Library Spotlight:
Lawrence History Center:
Immigrant City Archives and Museum
Wish You Were Here
A Written Art Form ~ Lawrence Post Cards
By Barbara Brown, Director
A 1942 WWII postcard to Finno's Pool Room on Common St. reads: "Hello Tony, The reason I addressed this card to the pool hall is that I don't want to let the folks know I'm broke so see if you can scrape five bucks and send it to me and I'll see you on pay day. Johnnie"
The Lawrence History Center, Immigrant City Archives and Museum post card exhibit highlighted wonderful examples of postcards from the Lawrence History Center Collection as well as from local collectors. The post cards were displayed between two pieces of glass, then framed and hung from freestanding racks - that way the visitors could see the art and read the messages. Deltiology, the formal name for post card collecting, became popular in the United States prior to World War I. Examples of post card types include Views, Greetings, Historical, Art and Photographic.
The idea for the exhibit came from a collection of 250 post cards from a local young men's hangout on Common Street, Lawrence during WWII. The post cards were sent to Finno's Pool Hall, hung on a bulletin board for members of the Lower End Gang to read. The post cards, although written during wartime, are often humorous and full of jokes and bravado. They were not the cards being sent to Mom and Sweethearts!
Looking further in the collection we gathered post cards from other war time eras, the most poignant being from WWI. One collection is from the family of airman, Alex Bern Bruce, grandson of a Lawrence mayor, who enlisted first as an ambulance driver, later as an airman. He was shot down and killed in August 1918 over France. Another WWI collection was written between a newly wed couple, signing their cards with first and last names!
The last WWI collection was from an alumna of Smith College, Fannie Clements, who went to France to help the population with medical care, education, housing and agricultural needs. She traveled with a group of Smith Alumnae late in the war and was forced to leave when the Germans returned. The difference between the post card images of the two wars is dramatic as are the sentiments expressed.
The Lawrence Views collection included scenes we are very familiar with as well as some we might find hard to imagine being in Lawrence. Holiday Greeting cards as well as business cards are quaint and colorful. The Photographic collection is a fine example of personal stories communicated in an art form of the post card. Historical post cards included images of the frozen Merrimack River, Strikes of 1912 and 1919, Flood of 1936, the Flour Mill Fire and images of new immigrants being "examined" by immigration officials in New York.
The exhibit highlighted the history of the early Lawrence Post Offices and the Lawrence Philatelist (Stamp Collecting) Society publications.
As historians and archivists the post cards are important to us for a number of reasons including: documenting the history of the city; revealing the history of photography, advertising, and political campaigning; retrospective view of the Post Office and the history of using the post card. But more interesting to us were the messages people wrote to one another - this was a snapshot of written communication in the form of art. Sadly, with electronic messaging this written art form has become largely a thing of the past.
The Lawrence Veterans Affairs officer visited the exhibit, himself a veteran of the Iraq War. I asked him about hand-written communication from the military - he said there was none due to the computers and telephone systems set up for the military over seas. Nor were there postcards made of the sights and events taking place such as we saw in the earlier wartime post cards.
Please visit our website at http://www.lawrencehistory.org for more images. Or visit us in person at 6 Essex Street Lawrence, MA to see our postcard collection.
