The Picture Postcard As Souvenir And

An Entangled Object

An Entangled Object: Indeed, there is one who corresponds with me too, but he's so foolish that The Picture Postcard as he writes letters. Did you ever hear Souvenir and Collectible, about anything so ridiculous? As if I care for a good-for-nothing letter! I Exchange and Ritual cannot put a letter into my album, can Communication I? What nonsense! When I get a real boyfriend I will simply insist that he send me the nicest postcards there are Bjarne Rogan to be bought, instead of pestering me University of Oslo, with those dull letters. Norway (Reflections of an anonymous Nor- wegian girl, "Brevkort og Backfischer" 1903, 41)

Abstract The picture postcard craze went hand in ne of the most striking con- hand with the rise of a new consumer cul- sumption phenomena at the ture, a more affluent society, and a new beginning of the 20th century O 1 middle class. Modernity is the common was the craze for the picture postcard. denominator and the frame of reference. The vogue started between 1895 and However, these cards served a multiplic- 1900 and faded out between 1915 and ity of uses and functions including as col- 1920. These two decades have been lectibles, ritual communication, and gift called the Golden Age of the picture exchanges, and were enmeshed in a tangle postcard, and with good reason. The of relationships. What characterized the hunger for cards seized both young and craze for the picture postcard a century ago old, males and females, in Europe and and guaranteed its enormous spread and the USA, and on other continents as well. popularity was precisely these enmeshed Except for the mania for the postage functions, concrete as well as symbolic, and stamp, there had never been up to that the many layers of meaning invested in the time a more pervasive and ubiquitous postcard. Few material items are more fad for a material item. Roughly aptly characterized as "an entangled ob- estimated, between 200 and 300 billion ject" than the picture postcard of the postcards were produced and sold 2 Golden Age. during this Golden Age.

The Picture Postcard—an Icon of Mo- dernity The picture postcard has been the object of several studies. Its production and

The picture postcard was collectible no. 1 for young girls. Norwegian postcard from 1910, entitled “From the Postcard Shop.”

distribution, iconography, and semiotics sible to explain the enormous popular- have been analyzed by—among many ity of this non-essential material item and others—Carline (1972), Ripert and Frère the billions of cards sold and mailed ev- (1983), Ulvestad (1988), Schor (1992), ery year unless we also consider the card Bogdan and Marshall (1995), and Geary as an exchange object, a gift, and a mes- and Webb (1998). I have discussed the sage carrier. What triggered my curios- collecting of postcards during the ity about these things were (a) the fact Golden Age myself in three articles that my research material—present-day (Rogan 1999, 2001a, and 2001b). Never- collections of postcards from the Golden theless, research perspectives on the Age—often contain 50% or more of un- postcard phenomenon have tended to be used and unmailed cards, and (b) that rather narrow and removed from their the written messages generally contain broader social and cultural contexts. very little information. It struck me that Their iconography, representational and scholarly interest has concentrated on the ideological connections, production tech- picture side of the postcard, and that little niques, distribution networks, and col- work has been done on the significance lecting modes—however fascinating— of what is on, or not on, the other side of are only a part of the story. It is not pos- the card. In this essay, I shall look at both

2 An Entangled Object

sides of the postcard, at the messages the humblest material artefact, which is inscribed by their users as much as at the the product and symbol of a particular imagery, and discuss these in terms of civilization, is an emissary of the culture exchange ritual and communication. out of which it comes" (T.S. Eliot 1948, Aesthetics and communication, ritual qtd. in Briggs 1988, 11). A century ago, and symbol, technology and business, the picture postcard meant much more, play and action, imagination and re- and very different things, than it does membrance, desire and materiality, com- today. It arose out of new technologies modity as well as subjective experience . and production processes, as a result of . . There seems to be no end to the per- industrialization in the latter half of the spectives that may be applied to the pic- 19th century. The postcard craze was a ture postcard, even if few of us will go response to a new desire for things, cre- as far as Östman when he stated that, "I . ated by an unprecedented access to com- . . maintain that small, nice, mostly val- modities for broader population groups. ueless picture postcards do have a very It was a response to a longing for color- important function not only for the study ful images, made possible by new repro- of what is at the bottom of our discourse, duction techniques. It was an answer to but even for a deeper understanding of modern communication needs as mass Man; the picture postcard stands—in a tourism began to take off on a burgeon- way—at the center of humanness" (1999– ing scale. Furthermore, it satisfied new 2000, 8). Östman himself approaches the leisure habits, like the collecting interests phenomenon through a discourse analy- of women—a group which until then sis of a functional-pragmatic kind; he is, had had few opportunities of finding an however, more convincing when it accepted outlet for such desires (actually, comes to the linguistic-textual analysis postcard collecting was started by than in understanding the postcard as a women). In short, the picture postcard material object and an agent of action went hand in hand with the rise of a new (e.g., as a collectible, a gift).3 An inte- consumer culture, a more affluent soci- grated theoretical approach would have ety, and a new middle class. All these de- been desirable, but is it really possible? velopments seem to have coalesced in So many different theories may be ap- the picture-postcard boom. Modernity is plied, depending on whether the focus the common denominator and the frame is on the postcard as a collectible, a gift, of reference. a souvenir, a medium of communication, etc. A Golden Age A holistic approach to the postcard should take account of the The illustrated postcard craze, like the embeddedness of the object in contem- influenza, has spread to these islands porary culture. My point of departure is [Great Britain] from the Continent, the postcard not "at the center of human- where it has been raging with considerable severity. ness" but rather as "an emissary of its culture," or as T.S. Eliot once put it: "Even (The Standard, 1899)

3 Bjarne Rogan

The popularity of the picture postcard sumption—a conclusion that is based on rose steadily through the 1890s, as ap- the fact that most picture postcards from pearance, colors, and printing techniques these parts of the world are found in improved. From the turn of the century, European and American markets and the number of dispatched cards ex- collections today (Geary and Webb 1998). ploded. Europe was virtually flooded Specialized postcard shops and ex- with picture postcards; metaphors like change bourses grew up in most major "an inundation" and "the letting out of western cities, but cards could be bought waters" were used by the press, as well virtually everywhere. as terms like "influenza" and "pest." In The popularity of the picture postcard 1903, a British paper predicted that was due to several factors, which, ana- within ten years Europe would be bur- lytically, can be sorted into the follow- ied beneath postcards, as a result of the ing four groups. In practice however, any new "postcard cult." That year around card might fall into several of these cat- 600 million postcards were dispatched egories: in Great Britain alone. In Germany the number exceeded one billion, and the • The aesthetics of the card. As a same quantity is reported from the USA. cheap pictorial item in a world Japan lagged a bit behind, with only half where other colored pictures a billion. England passed the billion-card were still rare and expensive, the mark in 1906. It is estimated that seven motif in itself was of high impor- billion cards passed through the world's tance. The pictures gave visual post offices in 1905 (Carline 1972; Ripert pleasures, information about dis- and Frère 1983). tant places and famous persons, These numbers do not include all the opportunities for longing and cards that were bought and put into al- dreaming, and pretexts for dis- bums—as souvenirs or as collectibles— cussions in the family and con- without being mailed, during the Golden versations at social gatherings, as Age. The collecting zeal followed the for example in the very common same trend, and there is reason to believe habit of keeping postcard al- that the number of cards bought but not bums for guests to look at. Post- mailed was not very much lower than card albums were the "coffee- the enormous numbers that were put in table books" of the turn of the the mail. In 1900, The Times reported on century (Rogan 1999) and the this new collecting "mania," adding that cards, with their colorful visual it had not yet reached the same heights representation of the world, in Britain as it had in some other coun- symbolized modernity at large. tries. Within less than a decade, however, the mania had spread all over the • The card as a souvenir. The enor- world—even if the picture postcard busi- mous number of all sorts of cards ness in Africa and Asia was probably (apart from collections strictly intended mainly for Western con- speaking) secured for posterity

