We trade loneliness for connection, one postcard at a time.
Author: Anne L'Ecuyer
Anne is a writer and social impact executive who stays closely connected to an international network of creative leaders and individual artists. She writes about and trades vintage postcards at The Posted Past.
A lone Buffalo Soldier on horseback captures a moment of dignity in African American military history.
Real Photo Postcards (RPPCs) offer tangible connections to history, yet they often emerge from a family photo album or shoebox collection entirely without context. Piecing together their stories requires careful observation and historical research, picking up valuable clues along the way.
Today’s case is an image of a lone Buffalo Soldier on horseback, printed sometime between 1904 and 1918. This postcard captures a moment of dignity in African American military history. The soldier sits tall in the saddle, wearing a formal military dress cap (rather than the campaign hat often associated with frontier service) and a meticulously maintained uniform. The setting—featuring a substantial brick building and cement sidewalk—suggests an established military installation rather than a frontier outpost.
The man is likely from the 9th or 10th Cavalry, and two military posts stand out: Fort Robinson in Nebraska and Fort Myer in Virginia, both important locations in Buffalo Soldier history.
Western Bastion
From 1887 to 1898, Fort Robinson served as Regimental Headquarters for Buffalo Soldier cavalry and infantry units. The 9th Cavalry Regiment made its headquarters there beginning in 1887, serving with distinction and boasting ten Medal of Honor winners from the Indian Wars. The Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Robinson earned a reputation for discipline and effectiveness that would later influence their assignments to more prestigious postings.
The 10th Cavalry Regiment maintained a significant presence at Fort Robinson during the early 1900s. The substantial brick buildings and newly constructed cement sidewalks visible in the photograph align with Fort Robinson’s infrastructure during this period, as the fort underwent significant modernization around this time. The formal dress uniform and cap in the photograph suggest this might have been a commissioned officer or a non-commissioned officer in a ceremonial or garrison role at the fort.
Nation’s Capital
Troop K of the 9th Cavalry served at Fort Myer in Virginia from May 25, 1891, to October 3, 1894, under the command of Major Guy Henry, a Medal of Honor recipient. This prestigious assignment bears a direct link to Fort Robinson. The selection of Troop K for this assignment was a recognition of the outstanding performance at Fort Robinson and other western posts.
The post at Fort Myer was the first time after the Civil War that an African American unit was stationed east of the Mississippi River near a major metropolitan area. The dignified formal pose and military dress cap would be consistent with a soldier stationed at this prestigious posting adjacent to Arlington Cemetery and Washington D.C., where ceremonial duties would have been part of their responsibilities. Both geographic and symbolic, the lauded post demonstrates how the Buffalo Soldiers earned respect through excellence despite pervasive racial prejudice.
While the AZO markings suggest a 1904-1918 printing date for this postcard, it’s possible the photograph itself was taken earlier. Many soldiers had formal portrait photographs taken to commemorate their service, which were later reproduced as postcards. If this soldier served at Fort Myer with Troop K (1891-1894), the image could have been reproduced on AZO stock years later. Alternatively, if the image dates to the 1904-1907 period, it likely shows a 10th Cavalry soldier at Fort Robinson. Without identifying marks or annotations, we can only speculate.
In either case, the photograph reveals a poignant moment during a complex era of American history. The soldier’s strong gaze suggest a person aware of his place in this important legacy. The Buffalo Soldiers’ contributions to American military history invite deeper study, recognition, and remembrance.
Rare panoramic postcards from the Haines Photo Company capture Phoenix on the cusp of the century.
As American cities boomed in the early 1900s, panoramic postcards emerged to document their transformation. The Haines Photo Company of Conneaut, Ohio seized this opportunity, operating from about 1908 to 1917. Photographers crisscrossed the country capturing these distinctive wide-angle views of evolving American cityscapes, like Phoenix, a fledgling desert outpost poised for dramatic growth.
Phoenix in 1900 numbered just 5,554 residents. Though small, it already served as Arizona’s territorial capital with statehood just twelve years away. These panoramic postcards reveal a city establishing the foundation for its explosive future growth.
Washington and First Streets
The first panorama captures Phoenix’s commercial core at Washington and First Streets. Electric streetcar tracks cut through the unpaved road—these trolleys had replaced horse-drawn versions in 1893, modernizing city transit. Desert mountains loom in the distance while palm trees line parts of the street, evidence of successful irrigation in this arid landscape.
A prominent building with a tower dominates the background. Pedestrians stroll the sidewalks alongside horse-drawn carriages, as automobiles remained rare luxuries. Sturdy two and three-story commercial buildings reveal a city with ambitions beyond its frontier origins.
Residences at Center and McKinley
The second view shifts to Phoenix’s growing residential district at Center and McKinley. Here, successful merchants and professionals built impressive homes along wide, unpaved streets. Both palm trees and deciduous trees (some leafless in winter) frame the elegant residences.
These neighborhoods developed as streetcar suburbs, allowing prosperous residents to escape downtown congestion while maintaining business access. Homes display fashionable Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles with generous porches and elaborate details. Unlike cramped eastern cities, Phoenix boasted detached homes on spacious lots—a pattern that would define its future growth.
Washington and Second Avenues
The third panorama returns us to the commercial district. A substantial three-story building with multiple balconies dominates the left side. Was it a hotel or major retailer? Streetcar tracks again slice through the broad dirt roadway. A park or green space appears across the street, providing rare desert shade.
Notice the shadow intruding on the lower left? It’s the silhouette of our photographer with tripod-mounted camera. Was this F.J. Bandholtz, a prominent panoramic photographer who worked with Haines?
Washington and First Avenues
The fourth panorama captures Phoenix’s financial center. A four-story brick building with numerous arched windows dominates the scene. This building houses the Phoenix National Bank with law offices above, very likely belonging to Joseph H. Kibbey, a former Territorial Supreme Court Justice (1889-1893) and Arizona Territorial Governor (1905-1909).
Founded in 1892, the Phoenix National Bank had become Arizona’s largest by 1899, with deposits totaling $692,166. Telegraph and electrical poles with multiple crossbars line the street, demonstrating developing infrastructure. The dirt streets accommodate both pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles, though automobiles were beginning to appear.
Capitol Grounds
The fifth panorama showcases Arizona’s territorial capitol. This impressive domed structure, completed in 1900 at a cost of $130,000, sits back from the road on a donated 10-acre plot at Washington Street’s western end. Formal gardens with cypress, palms, and ornamental plantings surround the building, irrigation transforming these arid landscapes.
Governor Murphy dedicated the building on February 25, 1901. At the time, the capitol complex embodied Phoenix’s civic ambitions and push toward statehood. Now the main building is home to the Arizona Capitol Museum, connecting present-day Phoenix to its territorial roots.
Phoenix Indian School
The final panorama depicts the Phoenix Indian School campus with its multiple buildings, some with smoking chimneys, surrounded by palm trees. Established in 1891, this federal boarding school implemented the government’s brutal and coercive Native American assimilation policies. Located on 160 acres north of downtown, the campus featured brick and frame buildings for classrooms, dormitories, workshops, and administration.
The school expanded rapidly from 42 students initially to 698 by 1900, representing 23 tribes from across the Southwest. Operating until 1990, the school’s complex history reflects the often painful relationship between the federal government and Native peoples, and Phoenix’s role in executing national policies.
