Recently, Mary Yearly Flanagan emailed me and offered to let us display her family’s collection of vintage picture postcards.
Except for a couple of dozen postcards from the 1930s, it is an eclectic mix of greeting and travel postcards that her ancestor received from relations and acquaintances over a century ago. We sincerely thank Mrs. Flanagan for generously allowing us to display her treasured family mementos.
These penny postcards were the social media of the day and an easy and affordable way for folks to keep in touch. During the so-called Golden Age of Postcards from about 1907-1915, people mailed them to friends and relatives, not just for special occasions, but also for everyday communication. Postcard sending and collecting became a huge craze and every household had its family postcard album out on display.
If you are a regular visitor to this website, then you already know that the massive photo and postcard collection shown on the Images page is mostly just a virtual collection. Of course we do have a physical photo archive, but it is a fraction of the size of the many hundreds of image scans shown on the Images page.
If you have historic photos or postcards. artifacts, ephemera, or collectibles please consider donating them to the Historical Society of Riverton. As an alternative, we also welcome scans or photos for our records if you are going to dispose of the items elsewhere.
Enjoy this first perfectly timed first installment–a handful of Easter postcards simply addressed to Miss Clara Yearly, Riverside, NJ, over one hundred years ago. How extraordinarily lucky Mary’s family is that these “postals” (as the writers of yesteryear referred to them) have survived with their vintage images and endearing messages intact.
In this age of instant messaging, cell phones, and emails what evidence of our everyday images and correspondence will remain for future generations to look back upon a century from now? – John McCormick, Gaslight News editor