4 An Entangled Object

in chests and drawers, in recesses est scale remained a predomi- and attics, tells its own tale about nantly female activity (Rogan the drive to uphold the memory 1999, 2001a). Women collected of persons, places, and events. motifs like views, landscapes, All the congratulations cards, but portraits, and works of art, but even more the large quantities of men started when more modern cards with local and tourist mo- motifs appeared, like humorous tifs, testify to their value as sou- cards, actresses and "posed beau- venirs—souvenirs of persons, of ties," ships, locomotives, and places where someone lived, of other tourist and transport top- sites visited, or of travels under- ics. Serious postcard collecting taken. (as opposed to other postal history collecting, i.e., stamps and • The card as a collectible. A new col- philately) claimed aesthetic ide- lecting vogue, that of picture als rather than serial or taxo- postcards, swept over the West- nomic and scientific ones. In the ern world around 1900. The or- collector's journals, the new, se- dinary collector once more had rious (male) collectors sharply access to a new, cheap, and ubi- criticized the old (female) prac- quitous pictorial item, as in the tice of filling up albums haphaz- early days of stamp collecting. In ardly. The new (male) élite ad- the first years, collecting post- vocated specialization, the intel- cards was primarily if not exclu- ligent selection of beautiful or sively the hobby of young girls interesting cards, and annotated and women. There were even albums (Rogan 2001a, 2001b). collector clubs for ladies only. From around 1905 the men en- • The card as a means of communica- tered the scene and took over the tion. The driving force behind the clubs and the journals, which postcard, from a postal history proliferated during the Golden point of view, was the need for a Age.4 Close reading of advertise- practical, cheap, and quick me- ments in British postcard jour- dium for sending short, simple nals confirms that in 1900 the messages. Writing letters was for great majority of collectors were the élite, not for ordinary people, women. A similar reading in and for women more than for 1906 shows that men had taken men. The telegraph, introduced over, outnumbering the women in the 1860s, was until around by about five to one (Carline World War I an expensive way 1972, 66). However, albums that of communicating, mostly used have survived and other scat- for business purposes. The resis- tered evidence indicate that post- tance to open messages that any- card collecting on a more mod- one could read was strong—not

5 Bjarne Rogan

least in the upper class, letter- rity became a major concern, with fac- writing milieus, but also from tory workers sworn to secrecy and visi- postal authorities. It gradually tors kept to a minimum. Each factory de- diminished, however, from the veloped unique color formulas that were 1870s on, steadily allowing more closely guarded as trade secrets and of- space on the postcards for the ten protected by patents and trademark picture and the message. registration (Woody 1998). As the types of cards grew more The above factors—the cards as aesthetic numerous, many firms specialized in objects, as souvenirs, as collectibles, and products for the tourist industry (Gruss as a communication medium—may be aus–, Greetings from-, Souvenir de–, Hilsen termed the "pull" factors. To this should fra- cards, and later types), collector's sets, be added some "push" factors, i.e., the etc. With the economic potential in local rapidly expanding postcard industry, the view-cards, some German firms publishers, agents, and sellers, their ad- accepted millions of small contracts from vertising and efforts to sell their prod- local clients to document localities—thus ucts.5 creating a historical visual record that encompassed the world. Also, the development of small, inexpensive The Rise and Fall of an Industry cameras permitted amateur The postcard industry became a big busi- photographers to make their own ness that quickly created finely meshed, photographic postcards; smaller pictures worldwide networks. It became a major were sent in with mail-order postcard economic sector, employing in France contracts, rephotographed at the alone around 30,000 persons by 1900 factories and conformed to the standard (Schor 1992). However, Germany was size of postcards—a practice that has the leading country for postcard produc- been revitalized in the last decade. tion from late 19th century until around The success of the German postcard 1910. Hundreds of German companies, industry in the early years of the 20th some with several factories, produced century was due partly to low labor costs billions of cards every year. Some of the but mainly to its hegemony in printing large postcard factories employed as processes. After 1910, the skills of the many as fifteen hundred workers. About German printing industry were dis- thirty of these German firms expanded persed when many young printers emi- into the international card market, pro- grated to Great Britain, the United States, ducing cards with motifs from Norway and elsewhere. But towards World War to the Pacific. Pre-1910 North American I, the Golden Age of the postcard was postcards were produced mainly in Ger- approaching its end. The reasons are many, as were most cards with motifs complex, but the war itself was a main from the British Empire. Competition factor: international as well as national was fierce among the producers, and in- tourism declined markedly, and indus- dustrial espionage was common; secu- trial wartime production was directed

6 An Entangled Object

towards more essential, non-luxury ob- made the disposal of postcards the sub- jects. When peacetime trade resumed, ject of their third and largest competition, most postcard companies were out of with the title "Home Decoration." Prizes business. The reduced demand for post- were awarded for the best use of postcards after the war was not only due to cards for decorating tables, screens, cup- new communications media like the tele- boards, overmantles, etc. The first prize graph and the telephone. Another im- was given for a table mosaic, the second portant factor was that the collecting for a screen creation, the third for a decor- mania was over or its focus had moved ation of bellows. All the prizewinners on to other items (Woody 1998). were ladies (Carline 1972, 64, 69). If Germany was the leading postcard There is not enough space here to dis- producer, British publishers were more cuss all the different types of cards that active on the distribution side, import- poured onto the market. Generally ing cards from Germany and distribut- speaking, the earliest cards (the "pre- ing them through their worldwide net- postals") were congratulations cards, works. As for aggressive advertising, the then came topographical cards (tourist British postcard publishing company and local cards) and art reproductions, Raphael Tuck and Sons offers a case in comic cards, erotic cards, and a long list point. When Tuck began publishing of types of topical cards. What strikes an postcards in 1898–99, they launched a observer today is the way that types and competition with big prizes to those who functions crossed each other. There were collected (or rather hoarded) the great- for instance specialized seasonal greet- est number of their cards within the ing cards (for Christmas, Easter, Whit- space of two years. Duplicates were ac- suntide, for birthdays, etc.), but a tourist cepted as long as they bore different postcard, a portrait, a summer scene, or a marks. When the entries were judged, humor card could also serve as a Christ- the first award went to a lady from Nor- mas or a New Year's card. During the wich who submitted over 20,000 cards. Golden Age, every sort of card might be Another lady received a special award used for almost any purpose. It seems for a collection of over 2,000 cards from as if the message (however insignificant one single series. In a new competition it might be, see below) was just as im- in 1904, it was once again a lady who portant as the motif and the occasion. won the first prize for having collected over 25,000 Tuck's cards, but this time Topographical Cards: The Local Card with a gentleman in second place. The and the Tourist Card enormous quantity of postcards pro- Two of the most voluminous categories duced, sent, collected, or simply kept of postcards, to the extent that they may created a serious problem: how to dis- be distinguished from each other, were pose of them. Among other things, the the local cards and the tourist cards. Lo- use of postcards for papering walls was cal postcards depicted various themes of advocated (as had been done fifty years special interest or immediate importance earlier for postage stamps). In 1906, Tuck