The Haines Photo Company
These remarkable panoramic images came from the Haines Photo Company of Conneaut, Ohio. From 1908 for about a decade, they specialized in wide-angle photography of towns and cities across the United States. The Library of Congress preserves over 400 of their photographs documenting America’s evolving landscapes and cityscapes.
Technological innovations in cameras and film made panoramic photography possible. Companies like Haines used specialized equipment to capture expansive views with exceptional clarity. They printed these as postcards for both tourists and locals proud of their developing communities. The panoramic format perfectly suited sprawling western cities like Phoenix that grew horizontally rather than vertically.
Who actually pressed the shutter remains mysterious. The Library of Congress identifies F.J. Bandholtz (Frederick J. Bandholtz, born circa 1877) as a prominent panoramic photographer working with Haines. The shadow in the third image provides our only glimpse of the person behind the camera—a tantalizingly incomplete clue to their identity.
Fast Growth in Phoenix
The early 1900s transformed Phoenix through several key developments. Roosevelt Dam (completed 1911) secured reliable water and power for the Valley. The Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix Railway (1895) connected the city to northern Arizona while streetcars improved local mobility. Institutions like the Carnegie Free Library (1908) and Phoenix Union High School (1895) established cultural foundations. Economic activity diversified beyond the “Five Cs” (copper, cattle, climate, cotton, and citrus) to include banking, retail, and professional services.
Statehood on February 14, 1912 elevated Phoenix’s status as capital. These postcards hint at those century-old aspirations—a frontier town rapidly becoming a modern American city. Phoenix’s population doubled from 5,554 in 1900 to 11,134 by 1910, and surged to 29,053 by 1920, launching a growth trajectory that would eventually make it one of America’s largest cities.
Science says gazing at adorable kitten pics can boost your mental health. But you don’t really need a reason, do you?
Life is tough. Bills pile up, deadlines loom, and some days it feels like the world is on fire. That’s precisely when we need something small, fuzzy, and adorable to remind us that not everything is terrible. First choice? Kitten photos, the internet’s gift to humanity’s collective mental health.
When the news cycle feels like a never-ending disaster movie, there’s something healing about a tiny fluffball curled up in a teacup or peering curiously from behind a houseplant. These miniature pouncers, with their disproportionate paws and earnest expressions, serve as nature’s meditation.
Scientific studies suggest that viewing cute animal content can improve focus, boost mood, and temporarily reduce anxiety. It’s a mental health break in fuzzy form—no prescription needed. Even better, we sent kitten postcards to each other long before the digital age. Proof that science is just catching up.
Cute kittens provide a guilt-free excuse to pause, smile, and recall that life’s greatest joys come in small packages. They remind us that it’s okay to be happy, and to hide toys in the couch.
‘Greetings from…’ designs have rippled through visual culture for well over a century, telling the stories of how we see ourselves and our places.
A stone dropped into still water creates concentric circles that radiate outward. This physical phenomenon is a powerful metaphor for how cultural ideas spread through time and across media, especially visual motifs of place. Certain visual vocabularies persist, evolving with technologies while maintaining essential characteristics.
American statehood, regional identity, and natural heritage have rippled through various media over the past century. Iconic ‘large letter’ postcards, commemorative postal stamps, murals and more—all help us trace a fascinating journey of cultural transmission through the broader currents in American history, industrial development, and visual communication.
Gruss Aus… from Germany
“Greetings From…” postcards emerged in 1890s Germany. The early examples of Gruss Aus cards featured the name of a location rendered in bold, three-dimensional letters with miniature scenes of local landmarks contained within. More common postcards of the day feature detailed illustrations of castles and later photographs. This new design cleverly packed maximum visual information into the limited space, creating an instantly recognizable format that would soon spread internationally.
New American Icons
The transmission of this visual language to America came through a German immigrant named Curt Teich, who arrived in the United States in 1895. After establishing his printing company in Chicago in 1898, Teich would transform American visual culture through the mass production of postcards. Following a visit to Germany in 1904, he successfully imported the Gruss Aus style to the American market, adapting it to suit American sensibilities and landscapes.
The true flowering of Teich’s vision came in 1931 with the introduction of his linen-textured postcards. Printed on high-quality paper with a distinctive fabric-like texture, these cards employed vibrant colors and airbrushing techniques that created a hyperreal aesthetic. The technical innovation of the linen card allowed for faster drying times and more saturated colors, resulting in postcards that depicted America in an optimistic, idealized light—a stark contrast to the harsh realities of the Great Depression era in which they first appeared.
Teich’s business savvy was as important as his technical innovations. He employed hundreds of traveling salesmen who photographed businesses and worked with owners to create idealized images for postcards. This approach not only generated business but also shaped how Americans visualized their own landscapes and communities. The Curt Teich Company would eventually produce over 45,000 different linen postcard subjects in just two decades.
The visual language of these postcards—bold lettering, vibrant colors, and idealized scenes—became firmly embedded in American visual culture during the 1930s through 1950s. As automobile ownership increased and the highway system expanded, these postcards played a crucial role in shaping Americans’ understanding of their own geography and national identity. They were both records of places visited and aspirational images of places to be seen.
State Birds and Flowers
Parallel to the development of the large letter postcard, another form of state-based visual identity was taking root—the formal designation of state birds and flowers. Most American states adopted these symbols between the 1920s and 1940s, often through campaigns involving schoolchildren, women’s clubs, and conservation organizations.
These officially designated natural symbols provided another vocabulary for expressing regional identity, one rooted in the natural world rather than the built environment. While large letter postcards typically highlighted human achievements—city skylines, hotels, roadways—state birds and flowers emphasized the distinctive natural heritage of each region. Together, these complementary systems of regional representation provided Americans with a rich visual language for their diverse nation.
In 1978, the Fleetwood company commissioned father-son wildlife artists Arthur and Alan Singer to create 50 original paintings of state birds and flowers. These watercolor paintings caught the attention of U.S. Postal Service officials, who recognized their exceptional quality and decided to feature them on commemorative stamps. Released on April 14, 1982, the 20-cent State Birds and Flowers stamp collection was another big moment in the ripple effect.
Arthur Singer painted the birds while his son Alan rendered the flowers, creating unique artwork for each of the 50 stamps. The collaboration between father and son added another dimension to this cultural transmission—the passing of artistic traditions and approaches from one generation to the next.
The Fleetwood company published a complete album featuring First Day Covers of these stamps. These decorative envelopes included additional information about each state’s natural heritage, creating a beautifully bound volume that was both aesthetically pleasing and informative. The Birds & Flowers of the 50 States album is now a cherished collectible, a visual catalog of national natural heritage in a single, beautifully presented format.
Greetings from the Post Office
Twenty years later, the visual language of the large letter postcard experienced a revival through another stamp collection. On April 4, 2002, the USPS issued the ‘Greetings from America’ stamps, designed by Richard Sheaff and illustrated by Lonnie Busch. These stamps paid direct homage to the large letter postcards of the 1930s and 1940s, recreating their distinctive style for a new generation.
Each of the 50 stamps featured the name of a state in large, three-dimensional letters containing images of iconic landmarks and scenic vistas. The stamps were initially released as 34-cent denominations, but due to a rate change, they were reissued with 37-cent denominations on October 25, 2002. Here is another circular moment—a postal medium paying tribute to a postcard tradition that had itself been a popular means of commemorating places visited.
These stamps connected with older Americans who remembered the original postcards. Younger generations encountering the style for the first time recognized both the nostalgic and contemporary appeal. The vibrant colors and bold, three-dimensional lettering still effectively communicated a sense of place and regional pride, proving again the resilience of this visual vocabulary.
