograph and then developing it on postcard stock yourself. The firsthand account of the message writer, misspellings and all, tells the story:

"Dear Nephew, Received your card Monday, was glad to here from you. Hope your papa is well again. We got home OK Sunday. Hope you did. We have 84 little chick's. Now don't get scard at these pictures, i did this work, it was my first work. Floyd was busy and I was ancious to see the pictures so i did this work. i got them to dark. I did not print many because they are not good will print more later + send you + your mama some more later we are quite busy."

There is no postmark and the card wasn't mailed, so we don't know when it is from. We get a clue from looking at the box where the stamp would go, however. We can see it's AZO paper, which was an early Kodak paper product. When all the triangles are pointing up in the corners, we know the paper was produced from 1904-1918, a good indicator of age.