7 Bjarne Rogan

monumental buildings, among which churches and hospitals have a prominent position. One would perhaps think that motifs like mental asy- lums would be rather rare on postcards. How- ever, Bogdan and Marshall (1995) have collected nearly 1,700 different postcard depictions of American mental asy- lums, and they believe Tourists writing postcards in Stockholm, Sweden, 1909. these are only a fraction Photo: Anton Blomberg, Stockholm Stadsmuseum. of the postcards produced with such motifs. to local consumers, i.e., the inhabitants In this collection more than half the cards of a region, a town, or a village. Build- have never been mailed. Among the 47% ings, streets, markets and fairs, shops, or that carry an inscription, less than the even the interiors of shops were typical half comment upon this special motif. motifs, as were activities of every sort on Even an asylum card could be used for a the local level. Factories, even small simple, everyday message or a sign of plants and workshops in the countryside life. An even more special motif, seen or the village, were favorite themes. The with modern eyes, relates to the French small dairy factory, the local wine experience of World War I. I have found cooperative, the village vinegar or potato in French postcard collections several starch factory, and the local sulphur or depictions of crippled persons sitting in bone meal factory were topics that dog-drawn carts; the person depicted abound in French collections, as do the had had postcards made of themselves school house, the first automobile in the (by means of the mail-order system men- village, the policeman, the postman, the tioned above), which they sold to earn a milkman, etc. In Norwegian collections, living. The inscriptions on all these local harbors, scenes from fisheries and whal- cards, to the extent that they have been ing, the canning industry, etc., play the mailed and not only bought as souve- same role. The variety of local cards is nirs or collectibles, seldom make men- amazing, and there is hardly any village tion of the pictorial theme. motif that has not served for a postcard. In contrast to these locally idiosyn- These postcards were indeed often cratic motifs stand the conventionalized idiosyncratic in their depiction of local and stereotypical motifs of the tourist themes, as stated by Geary and Webb cards. The tourist industry and early (1998, 2). A favorite local theme was mass tourism from the late 19th century

8 An Entangled Object

onwards strongly influenced postcard And what did they write? Picture production, and the postcard industry postcards!! Oh, scourge of all scourges found one of its most profitable outlets in this century. Like a pest you have in the emerging mass tourism. Typical fallen over us, and you pursue us into motifs on these cards are landscape the most desolate valley. No one is safe from you. You are capable of views, snowy mountains, waterfalls, spoiling the most beautiful voyage, fjords, glaciers, churches, cathedrals, the most picturesque landscape, the castles, hotels and passenger ships, as most serene fjord, the highest look- well as folkloric themes like national cos- out point. . . . And what does the tour- tumes, folk dance scenes, peasants har- ist do, when your call wakes him up vesting, etc. Cards could be bought in from his silent contemplation of na- most kinds of shops, in libraries, in rest- ture? . . . He digs deep into his pocket, aurants and railway stations, aboard brings out his purse and buys, more steamers, from coachmen and street-cor- or less grudgingly, 2, 4, 6, 10, or 20 ner vendors. Tourists are reported to postcards, according to the number of friends and family. Instead of en- have bought, written, and sent cards in joying the marvelous view of the large numbers, as an integral part of the landscape . . . the tourist sits down travel experience. From reading travel and with an unusable pencil scribbles accounts from the turn of the century, one some unreadable lines. gets the impression that the cards bought and sent were as important as the sites (Laverrenz 1901, 60–61, qtd. in visited. A British tourist in Germany in Brudvik 2001) 1900 reported that, "[y]ou enter the railway station, and everybody on the plat- This tourist's critique of modern times form has a pencil in one hand and a post- was more rhetorical than really felt, how- card in the other. In the train it is the same ever, as he himself admitted having writ- thing. Your fellow travelers never speak. ten and sent fifty-two cards at the last They have little piles of picture postcards stop in a Norwegian harbor. His excuse on the seat beside them, and they write was that this was a duty that one should monotonously" (G.R. Sims qtd. in not forget lest one run the risk of turn- Carline 1972, 64). ing old friends to lifelong foes. On this We get the same impression from occasion, he reports, every single passen- travel accounts from Norway, and espe- ger from the cruiser was standing on the cially from authors who participated in road in front of the little local post office mass tourism cruises. From a hotel on writing cards, using house walls, tree the western coast in 1901, a German tour- trunks, etc., as writing desks. Other tourist wrote: ists along the Norwegian coast relate the same story (Brudvik 2001). Cards could When I entered the hall with all the be bought on board and in all ports. An- interesting Nordic wooden carvings, other German, who did a North Cape I found the room filled with people, cruise in 1899, reports that the number who without exception sat writing. of postcards sent from his ship came to

9 Bjarne Rogan

around 20,000—which meant an average of fifty cards for each of the four hundred passengers on board (Haffter 1900). Other tourists again report that the "float- ing postcard shop" often ran out of cards, just as several of the small, local post offices were emptied of stamps. In one case, a small post office in a desolate Norwe- gian fjord ran out of postage stamps when 6,000 cards were delivered from one single passenger steamer (Brosi 1906, 148). This is "the age of the picture postcard," an English cruise tourist con- cluded, adding that tourists no longer needed to remember the views and places visited—it was sufficient to bring home the postcards (Klinghammer 1903).

The Collectible and the Gift

Dear Stanley, I am sending you this postcard. I hope you will like to put Postcard sent in 1900 from The Hague to Paris. it in your postcard album. I hope you As the other side of the card was reserved for are well from your loving Auntie stamp and address, any greeting or message Nellie Rudgley. had to be written on the picture side. The longer the message, the more detrimental to (Message on a tourist card with mo- the picture. The inscription (quoted in the text) tif from the western coast of Norway, is about exchange: it confirms the reception sent in 1906 to England, on a "di- of other cards, promises to send more cards, carrying cancellation marks from the depicted vided" card with room for longer sites. messages)

"Have you got anything for me, please?" The postman smilingly advising them on how to place the discloses the contents of his sack to postcards in the albums. the girls, who beam with joy. "I got 17. How about you?" "Oh, only 15 . . (Reflections of an anonymous ." Father grumbles something about Norwegian girl, "Brevkort og postage costs and the poor postmen Backfischer" 1903, 41–44) working doubly because of this idiotic collecting craze. But to no avail. The British tourist in Germany in 1900 . . . Soon after he finds himself eagerly (cited above) noted on his cruise down

10 An Entangled Object

the Rhine that at each stopping-place a ists on the plateau found a postmark waiter was sent ashore with a large con- stamp and a stamp pad on a table on the signment of cards for the post. He was plateau; they were now allowed to do it astonished to learn that they were mostly themselves for the price of ten cents a addressed by the passengers to them- card (Lausberg 1912, 348).6 selves in order to secure the appropriate Why this fad for cancellation marks? postmark; collectors liked to have their There were probably two reasons. One postcards carry a cancelled stamp was to authenticate the object, which was (Carline 1972, 64). In France, collectors important to the collector, especially to could bring their cards to any post office the male collector focusing on postal and have them cancelled without send- items. The other reason was to authenti- ing them, whereas the British post office cate the travel experience, i.e., the fact of refused this concession, to the dismay of having been to certain places, which was British collectors. of importance to the souvenir gatherer To have the correct cancellation was and probably also to those tourists who a main concern for tourists in Norway wanted to impress family and friends at as well. From the ports where the steam- home (Belk 1997). ships called, we have reports of throng- It is obvious that many of the cards ing at the post offices, long queues, and were gifts to collectors or exchange items. sweating postmasters applying stamps If we turn to the inscriptions on the cards, and cancellations as fast as they could phrases like "Sent with affection to swell (Brudvik 2001). On their arrival at the your collection," "Add me to your col- North Cape, this practice would culmi- lection," etc., are common. In the follow- nate. In 1897 a Danish tourist reported ing (exceptionally) long inscription, the that the two hours passed on the plateau exchange aspect appears clearly: were spent writing cards. The visitors were allowed to have them cancelled Thank you a thousand times for the there with a postmark stamp reading card from . . . and the two from "Nordkapp," brought along from the Robinson that I received recently and ship, as there was actually no post office gave me much pleasure. Two friends on the plateau. Then the cards were will be going to Rotterdam and Amsterdam for the Pentecost. I will brought back to the ship and delivered profit from their journey by furnish- to the nearest post office (Andræ 1919, ing them with cards from those 100). On a cruise on the German ship places, so they will carry cancellation Auguste Victoria in 1899, one of the crew, marks from the towns they represent. who served as a "Postmaster," had to I leave on the 9th for Bruxelles, from carry 4,000 cards up to the plateau of where I shall not forget you. [. . . greet- North Cape to have them cancelled there. ing + signature] "The poor man showed me his hand af- terwards," a German tourist reported, "it (Postcard with local motif, sent in was full of blisters from the stamping" 1900 from The Hague to Paris. French inscription.) (Haffter 1900, 53). A few years later, tour-