Even Larger Letters
Artists Victor Ving and Lisa Beggs took the large letter postcard to a whole new scale. Starting in 2015, the Greetings Tour has produced dozens of murals that transform the two-dimensional postcard design into monumental public art.
A grand dimensional leap—a design meant to be held in the hand scaled to the size of a building. The murals maintain the core visual elements of the large letter design while incorporating contemporary references and local touchstones. In a delightful twist, these murals have themselves become tourist attractions with visitors posing for social media. The postcard mural is now a backdrop for new images to be shared globally.
The artists also create custom digital designs for corporations, events, and retail spaces, maintaining the vintage aesthetic while adapting it to contemporary contexts. This commercialization represents another ripple in the cultural transmission of the large letter design, as it moves from public art back into the commercial realm that originally produced the linen postcards.
Digital Doppelgangers
As graphic design software became increasingly sophisticated and accessible in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the visual language of large letter postcards found new life in digital recreations. Graphic design tools enable designers to quickly recreate the distinctive three-dimensional lettering and image-filled characters of the classic postcards.
AI Generation
Online design platforms have further opened access to this aesthetic, offering templates that approximate the large letter style without requiring specialized skills. Now small businesses, community organizations, and individuals can incorporate elements of this visual tradition into their communications, expanding the reach of this design vocabulary beyond professional designers.
With a phrase like “create an image of a vintage large letter postcard from Arizona,” most anyone can generate a decent design in seconds. Like the old days of digital clip-art, the initial attempts lack craftsmanship and historical accuracy. Still, they are a new democratization of this visual vocabulary, making it more accessible to professional designers and enthusiasts alike, though perhaps for different reasons.
This latest development completes a fascinating loop—from specialized industrial printing processes that required substantial investment and technical expertise, to digital design tools requiring professional training, to AI generation requiring only the ability to formulate a design concept and the text prompt. With each technological advancement, the barriers to producing these distinctive visual representations have lowered, while the core elements of the design has persisted.
Visual Persistence
From German Gruss Aus postcards to AI-generated images—our journey demonstrates the remarkable resilience of certain visual vocabularies across time, technologies, and cultural contexts. Despite dramatic changes in production methods, from specialized lithographic presses to neural networks, the essential visual grammar of these designs remains recognizable.
This persistence has a woven quality—the ability to render and replicate a sense of place over time. Whether in linen postcards, commemorative stamps, public murals, or digital images, the large letter design and state symbol motifs combine to convey regional identity and pride over time. Their continued relevance suggests that certain visual solutions, once discovered, become an architecture that generations continue to appreciate and adapt for new uses.
We also feel the ripple effect in the broader patterns of American history— immigrants bringing skills and technology to American shores, industrial innovation creating new visual possibilities, the automobile age changing how Americans experienced nature and themselves, and digital technology transforming how we create and share images. Through it all, the distinctive visual language pioneered by Curt Teich and others continues to evolve.
What new ripples lie ahead? Perhaps augmented reality will allow us to step into these designs. Or new materials and technologies will adapt them yet again for uses we don’t yet comprehend. Whatever comes next, we know that cultural transmission does have a distinguishing mark—it ripples outward in both calculable and unexpected ways, influenced by technology, economics, and human inspiration, creating patterns that can be traced across generations.
For Additional Reading
Meikle, Jeffrey L. (2016). Postcard America: Curt Teich and the Imaging of a Nation, 1931-1950. University of Texas Press. Publisher’s page
“The Immigrant Story Behind the Classic ‘Greetings From’ Postcards.” Smithsonian Magazine. (2018). Read online
A wooden cross rises from churned earth, the inscription stark against weathered wood. A familiar image of a striking handmade monument to the son of a president who fell from the sky over France.
This photograph, captured by a U.S. Signal Corps photographer known only by the initials P.E.L., embodies the US vision of the first World War carefully curated by military officials. While this image evokes sacrifice, honor, and patriotism, the ones that follow emphasize air power and the ground fight.
The Signal Corps photographers worked with clear directives. Their images showcased military capacity and impact: a German observation balloon in flames over Verdun, captured enemy aircraft, and troops dug into the battlefield. These photos celebrated American military achievements while maintaining a safe emotional distance from war’s realities. They framed the conflict as a grand, heroic endeavor of machines and strategy, and no bodies.
Soldier photography told different stories.
World War I marked a pivotal shift in war photography. The conflict erupted during the democratization of the camera, when Kodak’s marketing promise—You press the button, we do the rest—had placed photography in ordinary hands. For the first time, soldiers carried their own cameras to the front. They documented their experiences without oversight, censorship, or propaganda objectives.
The images captured by troops and printed later at studios like Renfro & Jensen in Belmont, Arkansas reveal a more intimate perspective—the human cost of conflict. German officers’ quarters reduced to rubble by American artillery. The harsh conditions of a foxhole or a machine gun post.
These images weren’t composed for newspaper spreads or government reports. They were personal souvenirs, visual evidence of experiences too enormous to capture in words alone. They were captured on a new-fangled camera and carried home as silent witness.
Belmont, Arkansas transformed virtually overnight in 1917 from a quiet rural community into a bustling military training center. Soldiers flooded the region, bringing with them not just their uniforms and rifles, but their cameras. The town experienced a true boomtown effect as businesses sprang up to serve the influx of military personnel. Among these enterprises, the Renfro & Jensen photography studio established itself as a crucial link between soldiers’ experiences and their communication home.
Then, as demobilization began in 1918, returning soldiers sought ways to share or quietly remember what they had witnessed. Renfro & Jensen became unwitting archivists. They must have developed and printed thousands of soldier photographs—images far more frank and direct than anything appearing in newspapers or government publications. The studio workers were likely among the first civilians to confront warfare through this new technology. Each day, they processed images showing destruction, military achievements, and occasionally, the graphic aftermath of combat. Their commercial service inadvertently preserved a crucial alternative visual history of the conflict.
Two European-produced photographic postcards further document the war. These images, printed on distinctive European paper stock, emerged from a continent already numbed by years of destruction.
Another sixteen images — the most harrowing in the collection — can’t be shown here. The ethical boundaries of war photography persist today. What images should be shielded from casual viewing, and which realities deserve documentation regardless of their power to disturb?
Major institutional collections house millions of WWI photographs. The National Archives holds the largest repository of World War I material in the United States, with over 110,000 photographs digitized from two primary series: the American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs and the Photographs of American Military Activities. The Library of Congress maintains extensive collections, including the American National Red Cross Collection with over 18,000 digitized negatives showing wartime activities.
Beyond these institutional repositories exists a vibrant world of private collectors who often hold the most provocative and unfiltered images. These private collections sometimes reveal perspectives absent from official archives. Photographer Carl De Keyzer discovered approximately 10,000 archival glass plate and celluloid negatives from WWI scattered across Europe, many in private hands. From these, he selected 100 to reproduce in stunning detail, revealing aspects of the conflict previously unseen in such clarity. Some of the most compelling battlefield imagery exists in small personal collections—albums like this one that have been kept by families of veterans, passed down through generations, their contents rarely exhibited publicly.
The grave of Lieutenant Quentin Roosevelt is quite enough for many. It symbolizes loss while sparing us its visceral reality. But the full photographic record of the conflict includes truly heinous realities—corpses tangled in barbed wire, faces distorted by gas, bodies rendered unrecognizable by artillery.
