2. Postcard collections

One of the lesson objectives for the first school-based session was 'to understand the significance of postcards'. Postcards were invented in 1869 by a Hungarian Emmanuel Hermann and were taken up enthusiastically in Victorian Britain, Europe and America. However, it was not until 1899 that the British Post Office accepted the standard format that we know today and in 1902 it was permitted to write messages on the same side as the address. This liberated the whole of the front of the postcard for pictorial use. Now postcards are a global phenomenon, while some predict their demise as the popularity of the email 'card' grows.

Unlike many other forms of more instant communication the postcard offers something visual, imaginative and personal. A postcard is a physical object which makes its way to us through a fascinating postal journey often from abroad, carrying with it some of the atmosphere and romance of its source. Postcards lend themselves to collecting and can become historical or personal documents of some significance. Postcard collectors are called Deltiologists and dealers and postcard fairs support the proliferation of casual and serious collections. An excellent book The Postcard Century by Tom Phillips, published by Thames and Hudson (2000), carries thousands of reproductions chosen from each year during the 20th Century.

The children were able to investigate a number of collections of postcards brought in by Laurie Long. The first set was a collection of images of San Francisco and California which was a good way of introducing herself, as an American, to the children.

She was showing them something that was special to her, as well as introducing one of the key themes of postcards; that of celebrating the tourist destination with glamourous cliched views of famous landmarks.

A second set that the children saw were a collection of postcards sent to Laurie by her friends.

Laurie had asked them to send her images of something that was special to them with an explanation of why. This introduced in a very concrete way the basic convention and idea that the children themselves were to work with in the Postcards Home project.

What really surprised me was how interested the kids were in the postcards I had had sent to me. I knew they would be interested, but they seemed fascinated. (Laurie Long)