Existing comment:
Postcards of Asia and the Islamic World:
Perhaps the most recognizable artifact of travel over the past 150 years is the picture postcard. During their golden age (1890s–1920s), postcards were requisite souvenirs. They were collected as mementos or mailed to family and friends from abroad, accruing the additional prestige of a foreign stamp and postmark. Armchair travelers also acquired postcards, compiling them in specially made albums.
Picture postcards were the inheritors of an earlier tradition of photographic souvenirs, the albumen prints of the 1860s–1880s. Smaller in size and lower in cost, postcards quickly developed into much more ubiquitous and varied souvenirs than the prints they replaced. In some cases, postcards were produced by Western firms and distributed globally; in others, they were made locally. Their images served a multitude of functions, from advertising to commemorating events, advancing political agendas, or romanticizing a vanishing way of life for tourists' benefit. With travelers and residents visiting the same photography shops, however, views intended for tourist markets served to redefine local communities' perceptions of their own pasts and traditions, as well as how they understood their own modernity.
Postcards remained popular through the twentieth century, but with the advent of mobile phones, they are becoming harder to find. Millions of posts on Instagram, Facebook, and other outlets, however, prove that the appeal of recording travels with a striking photograph and brief message has not diminished. |