While official photographers were tasked to frame narratives that supported war efforts, some soldier photographers refused to turn a blind eye. They captured what they witnessed, creating very personal views that continues to challenge our understanding of history. Their lenses documented what words alone could never convey—the irredeemable human cost of modern warfare.
When I connected with European researchers writing a book on the married Swedish/German photographers, Lindstedt and Zimmermann, we discovered that last week’s trove of real photo postcards is quite rare. Even better, we found more.
New Discoveries from a Lost Archive
Last week’s essay examined the American occupation of Coblenz, a unique period of military history, through the photographic lens of Lindstedt & Zimmermann. The Lindstedt & Zimmermann studio was destroyed during Allied bombing in World War II, decimating their archive and rendering the surviving examples of their work as uncommon historical artifacts.
The exchange with the research team prompted another search through our postcard collection resulting in the discovery of 25 additional images. Most can be attributed to Lindstedt & Zimmermann based on stylistic elements, materials and subject matter. Some bear the mark of other photographers including Paul Stein, another Coblenz studio. Ten photographs document the catastrophic flood of the Rhine in January 1920 – images that likely haven’t been seen in a century.
The Great Flood of January 1920
The January 1920 flood represented one of the most significant natural disasters to impact the American occupation forces during their tenure in Germany. The handwritten note on one postcard reveals both the severity of the flood and its impact on the American presence. This mixed German-English description captures the cross-cultural nature of the occupation.
“Der Rhein hat über its banks geflowed und Uncle Sam’s autos gdamaged. The river is the highest in over a hundred years, almost beyond my memory!”
The photographs show numerous small boats navigating the water and automobiles partially submerged in floodwaters, with bridges and buildings visible in the background. These images provide rare documentation of a significant environmental event that temporarily disrupted occupation activities and required adaptation by both American forces and local residents.
Harlem Hellfighters
This very rare view shows what appears to be members of an African American regimental band with their instruments at Romagne, France. Black men served in segregated units during World War I, with regiments such as the 369th Infantry (the “Harlem Hellfighters”) earning recognition for their service. Their regimental bands played an important cultural role, introducing European audiences to American jazz and ragtime music. These musical ambassadors created cultural connections that transcended the military context of their presence. The inclusion of this photograph adds an important dimension to our understanding of the American military presence in post-war Europe, highlighting the contributions of African American servicemen whose stories have been marginalized in historical accounts.
YMCA Women
The expanded collection also includes two formal portraits of women in YMCA uniform, complete with the organization’s distinctive triangular insignia on hat and lapel. Sometimes called Y girls, female YMCA workers provided essential services for American soldiers stationed far from home. They operated canteens, organized recreational activities, offered educational programs, and provided a connection to American civilian life that helped maintain morale during the occupation period.
The YMCA was among the few organizations that deployed American women to work directly with troops overseas during this era. These women volunteers typically came from educated, middle or upper-class backgrounds and represented an early example of American women engaging in international service work. Their presence added a civilian dimension to the occupation and helped create environments where American soldiers could productively spend their off-duty hours.
Military Pageantry and Daily Operations
One striking photograph shows the 76th Field Artillery Regiment arranged in a “living insignia” formation, with soldiers positioned to create the unit’s distinctive diagonal striped insignia, surrounded by artillery pieces. This type of military display was meant to demonstrate American capacity while building unit cohesion and pride, and perhaps avert a little boredom.
In contrast to these ceremonial arrangements, other photographs document the practical transportation and logistical elements that supported daily operations. An image of a young driver with his heavy-duty truck along what appears to be the Rhine riverbank represents the essential supply operations that maintained the American presence. The vehicle’s utilitarian design with solid rubber tires, wooden spoke wheels, and large cargo bed illustrates the practical equipment used to transport supplies, equipment, and personnel throughout the occupation zone.
French Military Presence
The next image shows a group portrait of four French soldiers in their distinctive uniforms. Easily identified by their characteristic “Adrian” helmets with the prominent crest ridge along the top and the horizon blue (bleu horizon) uniform that became emblematic of French forces during World War I, these men represent the broader Allied presence in post-war Germany.
France maintained the largest occupation zone in the Rhineland, reflecting their particular security concerns regarding Germany. French forces occupied territories including Mainz, while American forces centered on Coblenz and British forces on Cologne. Later, French forces took over the Coblenz occupation.
The portrait format was typical of military mementos during this era, allowing soldiers to document their service and send images to family members. The survival of any images at all is due to this distribution by soldiers to their home countries.
Beyond Coblenz
Not all images in the collection were taken in Coblenz itself. One photograph shows American personnel in a touring car filled with passengers in what may be the French Riviera, identifiable by its distinctive palm trees and Mediterranean architecture. Dating to 1921-1923 based on the automobile’s style, this photograph represents the recreational opportunities available to some American personnel during leave periods from their occupation duties.
Europe allowed for cultural and recreational experiences that would have been impossible for most Americans of this era. For many young Americans serving in the occupation forces, this European assignment represented their first—and perhaps only—opportunity to experience the wider world beyond their home communities.
Visual Legacies
The survival of these photographs, particularly those documenting the 1920 flood, represents a remarkable preservation of visual history that might otherwise have been lost entirely. With the bombing of the Lindstedt & Zimmermann studio during World War II, the unique nature of real photo postcards, and the general fragility of materials from this era, each surviving image offers a rare window into this formative period in world relations.
Karl and Änne Zimmermann’s work, along with that of contemporaries like Paul Stein, provides an invaluable visual chronicle of the first American occupation of European territory—a precedent for the much larger American military presence that would emerge in Europe after World War II. Their photographs capture not just military operations and formal events but the daily reality of cross-cultural interaction between Americans, French, and Germans during this unique historical moment and place.
A Swedish-German photography team documented America’s occupation in Coblenz after World War I.
Coblenz (now Koblenz), situated strategically at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers in Germany, has experienced numerous military occupations throughout its long history. The city’s geographic importance as a crossing point and defensive position made it a coveted location for military powers across the centuries.
Dating back to Roman times, when it was known as Confluentes, the settlement served as a military outpost securing Rome’s frontier. Through medieval and early modern periods, Coblenz changed hands repeatedly during Europe’s dynastic conflicts. However, the most significant pre-20th century occupation came during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic era (1794-1814), when French forces controlled the city for nearly two decades, incorporating it into the French First Empire.
After Napoleon’s defeat, the 1815 Congress of Vienna assigned Coblenz to Prussia. The Prussians recognized its strategic value and constructed the massive Fortress Ehrenbreitstein on the east bank of the Rhine, transforming the area into one of Europe’s strongest defensive positions. This began a century of Prussian, and later German, control that would last until the end of World War I.
US Occupation: December 1918
The American occupation of Coblenz emerged from the terms of the Armistice that ended World War I on November 11, 1918. The agreement stipulated that Allied forces would occupy the Rhineland, with the region divided into three primary zones: American, British, and French. This occupation was designed to ensure German compliance with armistice terms and provide leverage during peace negotiations.
On December 13, 1918, elements of the U.S. Army’s Third Army, commanded by Major General Joseph T. Dickman, crossed the Rhine and officially began the occupation of Coblenz and its surrounding area. By December 17, the American forces had fully established their headquarters in the city, with approximately 240,000 troops in the region, though this number would decrease significantly over time.