11 Bjarne Rogan

The two following inscriptions show that inscriptions represent. It was also com- it must have been common for tourists mon that collectors sent cards as "gifts" to take on commissions for collectors. In to themselves, as the Rhine tourist wit- both cases the tone is formal and the nessed (above). A corresponding case, polite vous-form is used; the receivers are observed by Geary and Webb (1998, 8), not close acquaintances: was a French colonial civil servant who during the years 1900 to 1925 sent post- Madame, I hope that among the se- cards to his parents back home, asking ries of cards that I send you I will them to keep the cards for his future col- chance to find something that will lection. bring you pleasure. I start by sending this old church in ancient gothic The proportion of cards intended pri- style [. . . Formal greeting and signa- marily for collections, as exchange ob- ture] jects, or as gifts to others or to oneself, must have been high. In addition to cards (Postcard with tourist motif, sent from like those cited above, where the inscrip- Stavanger, Norway, to Paris in 1903. tions clearly disclose the collecting con- French inscription.) text, there are all the blank, unused cards we find in present-day collections. More- over, many cards containing ordinary Madame, I beg your pardon for my greetings were also essentially items of long delay in answering your latest cards, for which I will express my exchange between collectors. In collec- thanks. I will do my utmost to be tions of Golden Age cards that I have more regular in my correspondence studied, with motifs from Norway (from next time. [. . . greetings + signature] one much visited fjord), from France (local cards from one département) and from (Postcard with tourist motif, sent in Egypt (motifs from Alexandria), all 1903 from Stavanger, Norway, to collected in the 1980s and 1990s, I have France. French inscription.) found that the percentage of unused cards ranges from above 50 up to 70, with There are many cards with similar in- the highest percentage for tourist cards. scriptions. In order to facilitate exchange Others confirm this result. In the collec- quite a few postcard exchange clubs tion of (local) asylum cards referred to were established at regional as well as above over half of the approximately national and international levels. A 1,700 cards were unused (Bogdan and French club founded in Nancy in 1900 Marshall 1995). with the special aim of promoting inter- Cards that are bought and kept un- national exchange counted as many as used are more likely to survive than used 2,400 members in 1904 (Ripert and Frère cards, so we cannot infer from these cases 1983). The members exchanged both that more than half of the cards produced used and unused cards, but the clubs during the Golden Age were bought probably also served as contact centers with the sole intention of keeping, rather for the type of exchange that the above than sending, them. However, knowing

12 An Entangled Object

the collecting fad of this period, which of reciprocity would have it—gifts to definitely included mailed cards (includ- other persons entail gifts in return.7 ing, for example, those mailed in order to procure a cancellation), one may ask Back Page Becomes Front Page which is more amazing: that the percent- In order to approach the inscriptions on age of used cards that have survived is the postcards, a brief account of the for- so low, or that the percentage of unused mal postal rules and the design of the cards is so high? My conclusion so far is postcard is necessary (Ulvestad 1988, that the card had an important function Rogan 1999). The design of the card as a gift, whether it was in used and im- played a major role for the form and the perfect form or in unused, mint condi- length of the message, and consequently tion, whether it was a gift to other col- for its contents. From the 1870s to the lectors or a gift to oneself. And—as rules 1890s the postcards went through sev-

Local card with a scene from the Main Street in Tromsø, Norway, sent by an English tourist in 1905. The card is of the old type; the recto or front side contains only the address of the receiver and the stamp. What we see is the verso or back side, with the picture and a small margin for messages—in this case only a signature. A sign of life, perhaps even meant for boasting, maybe also a collectible or an exchange object, but carrying no further information to the receiver.

13 Bjarne Rogan

eral phases, from the prepaid, pictureless space still allowed only fairly short mes- stationery card, to cards with pictures sages. The picture postcard remained the and postage stamps.8 From the late perfect medium for short communica- 1890s—the beginning of the Golden tions. Age—the postcard's front side or recto (as it was called by the postal authori- Ritual Communication ties) contained only the address of the receiver and the postage stamp, and the Arrivé bon port [+ signature] (Tour- back side or verso was more or less cov- ist card from Egypt to France, 1904) ered by the picture. Messages were not allowed on the recto side, only on the En ballade [+ signature] (Local card verso—which they had to share with the sent within France, 1908) picture. This meant that there was only room for very short messages (plus a sig- Je ne pourrais pas écrire avant 8 jours [no signature] (Tourist card from Nor- nature), in a corner or on the margins, way to France, 1905) unless you wrote your message across the picture—the only solution for longer The brevity of the inscriptions is strik- messages. This physical frame is impor- ing. We shall have a look at the inscrip- tant because it imposed limitations on tions of a few collections of cards from the use of the card. The postcard could the Golden Age, all of them new collec- not serve as a medium for substantial tions gathered in recent years. Of a small messages, and overwriting the picture special collection of thirty-six old tourist was not a good solution for the aesthete cards from Alexandria, only ten had been or the collector. Longer messages had to through the mail. The great majority of be sent by ordinary, closed letters. the mailed ones (eight out of ten) had The final phase started just after the extremely short inscriptions, like "Arrivé turn of the century—in 1902 in Great bon port," "Amical souvenir," "Bonne Britain, 1903 in France, 1905 in Norway, santé," "Remerciements," "Souvenir 1907 in the USA—when the recto or ad- lointain," "Amical bonjour," "Salutation," dress side was divided into two parts: or a signature only—even if some of one half for the address and the stamp, these cards have a divided back with and the other half for the message, as on room for longer messages. Another small modern postcards. From then on, the collection of tourist cards, from a Nor- picture was allowed to spread out on the wegian fjord, shows the same pattern: whole of the verso. The authorities still out of twenty-one old cards only eight stuck to the recto-verso terminology, but had been mailed. Six of the eight cards for the ordinary consumer the hierarchy had very short inscriptions, of the above between the two sides had been inverted; type. Of the four long inscriptions in the back side had finally become the front these two collections, two contain com- side, and the address and the message plaints of not having received return were relegated to the back side. This left cards from the addressees ("Ns sommes more room for writing, although the étonnés de ne pas avoir de vous

