"Real Photos" Tell the Real Story

Everyone collects something. Down through the decades, millions have collected those fascinating images of America printed in a 3 x 5 format - known to all of us as picture postcards.  It began in 1901 when the U. S. Post Office allowed companies to print pictures on small postcard stock. A caption was sometimes written on the negative which was often glass. They could be mailed for a penny. 

An Ernst Niebergall real photo postcard of the ferry Welcome tied up at Lake Erie's Kelleys Island
Lake Erie's Yesterdays features more than a thousand of his photographs 

Originally the sender could add only his or her address.  But in 1907, all that changed.  Space was created on the back so people could write a short message.  What began as a mere fad became an absolute craze. At the height of the golden age of postcards, Americans were sending nearly a billion a year!  

Why, one asks, did these little pictures become such a mania?  For the first time, average Americans could see how the other half lived. They could see views of cities they never would visit, mountains they never would climb, bridges they would never cross, and technology they never would use. 

Bridge over Ohio River at Marietta, Ohio

Library of Congress

To satisfy what seemed to be an insatiable appetite for "view" cards, companies hired armies of anonymous photographers. They fanned out across the country, snapping black and white photos of anything and everything. From trains, planes, churches, bridges, courthouses, businesses to families, farms, houses, dogs, horses, disasters, - nothing was too insignificant, too strange, or too plain.

Cityscape of Findlay, Ohio
Library of Congress

Walker Evans, renowned photographer, photojournalist, and avid postcard collector, once said, "The picture postcard is a folk document - these honest and direct little pictures." And, how right he was! When we look at them today we see factories belching smoke with proud workers standing front and center; clogged streets, fires, and disasters. They were simple, straightforward, and often ugly. 

On the way to the Fire
Library of Congress

But  as Evans declared, there is no doubt that this is exactly what our towns, cities, homes, streets, buildings, and families looked like during the early years of the 20th century. It was an expression of their world - and they were proud of it.

Perhaps most interesting are the one-of-a-kind pictures created by amateur and professional photographers. In 1903, Eastman Kodak invented a simple, affordable pocket camera and photographic printing paper which made it possible for nearly anyone to develop photographs. There was also a Kodak postcard camera. Film could be sent away and printed on special postcard paper.  Even today in the 21st century, these "real photo" postcards are rare and in demand by collectors and publishers of the ever-popular "then and now" books. 

Eastman Kodak Postcard Camera

Those long ago pictures of tree lined streets, county courthouses, and ballparks fascinate even those who claim to have little or no interest in history. The photo postcards of schoolchildren posing before their one-room schoolhouses often evoke a poignant charm -.their brave little faces, earnest expressions, slicked-down hair, an occasional tie, a worn dress, and sometimes bare feet. 

Graytown School, Ottawa County, Ohio 
Private Collection

Note: More than a thousand images by Sandusky, Ohio photographer Ernst Niebergall appear on Lake Erie's Yesterdays. He sold many of his images as postcards at Cedar Point and around Erie and Ottawa Counties. 

In 2018, the Firelands Postcard Club produced the award-winning book of Nierbergall's postcard images titled "Sandusky's Photographer: The Real Photo Postcards of Ernst Niebergall."