Major General Henry T. Allen later replaced Dickman as commander in July 1919, overseeing the majority of the occupation until American withdrawal in 1923.
Unlike France, which had suffered repeated German invasions and maintained historical animosities, American forces approached the occupation with less punitive attitudes. This pragmatic approach, combined with the economic resources American soldiers brought to the local economy, created a relatively stable, though still complex, occupation environment.
A Photographic Partnership
The American occupation of Coblenz coincided with a pivotal period in photographic history, and two photographers were perfectly positioned to document this unprecedented moment: Anna Victoria “Änne” Lindstedt and her husband Karl Zimmermann. By 1918, photography had evolved significantly from its mid-19th century origins, but still required considerable technical expertise. German and Swedish photography had developed along somewhat different paths.
Anna’s photographic journey began far from Germany, in southern Sweden. Born in 1883 in Hörby, Sweden, she was the daughter of J.M. Lindstedt, an established Swedish photographer. Photography in late 19th century Scandinavia was a growing professional field, with Swedish photographers making significant technical advancements. Anna grew up immersed in this environment, learning technical skills in her father’s studio during a period when photography was transitioning from a purely chemical process to a more refined art form. This Swedish background gave her a distinct perspective and technical foundation that would later influence her work in Germany. By the early 1900s, Anna had established her own photography studio in Lund, demonstrating her independence in a field still dominated by men.
Karl Zimmermann established a photography studio in Diez an der Lahn, Germany and was operating in 1914, at the outbreak of World War I. He had developed a reputation for documenting local events and creating portraits, building technical expertise during a period when German photography was gaining international recognition for its precision and artistic innovation.
The couple became engaged in 1916, in the midst of World War I. After the war ended, they merged their photography businesses in Coblenz, recognizing the unique historic and commercial opportunity presented by the American occupation.
The real photo postcard (RPPC) format that Lindstedt and Zimmermann utilized had emerged in the early 1900s, enabled by the development of the postcard backing paper with preprinted postage markings. These allowed photographers to create small edition prints that could be sold commercially and easily mailed.
YMCA in the American Occupation
The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) played a crucial role in supporting American troops during the Coblenz occupation. Within weeks of the American arrival, the YMCA established facilities throughout the occupation zone, with their main headquarters in Coblenz itself.
The YMCA’s presence in military zones had been established during the war, but the occupation presented new challenges. Rather than serving troops in active combat, the organization now needed to address the morale and welfare needs of an occupation force facing potential boredom and disciplinary challenges.
By 1920, the YMCA operated approximately 20 centers throughout the American zone. These facilities provided alternatives to less supervised entertainment, offering recreational spaces, reading rooms, educational programs, religious services, and organized athletics. The organization also facilitated cultural exchanges, including German language classes that helped improve relations between American troops and local residents.
YMCA centers became important social hubs for American forces, with thousands of soldiers visiting these facilities daily. The centers also employed a combination of American YMCA staff and local German civilians, creating a rare space for cultural integration during the occupation.
Soldiers’ Experiences
While the broad historical narrative of the American occupation focuses on military units and official policies, individual soldiers’ experiences varied widely. Some troops formed positive relationships with German civilians, while others remained isolated within American enclaves. Some embraced the opportunity to explore European culture; others counted days until their return home.
The convenience of real photo postcards can be a barrier in historical research. Only some cards were labeled with names of men — Charles E. Wilson Jr., Norman Page, and Donald Harris pictured here — who were among the thousands of American soldiers who had their portraits made in Coblenz during this period. Bethel Tatum appears in multiple images, as does another anonymous soldier. George Purcell’s military record confirms he received a silver medal for gallantry in action during World War I before serving in the occupation force.
One of the more curious connections involves 328 Chauncey Street in Brooklyn, New York, inscribed as the address for Charles Thomas, who appears in two photos. The same location later became famous as Jackie Gleason’s boyhood home and the fictional address in “The Honeymooners”. There are no known family connections, but this is how rumors begin. Soldier Charles Thomas bears an uncanny resemblance to the comedian star.
Olympic Connections
Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic movement, maintained a significant interest in post-war athletic events, including those organized by military forces. As president of the International Olympic Committee until 1925, he worked actively to revive international sporting competitions after the war’s disruption. He may have visited Coblenz on a tour of the Inter-Allied Games in the summer of 1919.
The 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium—the first Games held after World War I—represented a significant milestone in de Coubertin’s efforts. Karl Zimmermann, who worked for both the US and French forces, may have traveled to Antwerp, and even photographed de Coubertin and General Pershing.
By 1928, Karl’s declining health forced changes to their business operations. Änne became managing director in 1930 and changed the business name to Welt-Foto-Koblenz, perhaps an attempt to broaden their commercial appeal and provide delicate cover for husband’s ailments. Karl’s mental health continued to deteriorate, ending his photojournalistic work by 1934. After his death in 1943 at the Hausen/Wied sanatorium, Änne managed to preserve aspects of their photographic legacy through the war years.
Änne’s post-war life included time between Koblenz and her native Sweden, maintaining connections to both the place where their most significant work was created and her homeland. She died on November 11, 1962, and was buried in the new cemetery in Åhus, Sweden, bringing her remarkable photographic journey full circle.
A Photographic Legacy
The Lindstedt and Zimmermann postcards documenting the American occupation of Coblenz represent an important visual historical record of this significant period. These images provide insight into a unique moment when American forces first occupied European soil—a preview of the much larger American military presence that would emerge in Europe after World War II.
Their work serves multiple historical functions: documenting military operations, capturing cultural exchanges, preserving individual experiences, and recording the physical environment of occupied Coblenz. This rare visual archive helps us understand what happened during the occupation, and how daily life unfolded.
Through the combined Swedish-German lens of Lindstedt and Zimmermann, we gain a more nuanced understanding of this complex chapter in American-European relations and the early development of American overseas military presence that would shape the 20th century.
Copper maps. Wooden cards. Puzzle prints. Discover how obsolete technologies transform into art and craft, and explore why we can’t stop reinventing the perfect postcard.
In this age of instant digital communication, the persistence of physical postcards presents an intriguing contradiction. These rectangular pieces of cardstock—designed to carry both image and correspondence through postal systems without an envelope—serve as artifacts of a communication method that had its heyday a century ago. But rather than disappear entirely, postcards have evolved in novel ways that tell us even more about who we are.
Why We Seek the New
Humans have always been drawn to novelty. Our brains light up at the unfamiliar—it’s a survival mechanism that once helped our ancestors notice changes in their environment that might signal danger or opportunity. But our relationship with novelty runs deeper than vigilance. We seek out new experiences, objects, and sensations even when no practical threat or benefit is apparent.
This human attraction to novelty serves several purposes. First, it provides simple pleasure—the dopamine release that accompanies discovery keeps us engaged with our surroundings. Second, it helps us learn and adapt—new situations force us to develop new skills. Third, it offers social currency—being the first to discover, own, or report something novel (even if untrue!) gives us a kind of status within our communities.
Perhaps most fundamentally, novelty helps us fight against the deadening effect of habituation. We become blind to what remains constant around us, a psychological phenomenon called “sensory adaptation.” Think of how you stop noticing a persistent background sound, like traffic noise. Novelty jolts us back into conscious appreciation, like noticing the birdsong instead, making us sense the familiar differently.
With mass-produced consumer goods, we often pursue novelty through customization or unique variants—like these postcard alternatives. They satisfy our craving for something special while maintaining connection to recognizable forms. Even novelty doesn’t stray too far from the familiar.