14 An Entangled Object

nouvelles. Pas une seule carte"). That is, scriptions (much shorter than the space the mailed cards are either short signs of demanded), as indicated by a study of life or metatexts on communication. Of cards from a French département (l'Ain), another series of forty cards, all sent in even if there is a higher number of longer 1904 by a tourist in Norway and ad- inscriptions among these. What is strik- dressed to three different members of his ing, however, is the exchange aspect: family in Paris, thirty-two contain nothing but the signature, seven very short My dear Léontine, Thank you very inscriptions, and one an inscription of much for the short message you sent about twenty words. A possible interpre- me. I was pleased to have it. (+ signa- tation is that these forty cards are gifts to ture) a collector, either himself or one of the My very dear little Annie, I hasten to family members back in Paris. All the answer your letter, which I received same, these cards served as signs of life yesterday evening. I was very happy as well. to have news from you. . . . (+ signa- The above sample is small, but oth- ture) ers confirm the result. Geary and Webb have examined two collections of cards I received your card, which pleased sent from Africa to Europe (consisting, me. . . . (+ signature) respectively, of thirty-four and thirty-five Dear Father and Sister. I write you this cards) and they observe that "[m]ost short card to tell you that I have ar- cards carry no message; three or four rived well and to say hello to you. (+ simply state that a longer letter had been signature) delayed" (1998, 7). A contemporary observer, a German tourist in Norway, con- There is something automatic and ritu- firms these findings. He added the fol- alistic about most of these inscriptions, lowing remark to his observation of his whether they carry a signature only (in fellow travelers writing cards on every some cases not more than the initials) or possible occasion (quoted above): "Don't a few words in addition. It is like a hand- worry about writing too much. Your shake or a simple phrase—"Good morn- words are of no importance. The receiver ing," "How do you do," or any other ev- does not want anything but the picture, eryday ritual. These inscriptions are al- whether it comes from the north, south, most void of information but they are still east, or west; it doesn't matter whether messages with a strong expressive value. it's a phototype, a collotype, or a lithog- Communication theory may shed raphy. Most publishers are smart; they some light on the function of these cards. produce cards where you cannot write In order to draw a clearer line between much more than your name. That's how mass culture and popular culture, folk- much space there must be left for the loristic theory has pointed to the distinc- cards to be bought . . ." (Laverrenz 1901, tion between messages that carry infor- 61). mation and messages that are primarily Local cards too might have short in- activities in themselves (Eriksen 1989).

15 Bjarne Rogan

The first communication form is linear, between the lines. Inscriptions like these with a sender, a receiver (or a group of do not transmit information external to receivers in the case of mass communi- the sender; they are more or less identi- cation), and a piece of information of cal to the sender.10 They are social tokens some sort, the intention being that one more than informative messages. person or one group informs another per- Whether the postcard contains a short son or another group. The second type inscription, a signature, or a set of ini- has been described as circular, tials, the redundancy—normally an im- encompassing people who have a fairly portant element when information is close social relationship; the purpose of transferred—is reduced to a minimum. such communication acts being to con- These are cards exchanged between firm or mobilize an already existing so- people who know each other well and cial relationship; hence the term "activ- for whom the context is known.11 No ity-oriented" communication for the lat- card is totally void of information; after ter, as opposed to the first type, "infor- all, they state that the sender is or was mation-oriented" communication.9 alive at the moment of mailing. But the It has been pointed out that activity- main function is to keep up reciprocal oriented communication presupposes a social contacts ("reciprocal" communi- clear set of common references and that cation is perhaps a more accurate term the purpose is often merely to confirm than "circular" in the case of postcards). these (Eriksen 1989). To make the mes- In the same way, cards sent between col- sage short and economical is one way of lectors, with little or no text, also have demonstrating this form of cultural com- this secondary, social function of keep- petence. The aim is not to provide new ing the network going, as if stating "I'm information, but to refer to what is al- still interested in your collecting activity ready shared; the most successful com- and I'll help you enhance your collec- munication is the one that is least redun- tion." Marshall McLuhan's old dant. A postcard inscription like "Arrivé catchphrase, "the medium is the mess- bon port" ("Arrived safe and sound") age," still seems valid for some types of presupposes that the addressee knows communication. that the sender has left on a journey and Due to its predominantly social aim, probably also most of the details of the the postcard may be viewed as a form of itinerary. The same applies to all the ritual communication. A ritual may be cards with only a greeting—a "Bonjour," identified by three characteristics, a "Salutations," an "Amical souvenir," etc. namely repetition, institutionalization — or with nothing but a signature or a (the act must be familiar and set of initials. Their information compo- predictable), and expressivity.12 The last nent may very often be reduced to that characteristic makes it possible to draw of a sign of life; they can be translated to the line between rituals on the one hand a "Hello, I'm alive" and "I haven't forgot- and (utilitarian) habits and routines on ten you." They include a "Wish you were the other. From the point of view of here," whether literally expressed or read semiotics, the ritual act—e.g., sending a

16 An Entangled Object

Three typical tourist cards from the North Cape, dat- ing from 1905 or earlier. The back sides contain nothing but adress and stamp, as prescribed. One card carries a signature and a date only. The second is un- signed but has the following inscription: "Another for your collection; one J. V. gave me last night." The inscription on the third card is "We’re alive. All well at home. Thanks for the card you sent me" plus signature. This means three signs of life, at least one exchange object and one metatext on communication.

17 Bjarne Rogan

postcard—may be seen as a signifier of young informants as essential for belong- some symbolic content: the signified (in ing to, and maintaining membership in, our context, a sign of life or a groups and networks. Just like the post- confirmation of friendship). What makes card message, the mobile text message a routine a ritual is when the expressive is asynchronic (unlike the direct tele- value (the signified) enters the phone conversation), and because space foreground. The intention of the is limited, it is minimalist and non-re- performer and the interpretation of the dundant. It is used mainly to send short observer and receiver are the essential emotional messages (often coded, in per- criteria in distinguishing a ritual from a sonal variants, as postcard messages routine. The postcard often has high were also often sent in abbreviated form), expressive value. It represents a practical jokes and gossip, or drawings; conse- realm, that of messages and information quently it has little information value but exchange, but its informaa strong value a high expressive and symbolic value of sociability: the mobile phone call and (Johnsen 2000). These rather non-essen- especially its text-messaging capacities tial messages (from a utilitarian point of (including the recent technology of view) require responses within a short transmitting visual or photographic time-frame, in accordance with the prin- messages). Its popularity was shown on ciple of gift giving and immediate reci- New Year's Eve 1999, when— procity—unless you want to punish remarkably—the main Norwegian net someone by demonstrating his non-be- operator registered three million text longing or to mark your own superior- messages in a total population of four ity. The text message may be said to have million. Recent research among young the same relation to a telephone conver- people aged between thirteen and sation as a postcard does to a letter. twenty confirms the fundamental role played by text messages for keeping in An Entangled Object touch and confirming social Around 1900, the Western world experi- relationships (Johnsen 2000). enced a craze for postcards, a fad that The mobile phone has two character- lasted two decades and spread to most istics in common with the postcard (and of the world. There is a striking contrast which distinguish it from the ordinary, between quantity and banality, i.e., be- permanent telephone): it is a communi- tween the enormous number of post- cation system based on individual access cards produced and sold during the to the medium (you seldom share a mo- Golden Age (probably at least 200 or 300 bile with others), and the text-messag- billion cards) and the use of them, as we ing system allows communication inde- can infer from the considerable number pendently of time and place (you can send of examples that have survived until the a message from wherever you are at any present. Half of the surviving cards are time, day or night). The mobile, its text blank (not mailed) and a substantial pro- messaging capacity, and the omnipres- portion of the used (mailed) cards—for ent availability it offers are described by topographical motifs probably more

