A vivid picture of four decades of social and cultural history in the Green Mountain State.
The golden age of the postcard coincides with a rapidly evolving time when the world was being transformed by the introduction of telephones, cameras, fountain pens, automobiles, trains, and modern magazines. By 1905 the Rural Free Delivery system enabled even Vermonts most remotely located residents to receive these cards in their roadside mailboxes, along with letters and Sears Roebuck catalogs. Very much a part of the emerging world of consumption, advertising, and accelerated communication, early postcards tell us about a particular time, and the cultural revolution that was going on in Vermont and the nation in the first decades of the 20th century. Postcards helped promote Vermont as a tourist destination and also reflected pride in modern factories, busy commercial centers, and efficient transportation systems.
On one level, Postcards from Vermont is a family album of carefully-posed ordinary people looking out at us from the past. It is also a memory book that documents the transition from horse to automobile, shows changes in the landscape and Main Street, and records clothing, material culture, and vernacular architecture from another era. And finally, its 323 images provide an unusual feast for deltiologists (postcard collectors) and Vermontophiles to view a small New England state in a new way.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pastoral Landscapes - Peaceful Villages; Country Stores and One-Room Schools; A Horse-Drawn Age; Farm and Factory; Men at Work; Main Street; A Color Portfolio; Railroads and Trolleys; The Automobile Comes to Vermont; Hotels and Motels; Outdoor Life: Camping, Hiking, Hunting, Fishing; Winter in Vermont; Fairs and Festivals; Parades and Celebrations; The Postcard as Photo Journalism; Vermont Faces
Price: $20.50
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