Technology Becomes Art
As technologies age and are replaced by more efficient methods, something interesting happens—the displaced technology often shifts from the realm of utility to the realm of artistry and craft. What was once valued primarily for function becomes appreciated for form, precision, and the visible human touch.
Letterpress printing was an extraordinary innovation of its time and once the standard for all printed matter. It was largely replaced by offset printing in the 20th century and later the digital methods we use today. But rather than disappearing, letterpress evolved into a premium craft, prized for its tactile quality and visible impression on paper—characteristics that were originally just side effects of the technique, not its intended purpose.
The same transformation happens with many technologies: vinyl records, film photography, mechanical watches. As digital alternatives take over the functional role, the analog predecessors become vessels for history, craftsmanship, ritual, tactile pleasure. They move from being tools to being experiences.
This pattern helps explain our collection of novelty postcards. Somewhere in the middle of last century, the standard paper postcard was functionally superseded by digital communication, freeing it to evolve into these more elaborate, less practical forms. They represent a technology in its artistic phase—no longer bound by strict utility, but free to explore expressive and sensory possibilities, along with kitsch and commercialism.
Utah in Copper Relief
The copper-embossed Utah souvenir represents one of the more elaborate departures from traditional postcard design. The metallic rectangular plate features a raised topographic outline of the state with embossed illustrations of regional landmarks and attractions. The word UTAH is prominently displayed at the top, while places like Vernal, Provo, Cedar City, and St. George are labeled at their approximate locations. The copper medium gives the piece warmth, with a decorative scalloped border framing the state’s geography and securing the paper card below.
The manufacturing process likely involved die-stamping or embossing thin copper sheeting, a technique that dates back to the late 19th century and regained popularity in mid-20th century souvenirs. The tactile nature of the raised elements invites touch, creating a multisensory experience unavailable in traditional flat postcards. The utility of this object as actual correspondence is significantly diminished—the copper surface resists easy writing, and its weight requires additional postage and hand-canceling. It’s more a miniature commemorative plaque that happens to maintain postcard dimensions.
Woodsy Aesthetics
Let’s look closer now at a novelty postcard featuring a cabin in Salmon, Idaho, printed onto a thin wooden substrate and depicting a rustic cabin nestled among stylized pine trees. The scene employs a limited color palette—brown and black for the structure and green for the surrounding vegetation—lending it a deliberately simple aesthetic that echoes both woodcut prints and traditional lithography.
The simple text at the top identifies the location without intruding on the scene. The artwork itself employs minimal detail, capturing the essence of rural life rather than photographic accuracy. The manufacturing process of printing onto thin wood veneer allows for mass production, while adding a specific scene, location name, and ink color for customization.
This card’s rustic medium and subject matter work in harmony, creating a self-referential object where the material reinforces the message—a wooden card depicting a wooden structure set within a forested landscape. The medium becomes part of the message, suggesting authenticity through material consistency. Though mass-produced, it strongly evokes a rural sensibility.
Framed Vistas
Our souvenir from Yellowstone National Park adopts yet another approach. This card features a stylized illustration of Yellowstone’s grand canyon and waterfall printed on cardstock and mounted on a wooden backing.
The artwork employs a palette of oranges, purples, blues, and whites to capture the dramatic landscape, with the falls rendered as a white vertical streak against colorful canyon walls. Dark silhouettes of pine trees frame the scene, while puffy clouds hover in a light blue sky, held inside a purple border. The stylized typography echoes vintage travel posters from the early to mid-20th century. The entire image is mounted or printed on a natural wood base, visible as a frame around the illustration.
This card’s production combines offset printing with a wooden substrate—a look that recalls both traditional woodblock prints and mid-century travel advertisements. The design deliberately evokes an era of American national park tourism when artistic posters commissioned by the Works Progress Administration and the National Park Service established a distinctive aesthetic for natural landmarks.
Playful Puzzles
The Disney puzzle postcard introduces an element of interaction we haven’t seen before. This card features Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Pluto, and Goofy arranged in a group pose against a blue-and-white checkered background. The message reading “Hi From The Whole Gang” in bubble text curves around the edge of the image.
This item turns a postcard into a simple jigsaw puzzle—die-cut pieces that can be jumbled and reassembled to reveal the printed image. The manufacturing process involved full-color printing followed by precision die-cutting to create interlocking puzzle pieces, then applying a thin adhesive film to maintaining the card’s overall integrity for mailing.
This souvenir represents a curious hybrid—a postcard that actively invites its own disassembly. The Disney characters themselves represent another layer of nostalgia, combining America’s animation icons with the traditional postcard format to create an object that references multiple forms of 20th-century popular culture simultaneously. But only modern technology could accomplish these manufacturing details, a playful combination of familiar and fresh.
Magnetic Memories
The Will’s Hardy Trees and Seeds magnetic card is the one in our set with the most layers of both meaning and making. See packets, postcards, fridge magnets, and agricultural Americana all combine in this take home treasure.
The 1909 seed catalog cover is a contemporary image inspired by the real-life Oscar H. Will & Co. of Bismarck, North Dakota. The vibrant illustration displays pansies in various colors—purple, yellow, orange, pink, and white—arranged in a bouquet. Text identifies the company’s 26th year of operation and describes their products as the “choicest and most beautiful on earth”.
A small purple circle overlay on the plastic film cover announces the item’s true nature: a magnetic postcard to send as a gift. Despite its historical appearance and postcard dimensions, the object is actually a refrigerator magnet that merely references seed catalog and postcard aesthetics. The production involved digital printing on magnetic sheet material, applying a printed paper backing, and slipping into a plastic cover with instructions to mail the gift in an envelope.
As a novelty item, it reveals a peculiar circularity. A reproduction of a commercial artifact (seed catalog) transformed into a correspondence medium (postcard) further transformed into a decorative household item (refrigerator magnet). Somehow, we love each iteration all the more.
Nostalgia Squared
What these examples share is a relationship with nostalgia that operates on multiple levels. They aren’t simply nostalgic; they engage in a looping nostalgia—nostalgic representations of already nostalgic forms.
The copper Utah relief draws upon mid-century tourist souvenirs, themselves designed to evoke frontier-era maps and territorial markers. The Salmon cabin employs modern production techniques to simulate traditional woodcuts nad print, which were themselves often romanticized depictions of rural life. The Yellowstone cards references mid-century national park posters that were already stylized interpretations of natural wonders. The Disney puzzle incorporates cartoon characters who have become nostalgic cultural icons, presented in the format of childhood games. The Will’s Seeds magnet reproduces early 20th-century commercial art that was, even in its original context, employing Victorian aesthetic sensibilities.
This layering of reference creates objects that are remarkably dense with cultural signifiers despite their modest physical dimensions. They offer not just a connection to place and time but to the ways we’ve represented ourselves and our interests through commercial souvenirs.
Our apparent need for novelty, then, might be better understood as a need for continual context. Each new postcard iteration doesn’t merely replace what came before; it absorbs and references it, creating objects that function as compact archives of our evolving relationship with the characters and places we cherish.
These novelty postcards sit at an interesting crossroads of commerce, craft, and communication. They represent what happens when a formerly utilitarian object—the humble postcard—is freed from its purely practical obligations and allowed to evolve along lines dictated by sentiment, aesthetics, and novelty.