18 An Entangled Object

than the half—carry short, banal greet- dom carried a substantial, linear mes- ings or only the signature of the sender. sage—i.e., new information—from the However, these cards served a multi- sender to the addressee. As a communi- plicity of uses and functions and they cation medium, the card carried mes- were enmeshed in a tangle of relation- sages more or less void of information; ships. Aesthetic appreciation of the pic- they served mainly as a sign of life and a ture motifs lay behind the postcard's reminder of social relationships. The pic- popularity in general (the symbolic and ture postcard was predominantly a car- representational aspects of the images rier of what has been termed "activity- have not been treated in this article), and oriented" communication, the purpose the aesthetic dimension certainly played of which is to confirm, mobilize, or a major role in its widespread use for strengthen social relationships. This form greetings, in its function as a souvenir of communication presupposes a set of (including the role of the tourist card to common references and some shared authenticate the journey, and conse- knowledge. To confirm this was a main quently as a status claimer), and in its purpose of the cards. There was no room enormous popularity as a collectible. For for redundancy: the shorter the mes- a short period, the picture postcard sages, the more convincing the confir- eclipsed the world's number one collect- mation. For the cards to function as so- ible, the postage stamp. The two latter cial glue, the exchange principle was uses—as a souvenir and as a collectible— immediate reciprocity. are closely entangled, even if some theo- For the first time in history, the pic- rists have seen them as separate func- ture postcard offered the opportunity of tions (Stewart 1993).14 These more or less activity-oriented communication over enmeshed uses entrained the cards in a long distances and on journeys, in a complex exchange and gift economy much easier and more efficient way than with reciprocity as a central principle. the closed letter. Today, e-mail messages But it was not only the imagery, or fulfill the same function, to some extent; the card as a picture carrier, that counted. and mobile phone text messages to an The card as a physical object had two even greater extent. The great difference, sides. The exchange and gift economy of however, is that these modern electronic the card also included the inscriptions. messages do not function as aesthetic According to classical gift theory, a gift objects, or as souvenirs, or as collectibles. cannot be understood as a property re- What characterized the craze for the pic- lationship to a material object, but must ture postcard a century ago and guaran- be seen as a function of a social relation- teed its enormous spread and popular- ship: a gift is an object that tells us some- ity was precisely these enmeshed func- thing not about itself, but about the rela- tions, concrete as well as symbolic, and tionship between donor and receiver the many layers of meaning invested in (Mauss 1923–1924). the postcard. Few material items are Even if communication was the raison more aptly characterized as "an en- d'être of the picture postcards, they sel- tangled object" than the picture postcard

19 Bjarne Rogan

of the Golden Age. This humble mate- hind in the first years of the century: in 1903/ rial artefact was—to paraphrase T.S. 04 the British sent around fifteen cards per Eliot—an emissary of the culture of the inhabitant (600 million cards for about 40 turn of the century. million inhabitants), the Swedes ten cards per inhabitant (48 million cards for ca. 5 million inhabitants), and the Norwegians less than four cards per inhabitant (ca. 9 million cards for ca. 2,4 million inhabitants). The Notes rough estimate should perhaps be reduced to something between 200 and 300 billion cards. 1 This article is based on a paper I gave at 3 The same criticism may be leveled at other the 8th Interdisciplinary Conference on Re- versions of (functional-pragmatic) discourse search in Consumption, Paris, July 26–28, 2001. Translations of quotations and post- analysis of cards, like Jaffe 1999. card inscriptions from Norwegian, French, 4 Great Britain had six postcard journals and German are by the author. Thanks to during the early years of the century, most professor Reg Byron for language revision. of them of the ephemeral sort, and France An earlier version of the Paris paper has had sixteen. Similar journals flourished for appeared in Norwegian (Rogan 2002). a short period in many European countries, the USA, and South America. Few, if any, 2 No one has yet ventured to calculate the total number of postcards produced during survived the Golden Age. the Golden Age. A rough estimate is possible, 5 The terms "push" and "pull" factors are however, which departs from Carline's esti- borrowed from migration studies, where mate of 7 billion cards passing the world's they are commonly used to explain the post offices in 1903. It is generally acknowl- double motivation behind the decision to edged that the craze culminated around leave one's country in order to settle in an- 1912. Available statistics of dispatched cards other. from the Norwegian post authorities are as 6 An even more "authentic" way of cancel- follows: 1879: 166,000 cards; 1900: 3,570,000; ling the cards on the North Cape cruises, 1904: 8,831,000; 1905: 12,400,000; 1910: according to popular rumor, was to let the 17,040,000; 1920: 15,569,000; 1935: 8,912,000. midnight sun burn a hole in them by means The yearly average number of mailed cards of a magnifying glass (Lausberg 1912, 348, between 1900 and 1920 is 11,500,000, or al- 410). most twice as high as the figures from 1903. 7 In the international context, this translates To decide whether the unused cards were to roughly 14 billion cards a year or more primarily travel souvenirs or primarily col- than 250 billion cards during this twenty- lectibles, it is necessary to have a look at old year period. If the proportion of unused/ collections. Old collections are rare, however, undispatched cards is estimated at 25% of as they have often been dispersed by later all cards produced—probably a conservative collectors. estimate—the total number of postcards pro- 8 The picture postcard, as we know it from duced during the Golden Age may have the beginning of its golden era, had two fore- surpassed 300 billion cards. However, Nor- runners, both of which were collectibles, one way may not be the best index for such esti- for (male) philatelists and the other for (fe- mates, as the country lagged somewhat be- male) card collectors. The first was the pre-

20 An Entangled Object

paid, pictureless stationery card that was Some thirty years ago I received a postcard introduced around 1870 by postal authori- from my father with a minimal inscription ties, the other the (seasonal) greeting or con- (only "Hello, I'm fine"), sent from Hawaii. gratulations card with a picture that had to Living away from home myself, in another be sent in a closed envelope. The stationery European country, I had not been in contact was originally a purely philatelic object. The with him during the last month or so, and I second phase started when private, picture- got quite upset by the card. What on earth less cards (i.e., not issued by postal authori- was he doing on the other side of the globe? ties) with postage stamps were allowed by As far as I knew, he had no business there, postal authorities in the 1880s, the third he could not afford a holiday like that, and phase in the late 1880s when the authorities it was totally unlike him to make a trip like accepted a small vignette picture in one cor- that alone. It kept me up one night, wonder- ner, and the fourth phase when the picture ing if he had gone nuts and left my mother took over most of the back side of the card and the rest of the family. From a phone call (the verso), leaving only a small place for the home the next day I learned that he had a message. These transitions and the merging professional mission there. But my lack of of the two collectibles into one took place at knowledge about the mission (as a hospital different times in different countries, but to- doctor he was sent to accompany a sick, dis- wards the end of the 1890s the postcard had abled person back to Norway) and the to- become a collectible in its own right, and it tally unexpected card taught me a lesson was no longer a branch of philately. about the function of postcards: If you don't 9 As pointed out by Eriksen (1989, note 2), know the context, a minimalist message does this activity-oriented communication form not work! corresponds closely to one of six functions 12 See among others Rogan 2000 for a dis- that Roman Jakobson has ascribed to the (lin- cussion of rituals. The stress on expressivity ear) communication act, namely its phatic is borrowed from Edmund Leach 1968. See function: "The phatic function is to keep the also Rothenbuhler 1998. channels of communication open; it is to 13 See also Rothenbuhler 1998, 22–23, on maintain the relationship between addresser ritual communication as communication and addressee: it is to confirm that commu- without information. His text contains some nication is taking place." interesting points of view, although he does 10 It may be added that from the point of not include the important social function that view of performance theory the writing and Eriksen (1989) discusses. sending of a card with a personal, handwrit- 14 While I appreciate Susan Stewart's (1993) ten inscription, even a stereotyped inscrip- arguments regarding the distinction tion or a signature only, mark the presence between the souvenir and the collectible and of the sender; the card represents personal her discussion of the one as a metonym (or presence and individuality. These theoreti- rather a synecdoche) and the other as a cal arguments, however interesting, apply metaphor, I disagree with her conclusion. A rather to contemporary contexts than to the collectible always functions as a souvenir, th turn of the 20 century, when handwritten and a souvenir may easily end up as a messages were the rule and printed ones the collectible. exception. 11 If the context is missing, such messages may even function counter to the intention.

