You’d have to take quite a lot of trips to collect 10 cubic feet of postcards. If a few thousand vacations over a single Spring Break doesn’t sound very feasible, there’s one short voyage that might do the trick.
The Postcard Collection at the Special Collections Research Center consists of over 50,000 postcards published between 1890-1990. 4,400 of these, drawn from all across the state, have been digitized and are freely available to view on ExploreUK. The collection provides an unrivaled way to take a tour across space and time into every corner of the Commonwealth.
Slice-of-life snapshots of both the noteworthy and the mundane, postcards capture people, places, and things in the context of the time in which they were produced and mailed. They provide insight not only into hyperlocal histories, but a peek into the ways that places see – and memorialize, differentiate, or even sell – themselves.
Postcards from the collection range as widely as the landscapes, environments, and people of Kentucky, depicting everything from natural wonders and historic homes to bridges and dams, downtown squares, coal mines, and tobacco farms.
A noteworthy feature of the collection is its inclusion of the descriptions found on the back of the postcards, which enliven every image and provide an unparalleled granularity of detail. Find the Nation’s Most Patriotic Water Tank in Bowling Green, Kentucky; learn that the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial is designed so that the shadow of its sundial touches each casualty’s name on the anniversary of his death; discover that John Fitch, the inventor of the steamboat, is buried in Bardstown; see the weathered remains of Cane Ridge Church, where tens of thousands of worshipers in 1801 found religion in the Great Kentucky Revival; marvel at the world’s largest hand-made stained-glass window in Covington; and delight in place-based sales pitches such as these: “Drive through this horse wonderland – stop and look at the horses – talk to the grooms – feel the thrill of a really good horse.”
Started in 1933 by Margaret Helmsing Tuttle, a longtime UK librarian, the collection grew to almost six thousand cards in its first year thanks to contributions from faculty, staff, students, and others interested in the project. Postcards continued to be donated over the next several decades, including from two university presidents, Dr. Frank L. McVey (1917-1940) and Dr. Herman L. Donovan (1941-1956), and from librarian Margaret I. King, whose name now emblazons the building in which the collection is kept.
The production of picture postcards took off in the late 19th century and reached its height in the early 20th, when nearly a billion postcards per year were mailed in the United States from 1905 to 1915.
The Postcard Collection represents several publishing eras and manufacturing processes, including linen, white border, photochrome, and photo postcards. Some have been postmarked and include handwritten messages; others remain unwritten and unmailed. The collection also includes cards made of materials other than paper, including copper, leather, velvet, and tinsel.
This Spring Break, sweep the state of its every tidbit and discover the small, the grand, the everyday, and the exotic – all from home – through snapshots of 100 years of life from every nook and cranny of the Commonwealth.