In a world increasingly dominated by digital experiences, these physical novelties offer something screens cannot—texture, weight, presence. They satisfy our hunger for the tangible. Their quirky, sometimes impractical forms speak to a human need more fundamental than efficient communication: the need to hold something unique in our hands, and to feel a physical connection to places we’ve been and experiences we’ve had.
The postcard itself is and was a very simple concept and object that, over time, has become a medium for ongoing conversations about permanence and impermanence, about what we value over time, and about the tension between utility and sentiment. In their various novel forms, these more-than-postcards tell us about places we’ve been and how we’ve chosen to remember and delight in those places—a correspondence not just between people, but between past and present.
Sisters Mayme and Carrie stay in touch as Mattoon IL grows from a creek-side town to a modern crossroads before the war, 1910-1918.
Between 1910 and 1918, a series of postcards traveled between Mattoon, Illinois, and St. Mary’s, Indiana. On one end was Mayme, the author, who had made her home in the bustling railroad town of Mattoon. Her sister Carrie, who remained in St. Mary’s, received and kept the cards, now more than a century old. These correspondence cards—adorned with images of Mattoon’s infrastructure and landmarks—captured more than just personal exchanges between siblings. They documented a profound moment in America’s transformation from a rural society to an industrialized nation, with small Midwestern cities like Mattoon serving as microcosms of this national metamorphosis.
Nature and Community
Mayme sent the first postcard on November 29, 1910, bearing an image of Riley Creek with its stone bridge arch—a glimpse of the natural landscape that surrounded the growing town of Mattoon. This serene view of the creek precedes the increasingly industrialized town that Mattoon was becoming. Founded in 1855 and named after William B. Mattoon, a partner in the construction firm that built the Illinois Central Railroad, the town served as a critical junction between the Illinois Central and the Terre Haute & Alton railroads.
The stone bridge spanning Riley Creek represents essential infrastructure that connected different parts of the community and facilitated transportation within and beyond the town. Such bridges were vital elements in expanding road networks that would eventually complement the railroad’s dominance in transportation.
Mayme wrote about burdensome domestic chores and a new dress for an upcoming ball that she would wear again to a Thursday card party. She was participating in the social life of a community that was growing from its natural surroundings into a prosperous small city.
I’m about worked to death, washed my sitting room curtains, blackened my cook stove, scrubbed the kitchen and goodness knows what all…
Industry and Infrastructure
By 1914, Mayme was sending postcards that highlighted Mattoon’s industrial development. One image showcased the substantial Clark Meter Box Factory, with its distinctive tower and solid brick construction. America’s industrial expansion was moving beyond major manufacturing centers into smaller towns and cities. The factory produced meter boxes for utilities—products essential to the electrification and modernization sweeping across America in the early 20th century.
While Mayme reported her handiwork at home like knitting, crocheting, and gardening, the meter box factory represented the industrial world that was transforming the American economy. Manufacturing facilities like this provided jobs that attracted workers and their families to communities like Mattoon, contributing to urban growth and economic diversification beyond traditional agricultural and railroad employment.
Also in 1914, Mayme sent a postcard showcasing Mattoon’s “New U.S. Post Office,” a stately neoclassical building with grand arches and an American flag prominently displayed. This wasn’t merely a functional building but a statement of federal presence and civic achievement. During this period, post offices in American towns weren’t just mail facilities—they were symbols of connection to the national government and markers of a community’s importance.
The grandeur of Mattoon’s post office reflected the federal government’s expanding role in American life—a time when postal services were being standardized and rural free delivery was connecting previously isolated communities. The building is a physical manifestation of the communication network that allowed Mayme’s postcards to travel to Carrie with such regularity.
Hospitality and Social Life
In 1915, Mayme’s postcard featured the lobby of the Hotel Byers, offering a glimpse into the social aspirations of Mattoon during this era. The elegant interior, with its decorative fireplace, ornate hanging lamps, and comfortable seating area, represented the town’s desire to provide metropolitan amenities. Hotels like the Byers served not just as lodging for travelers but as social centers for the community.
For Mayme, the hotel offered refined experiences and social mobility. The hotel’s ballroom would have served as the venue for the dances she mentioned, while its dining room hosted the card parties that figured prominently in middle-class social life. These gatherings provided opportunities for networking across class lines, connecting domestic and railroad workers’ families with merchants, professionals, and industry owners.
The “new” Hotel Byers replaced an older establishment of the same name that had served Mattoon since the late 19th century. This newer iteration, constructed around 1914, was a modern hotel that served as crucial infrastructure for a growing city with ambitions to attract business and industry. The hotel’s construction coincided with a period of economic optimism in Midwestern towns before America’s entry into World War I, when many similar communities were upgrading their commercial buildings as part of the broader Progressive Era emphasis on civic improvement.
Railroad Town
The last postcard featured the “Illinois Central Subway” in Mattoon, which wasn’t an underground transit system but a distinctive sunken railway passage that bisected the town. This engineering feature allowed trains to pass through without disrupting street-level traffic, a forward-thinking design that embodied the marriage of infrastructure and everyday life. The buildings lining the upper level of the postcard show Mattoon’s commercial district that grew directly alongside the railroad—their proximity a testament to the symbiotic relationship between commerce and transportation.
Hope everybody’s well. Let me know just as soon as Jerry is called…
War Shadows
By July 1918, Mayme’s tone had shifted. Her ominous request to let her know “as soon as Jerry is called” reveals the long shadow cast by World War I over these Midwestern communities. The United States had entered the war in April 1917, and the military draft was touching families across the nation.
The war accelerated many of the industrial and social changes already underway in towns like Mattoon. Labor shortages created by military service opened new employment opportunities, particularly for women. The focus on wartime production reshuffled economic priorities. And the specter of loss hung over families, even as daily life continued.
While Mattoon’s industrial capacity may have contributed to the war effort through manufacturing, the human cost was felt intensely in personal correspondence like this.
Two Sisters
Throughout these exchanges, we see two different life trajectories embodied by the sisters. Mayme chose life in a developing industrial town, participating in its social events and domestic economy while witnessing its physical transformation. Her postcards—featuring Mattoon’s architectural achievements and industrial facilities—suggest a certain pride in her adopted community.
Carrie eventually married a man named Earl, and they moved around a bit. Both sisters maintained domestic skills—knitting, crocheting, sewing, and food production—that connected them in conversation even as the world around them changed. Their correspondence across state lines preserved family bonds—a common experience as increased mobility dispersed American families. The railroad and postal service made this ongoing connection possible.
From the verdant hues of the rainforest to the toxic green pigments adorning Victorian wallpaper, green embodies our most profound contradictions. This single color represents both life and decay, wealth and envy, nature and artifice.
In the Amazon rainforest, vegetation thrives in countless green hues, symbolizing life’s abundance. Yet in Western art, sickly green often signifies death and corruption. How can one color embody such opposed concepts? This tension—between green as vitality and green as decay—forms the central paradox in humanity’s relationship with this enigmatic tertiary hue.
Green occupies a unique position in our visual lexicon. It bridges the cool tranquility of blue and the energetic warmth of yellow. This intermediate status perhaps explains its dual nature—a color of balance that simultaneously contains opposing forces.
Toxic Chemistry: From Wallpaper to Printer’s Ink
The story of green pigment drips with poison. For centuries, the most vibrant greens came from copper arsenite, creating infamous “Paris Green” that adorned Victorian wallpapers and allegedly contributed to Napoleon’s death through arsenic poisoning. Scheele’s Green, developed in the late 18th century, released deadly arsenic gas when dampened. Victorian walls literally “breathed” death through their verdant decorations.