21 Bjarne Rogan

Works Cited Eriksen, Anne. 1989. Massekulturens kommunikasjonsform. Andræ, Victor. 1919. Reiseerindringer. Budkavlen 68:58–71. Copenhagen: H. Hagerup. Geary, Christraud M. and Virginia-Lee Belk, Russ W. 1997. Been There, Done Webb. 1998. Delivering Views: That, Bought the Souvenirs: Of Distant Cultures in Early Post- Journeys and Boundary Cross- cards. Washington and London: ing. In Consumer Research: Post- Smithsonian Institution Press. cards From the Edge. Edited by Haffter, Elias. 1900. Briefe aus dem Hohen Stephen Brown and Darach Norden: Eine Fahrt nach Turley. London and New York: Spitzbergen mit dem HAPAG- Routledge: 22–45. Dampfer "Auguste Victoria" im Juli Bogdan, Robert and Ann Marshall. 1995. 1899. Frauenfeld: Verlag von I. Views of the Asylum: Picture Huber. Postcard Depictions of Institu- Jaffe, Alexandra. 1999. Packaged Senti- tions for People with Mental Dis- ments: The Social Meaning of orders in the Early 20th Century. Greeting Cards. Journal of Mate- Unpublished manuscript, Syra- rial Culture 4(2):115–141. cuse University. Johnsen, Truls Erik. 2000. Ring meg! En Brevkort og Backfischer. 1903. Urd studie av ungdom og mobiltelefoni. [Christiania, Norway] 4:41–44. Master's thesis, Department of Briggs, Asa. 1988. Victorian Things. Lon- Ethnology, University of Oslo. don: Penguin Books. Klinghammer, Waldemar. 1903. Eine Brosi, Urs. 1906. Eine Fahrt nach Norwegen Reise nach Norwegen und und Spitzbergen auf dem Spitzbergen auf der "Auguste Doppelschrauendampfer "Blücher" Victoria." Humoristische der Hamburg-Amerika-Linie 1904. Schilderung aus der Zürich: Schulthess & Co. Kleinstâderperspektive. Brudvik, Agnes Ingeborg. 2001. "Com- Rudolstadt: Verlag der Fürstlich bining the maximum of comfort priv. Hochdrückerei. with the minimum of trouble." Lausberg, Karl. 1912. Das Nordland. Reiser med turistskip til Norge Leipzig: Klinghardt & Biermann. kring 1900 i et ritualperspektiv. Laverrenz, Viktor. [1901]. In das Land der Master's thesis, Department of Fjorde: Reisebriefe aus Norwegen. Ethnology, University of Oslo. Berlin: N.p. Carline, Richard. 1972. Pictures in the Post: Leach, Edmund. 1968. Ritual. Encyclope- The Story of the Picture Postcard dia of Social Science. New York: and its Place in the History of Popu- Macmillan. lar Art. Philadelphia: Mauss, Marcel. 1923–24. Essai sur le don. Deltiologists of America. Forme et raison de l'échange Eliot, T.S. 1948. Notes towards the Defini- dans les sociétés archaïques. tion of Culture. London: Faber Année sociologique, 2nd ser., 1:30– and Faber. 186.

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Ripert, Aline and Claude Frère. 1983. La Stewart, Susan 1993. On Longing: Narra- carte postale. Son histoire, sa tives of the Miniature, the Gigan- fonction sociale. Lyon and Paris: tic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Presses Universitaires de Lyon. Durham and London: Duke Uni- Rogan, Bjarne. 1999. Postkortet. In Norge versity Press. Anno 1900. Kulturhistoriske glimt Ulvestad, Ivar, ed. 1988. Vennlig hilsen: fra et århundreskifte. Edited by Postkortets historie i Norge. Oslo: Bjarne Rogan. Oslo: Pax forlag: Aventura forlag. 224–242. Woody, Howard. 1998. International Rogan, Bjarne. 2000. Travelling—Be- Postcards: Their History, Produc- tween Ritual and Routine: Some tion, and Distribution (circa 1895 comments on a consumption to 1915). In Delivering Views: Dis- ritual in a historical perspective. tant Cultures in Early Postcards. In Volkskultur und Moderne. Edited by Christraud M. Geary Europäische Ethnologie zur and Virginia-Lee Webb. Wash- Jahrtausendwende. Edited by ington and London: Smithsonian Bernhard Tschofen. Wien: Institution Press. Selbstverlag des Instituts für Östman, Jan-Ola. 1999–2000. Europäische Ethnologie:179– Postkortdiskurs: med den 192. språkliga periferin som centrum. Rogan, Bjarne. 2001a. Stamps and Sphinx. Societas Scientiarum Postcards—Science or Play? Fennica:7–26. Ethnologia Europaea 31(1):37–54. Rogan, Bjarne. 2001b. Consuming Pas- sion and Passionate Consump- tion. In An Adventurer in Euro- pean Ethnology. Edited by Pirjo Korkiakangas and Elina Kiuru. Jyväskylä: Atena:85–109. Rogan, Bjarne. 2002. Et inn-viklet objektW: Postkortet som suvenir og samleobjekt, gave og rituell kommunikasjon. Tidsskrift for kulturforskning 1(2):39–56. Rothenbuhler, Eric W. 1998. Ritual Com- munication: From Everyday Con- versation to Mediated Ceremony. London: Sage Publications. Schor, Naomi 1992. Cartes Postales: Rep- resenting Paris 1900. Critical In- quiry 18(2):188–244. The Standard. 1899. London.

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Responses

Stephen Brown jectory our latter-day anatomist de- University of Ulster, Jordanstown, scribes is strikingly reminiscent of the Northern Ireland retrogression of picture postcards. Recent books like Martin Parr's Boring Postcards, a "celebration" of the anodyne accom- Dear Bjarne plishments of the once mighty genre, are surely the equivalent of Amis's final fa- Greetings from Liguria! I'm sitting in an tal stage, as indeed are scholarly articles airy hotel lobby in Italy, looking at a gen- on the subject. The surest signifier of a eral store across the street. It has a couple bankrupt cultural phenomenon is its of racks of postcards—you know, the academization, institutionalization, stand-alone carousel type—and, in the pantheonization (and the use of unnec- two weeks that I've been here, not a essarily pretentious words to describe it). single person has stopped to scrutinize Of course, I'm not referring to your the selection. You probably think I'm wonderful article, Bjarne! I really enjoyed pretty sad, spending my entire vacation reading it. It's terrific, arresting, epochal. staring at a desolate postcard emporium, Whatever. You know, I actually thought but I think it's kind of appropriate, since I was reasonably familiar with the his- postcards are pretty sad too. Compared tory of deltiology, until I read "An En- to the glorious heyday of deltiology, so tangled Object." I was particularly struck cogently described in your article, pic- by your references to the gender divide ture postcards have come to a very sorry in postcard collecting, if only because my pass. Bypassed by email and cellphone own as yet unpublished research on the text messages, they coagulate on rusty consumption of greeting cards shows carousels outside rundown stores in fly- that the gender divide is still there. Very blown holiday resorts. How art the much so. Gender equality may obtain in mighty fallen. most walks of life—theoretically, at Actually, the sad fate of these least—but not when it comes to buying momentoes to modernity makes me and sending greeting cards. Men, in the think of Martin Amis's novel, The Infor- main, have no time for that kind of thing. mation, where he expounds on the slow They consider it suspiciously unmanly. but inexorable descent of the novel itself. Women, by contrast, possess a carefully Or its subject matter, rather. First it fo- calibrated conception of who among cused on gods, then demigods, then their circle of acquaintances warrants a kings, then aristocrats, then merchants, card, and the kind of card they're entitled then the working classes, then the crimi- to—hand-crafted, generic multi-pack, nal classes, and then, finally, the grubbi- etc. (E-cards, incidentally, are totally un- est group of all, writers themselves. acceptable; sending one is tantamount to Amis, admittedly, owes this notion to insulting the recipient.) — Northrop Frye his "theory of modes" Okay, then, having scattered a few in the Anatomy of Criticism, to be pre- piastres of academic approbation and — cise nevertheless the degenerative tra- having taken the opportunity to trum-