This toxic history highlights a contradiction: the color most associated with natural life proved historically among the most unnatural and deadly to produce. Nineteenth century painters risked chronic arsenic poisoning for the perfect emerald tone.
Printing technology reveals another dimension of green’s complex nature. Traditional lithography treated green as a distinct entity. Master printers blended pigments to create precise green tones before applying them to printing stones. Toulouse-Lautrec’s lithographic posters featured carefully formulated green inks to capture the absinthe-tinged atmosphere of Parisian nightlife.
Modern CMYK printing creates green through optical mixing instead. Green isn’t a primary ink but emerges from combining yellow and cyan dots in precise patterns. This technique echoes Neo-Impressionist pointillism, where artists like Seurat placed distinct color dots side by side, allowing viewers’ eyes to blend them into a third color. A magazine’s solid green leaf reveals itself as an array of cyan and yellow dots under magnification.
This absence-made-present quality of green in modern printing mirrors its philosophical status: green exists at boundaries between colors and concepts. While our eyes perceive green as distinct (wavelength 495-570 nanometers), the printing process creates it through subtraction and combination—an illusion constructed from non-green components.
Green Means Go
One of green’s most recognized meanings emerged in the late 19th century with traffic signals. Green indicating “go” now transcends language barriers worldwide.
This standardization began with British railway signals in the 1830s, borrowing from maritime tradition where green lights indicated starboard. The first traffic light with red and green signals appeared outside London’s Parliament in 1868, predating automobiles. Gas-lit red and green lamps operated manually by police officers guided horse-drawn carriages.
The choice wasn’t arbitrary but built on psychological associations. Green’s connection to safety likely stems from evolutionary biology—natural green environments generally signal available food and absence of danger.
The 1949 Geneva Protocol formalized green’s role in traffic systems globally. Today, from Tokyo’s sophisticated networks to remote Indian intersections, green universally permits passage. This standardization extends to pedestrian crossings, airport runways, and maritime navigation.
This creates a fascinating contradiction: the color most associated with nature now primarily serves an urban, technological function. Times Square’s green traffic light and the Moscow Metro’s green signal represent perhaps green’s most recognized meaning—entirely disconnected from the natural world that gave the color its original significance.
Green’s role as “go” permeates language. “Getting the green light” implies permission and opportunity. Business reports use green to indicate positive metrics. This association with forward movement and progress creates another layer of meaning for this multivalent color.
Envy and Avarice
Perhaps nowhere is green’s paradoxical nature more evident than in its associations with money and envy. Shakespeare’s description of jealousy as “the green-eyed monster” in Othello connects the color to one of humanity’s most corrosive emotions. This association may stem from physiology—intense jealousy can produce a pallid, greenish complexion due to blood flow changes—the body manifesting emotion through color.
Currency, particularly American dollars, has become synonymous with green. “Greenback” entered common parlance as a synonym for money. The decision to print American currency in green stemmed from practical concerns—green ink resisted photographic counterfeiting and remained chemically stable. This pragmatic choice evolved into a powerful cultural symbol representing both opportunity and excess, freedom and materialism.
Medieval European art portrayed avarice through green-tinted figures clutching moneybags. Giotto’s 14th-century fresco “The Seven Deadly Sins” in Padua’s Scrovegni Chapel depicts Avarice with greenish skin, visually linking the color to unnatural desire for wealth.
Green Flags
Green features prominently in approximately 40 national flags, each instance carrying distinct cultural significance. Brazil’s verdant background represents the Amazon rainforest, directly linking national identity to landscape. Saudi Arabia’s entirely green flag connects the color to Islamic associations with paradise and the Prophet Muhammad.
Nigeria’s vertical bands with green on either side symbolize natural wealth and agricultural resources. Similarly, Pakistan’s predominantly green flag represents both Islamic heritage and agricultural prosperity. In Ireland, green in the tricolor evokes both the verdant landscape (“Emerald Isle”) and Catholic nationalist tradition.
Portugal’s green carries revolutionary significance, representing hope following the Republican revolution of 1910. The Italian tricolor uses green to complete its representation of the natural landscape—the Alps’ snow, Mount Etna’s lava, and the country’s fertile plains.
Green in many African nations’ flags—including Senegal, Cameroon, and Zimbabwe—often represents natural resources and agricultural wealth, while simultaneously nodding to Pan-African colors inspired by Ethiopia’s flag.
These varied uses in national symbolism show how green serves as canvas for diverse values: religious devotion, natural abundance, revolutionary hope, and cultural heritage—sometimes simultaneously within the same emblem.
Green Spaces
The concept of “green space” contains inherent tension. In urban planning, green spaces represent deliberate human interventions—parks and conservation areas that preserve nature within developed landscapes. New York’s High Line transforms an abandoned railway into a linear park, while Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay creates futuristic “supertrees” blending technology and nature.
In Bali’s rice terraces, agricultural practice created one of the world’s most striking green landscapes. These centuries-old terraced fields follow hillside contours, representing harmony between human needs and natural topography that has become iconic in travel photography.
“Greenwashing” introduces another tension—the superficial application of environmental imagery to mask environmentally harmful practices. The color once simply representing nature now carries political dimensions, conscripted into debates about sustainability and corporate responsibility.
Beyond Growth
The “green economy” represents perhaps the most significant modern appropriation of the color, embodying tension between environmental sustainability and economic development. Traditionally seen as opposing forces, the green economy concept attempts reconciliation, suggesting an economic system generating prosperity without degrading ecological systems.
This reconciliation attempts to resolve fundamental tension in green’s symbolism. The color representing both verdant growth and corruption of excess now stands for an economic model decoupling prosperity from environmental harm.
Yet the green economy concept contains internal contradictions. Critics argue “green growth” often represents contradiction in terms—attempting to maintain unsustainable consumption through marginal efficiency improvements. This criticism spawned more radical conceptions, including the circular economy model.
The circular economy transcends the linear “take-make-dispose” industrial model to envision economic activity mimicking natural cycles. In nature, nothing wastes—one organism’s decomposition nourishes another. Fallen leaves decay into soil feeding the next generation. This cyclical pattern contrasts with the ever-upward arrow of traditional economic growth charts.
Inspired by natural systems, circular economy advocates like Ellen MacArthur envision products designed for disassembly and reuse, with materials continuously circulated rather than discarded. The bright green growth arrow transforms into a green regeneration circle—emblematic in recycling symbols worldwide.
This shift from growth-as-expansion to growth-as-renewal reimagines green’s economic symbolism. Finland’s forests, supplying timber under strict regeneration requirements, exemplify this approach—harvested trees always replanted, creating sustainable cycles rather than mere extraction. This forest management system models how economic activity can align with natural regeneration.
The Color of Paradox
Green remains the color of paradox—simultaneously natural and artificial, life-giving and toxic, calming and unsettling, signifying unfettered growth and mindful circularity. This duality explains its enduring fascination. Unlike primary colors with straightforward associations, green exists in in-between spaces—a tertiary tone refusing simple categorization.
From deadly Victorian pigments to digital screens, from Islamic tradition to environmental movements, from envious emotions to regenerative economics, green continues evolving while maintaining fundamental tensions. In all its tertiary complexity, green continues defining spaces where human creativity engages with fundamental forces of growth, change, and renewal.
The Posted Past 