24 An Entangled Object

pet my own learned endeavors, such as emails and cellphone text messages as it they are, convention demands that I tem- is of postcards (the present "postcard" is per my enthusiasm, qualify my com- an exception to the rule, naturally!). ments, and generally demonstrate that It would have been nice, finally, if I'm better read than you. Well, I'm afraid you'd said a little bit more about the I can't temper, I won't qualify, and I'm transgressive side of postcards. It seems not better. I like your article just the way to me that there's always been a it is. carnivalesque aspect to postcards, right That said, I'm a little bit surprised you from the earliest days and notwithstand- don't mention how postcard-mania was ing their latter-day elevation to the aca- just one among many consumer society demic firmament. I'm thinking, for ex- crazes, or fads, at the outset of the twen- ample, of the "tall tale" cards of the late- tieth century—bicycles, dolls, ragtime et nineteenth century, which depicted gro- al. Postcards may have been the craziest tesquely oversized farm animals and craze, I don't know for sure, but it defi- agricultural produce. I'm thinking of nitely wasn't alone. Indeed, I've just fin- Gilroy's bawdy picture postcards, which ished reading David Lodge's latest novel, were part and parcel of the English sea- Author, Author, which discusses the side resort "experience." They still are, to "Trilby" fad that erupted in the wake of some extent. I'm thinking also of Jacques George du Maurier's eponymous best- Derrida's La Carte Postale, which takes as seller, published in 1894. All manner of its point of postmodern departure a bi- Trilby-related merchandise, from hats zarre postcard that Frère Jacques alleg- and socks to sausages and stage-plays, edly found in the Bodleian Library, Ox- quickly flooded the market, much to the ford. chagrin of du Maurier, who was at the In fairness, Bjarne, you do mention center of the memorabilia maelstrom. the "sporting" side of postcards, the His impecunious confidant, Henry quasi-pornographic pictures that did so James, wasn't best pleased either. But much to stimulate men's belated inter- that's another story. est in collecting activities. I feel, however, Secondly, you seem a tad surprised that there's much more to be said on the by the brevity of the written messages subject. Postcards are usually bought in on the obverse of the cards you've stud- and sent from liminal locations, after all, ied. But surely we've known, since at and they unfailingly reflect their locale. least George Zipf's 1949 classic Human Locales, in actual fact, like airy hotel lob- Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort, bies in Liguria, Italy . . . that all sorts of social phenomena, communications included, exhibit a "power Wish you were here. law" or Pareto-like effect. As Philip Ball explains in his recent book, Critical Mass, this effect is typified by a large number Ciao of short messages and a small number of long ones. I suspect this is as true of Stephen Brown

25 Bjarne Rogan

Virginia-Lee Webb made by non-indigenous visitors from a The Metropolitan Museum of Art, variety of professions. Many of these New York, USA postcard is about the image. Regardless of whether this small piece of paper was mailed or canceled at a postal facility or Bjarne Rogan's essay about picture post- not, our understanding of the phenom- cards comes at a time when research on enon is based on the relation of the im- the subject is approaching a juncture. As age chosen by the sender for a specific the author summarizes, initial studies recipient at a unique point in time. The have been published giving an overview transmission of emotion and information of the topic. In recent years the interest (either personal or emblematic) is ini- in picture postcards has moved from the tially reflected in the choice of picture or sphere of collectors into an academic fo- subject. Often, but not always, the words rum, emerging from the philatelic realm inscribed on the card emphasize, iden- to produce a great deal of literature, both tify, contradict, or compliment the im- historical overviews and case studies. age—they refer to the pictorial compo- The majority of scholars have concen- nent and have implications unique to the trated on postcards as commodity and participants. The language and reception object—how they were made, collected, of the entire object is coded in very purchased, sold, exchanged, and distrib- unique ways. It is acknowledged that the uted to the different genders and to many evolution of abbreviated inscriptions has classes of society. The photographic im- been formed by space limitations and age itself has been a primary inspiration regulations of worldwide postal regula- for much of the research, addressing the tions, thus creating coded, stock phrases. source and authorship of the photo- Still, the verbal minutiae often refer to graph, contexts of its production, and the the picture. evolution of phrases and captions. This is especially true in case studies of post- Investigation into the complex form cards with images depicting non-west- of communication embodied in picture ern cultures formerly under colonial postcards increasingly focuses on turn- domination around the world. Issues to ing them over and acknowledging the do with subjugation—blatant racism, messages written by senders. In this con- pornography, violence, and the perpetu- text, Rogan is correct in using as the point ation of stereotypes—are the unsettling of departure for his analysis the premise part of the discourse. Exchange, collect- that the picture postcard acts as "an em- ing, and key postal regulations have been issary of its culture." The effectiveness of addressed, some extensively. Therefore, the postcard to communicate informa- the wide range of the publications about tion or an idea through the representa- picture postcards referred to by Rogan tion of a place in a very specific image is to be expected. and format is powerful and concise. The conflation of pictorial formulae and stan- This research also parallels the in- dardized phrases may certainly serve as creased investigation into the creation of a vehicle for the transmission of percep- photographic images, especially those

26 An Entangled Object

tions about a particular culture. One pated or expected. Other exchanges are might ask whose culture is transmitted— unreciprocated, the addressee never the one represented by the image or the traveling and sending a postcard in re- sender? Probably both. It should be turn. The play involved in these obliga- taken into account that a standardized tory arrangements is not always inher- rubric of communication through which ent in the messages written on the cards. the sender's position in the exchange is Rogan discusses the systems of exchange conveyed may have been used. Rogan and reciprocity that postcards operate notes specific phrases on postcards— within and which are subject to complex "Sent with affection," "Add me to your networks of status and obligation. We see collection"—that indicate the relation- how the postcard as commodity had dif- ship between the recipient and sender. ferent values among its early collectors As an object, the picture postcard is a ve- (canceled or not, inscribed or blank) and hicle that both represents and "carries" Rogan notes that it operates within a very culture. As an arena of ritual communi- distinct social system of communication. cation it seems that context —once In addition to the theorists Rogan cites, again— is everything. The interpretation it would be interesting to further unpack of the length and type of message writ- the picture postcard transaction within ten by a sender on a card must always discussions of gifts and commodities. be interpreted in the entire context of the Discussions by Kopytoff, Appadurai, relationship between the two parties. The and others that Rogan notes come to brevity or length of a specific message mind. Postcards certainly operate within can be interpreted in a cyclical way to complex social, linguistic, and cultural imply or anticipate a specific response, structures that carry obligations and re- or, indeed, no response at all. Rogan de- flect the position of the writer, photog- scribes cards with messages called "a sign rapher, and recipient. How do the post- of life" and calls them "social tokens more cards navigate those systems and change than informative messages." One could along the way as they move from one also take the alternative view that these location to another? Rogan's interesting cards do provide information about the article reminds us that there are indeed state of the sender "alive," "well," multiple avenues to investigate relating "happy," and that therefore they are also to the impact of these small pieces of informative. paper that have been sent all over the However, they do seem to be outside world. of the exchange if they do not elicit a re- Work Cited ply and if the recipient does not send a Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. The Cultural Biogra- card back to the transient address, but phy of Things: Commoditization keeps (or collects) the card. Alternatively, as Process. In The Social Life of a deferred exchange may occur when the Things. Commodities in Cultural Per- recipient waits until s/he is traveling and spective. Edited by Arjun then reciprocates with a card to which, Appadurai. Cambridge: Cam- in turn, an immediate reply is not antici- bridge University Press.