Tag: Brussels

1972 Tourism Year of the Americas

These vintage postcards from the 1972 Tourism Year of the Americas reveal fascinating questions about natural landscapes, heritage, monuments, and whose stories we remember and tell.

In summer 1972, the United States Postal Service issued commemorative postcards that would become enduring symbols of national identity. These postcards, part of the Tourism Year of the Americas campaign, featured iconic destinations with restrained elegance—their two-color printing was both artistic and economical. As America stood at a cultural crossroads, this postcard set tells a familiar American story. More than five decades later, they reveal even more about how a nation sees itself.

Commemorative Moments

First Day of Issue cancellations mark a special moment in time, and signal that an item is expected to be collectible. The postcards were cancelled on June 29, 1972, bearing the commemorative text “Philatelic Exhibition Brussels” and “Tour America Inaugural Rome – Paris.” These international exhibitions promoted American tourism during the Cold War, when cultural diplomacy served as essential soft power.

The carefully designed cancellation artwork includes USS Constellation (6¢), Gloucester (6¢), Monument Valley (6¢), and Niagara Falls (airmail 15¢). These rates reflected the newly reorganized United States Postal Service which had become its own entity the year prior. The 1972 Tourism Year of the Americas was an ambitious initiative from the new quasi-independent agency, emerging alongside Nixon’s opening to China and détente with the Soviet Union.

USS Constellation, the last sail-only warship built by the U.S. Navy (1853-1855), served as flagship of the Africa Squadron from 1859–1861. The ship captured three slave vessels, enabling liberation of 705 Africans. During the Civil War, Constellation deterred Confederate cruisers in the Mediterranean. The selection represented naval heritage and anti-slavery efforts, though it still centered the naval victory rather than those who gained freedom.

Niagara Falls has attracted visitors for 200 years, becoming the symbolic heart of American tourism. The 1883 Niagara Reservation became America’s first state park, influencing national park creation. Current visitor statistics show enduring appeal: 9.5 million tourists visited Niagara Falls State Park in 2023, with the region welcoming 12 million visitors yearly.

Monument Valley reflect the West’s central role in national identity by 1972, immortalized through Hollywood and environmentalism. Yet Monument Valley sits within Navajo Nation territory, while Grand Canyon encompasses land sacred to multiple tribes, including the Havasupai, whose reservation lies within park boundaries—reminders that park creation displaced Native communities.

Gloucester, America’s oldest seaport, sustained coastal communities for centuries. The lighthouse image evoked both practical maritime safety and romantic notions of New England’s rocky shores, while Gloucester’s working harbor embodied the intersection of heritage preservation and living tradition. By 1972, this historic fishing port faced the tension between maintaining its authentic maritime culture and adapting to tourism pressures—a challenge that made it a fitting symbol.

Artistic Vision

The front of the postcards render multiple iconic American locations in distinctive engravings in an economical two-color print run, an important factor for a the government printing office.

The collection showcases a deliberate balance. Yosemite represents natural power and America’s first national park. Missisippi Riverboats and the Rodeo embody western majesty central to national imagination. DC Monuments offer overt patriotism and Williamsburg and the Liberty Bell connect to the tremors and tolls of colonial democracy.

Even in 1972, these were selective narratives. All featured natural sites exist on traditional Indigenous lands, for example, while largely omitting Indigenous perspectives and enslaved people’s contributions to our cultural histories.

Many featured locations are sacred sites to Indigenous communities. Some of the most sacred places for American Indian nations are located in national parks, yet access to holy ground remains contentious. Park creation often involved displacing Native peoples from lands they had stewarded for millennia.

The year 1972 was tough in other ways: Vietnam War divisions, emerging Watergate scandal, and generational alienation over the military draft. These postcards presented a different kind of unity. Rather than contemporary political divisions, they emphasized natural wonders and historical sites that transcended partisan conflicts.

During the Cold War, these postcards served as miniature global ambassadors, too, often providing people’s first visual encounter with American landmarks. They projected America as worthy of visiting and learning about, countering negative impressions from political controversies.

The postcards themselves embody crucial democratic principles: making heritage accessible through affordable media; connecting tourism to conservation through revenue and public appreciation; and revealing how commemorative choices reflect national values. The geographic diversity suggests a desire for the fullest of American experiences, though these 1972 selections still privilege certain narratives.

New Memories

These postcards continue to offer insights into American values and heritage preservation evolution. USS Constellation still serves as a museum ship in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. National parks have experienced tremendous visitation growth, raising questions about balancing access with preservation.

In what they don’t depict, the postcards show gaps in whose stories get told, whose lands get celebrated, whose experiences get centered. While 1972 selections emphasized traditional narratives, contemporary views increasingly include previously marginalized perspectives, acknowledging Indigenous heritage alongside colonial and national stories.

These artifacts remind us that commemorations reveal values and priorities. As our historical understandings evolve, it’s wise to look back and look again.

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Life in Large Letter Postcards

Among all our favorite postcard styles, large letter postcards stand out as evocative artifacts of memory, place, and time. What drives us to collect these small works of design, and what do they reveal about the places we’ve been—or dream of going?

In an age of digital communication and instant photo sharing, there’s something uniquely captivating about large letter postcards. These brightly colored, design-driven place markers have been carrying snippets of the world from person to person – and into collections – for over a century.

Postcard collecting, or deltiology, has been a popular hobby since the late 19th century. What makes postcards so appealing to collectors? For one, they’re relatively affordable and easy to store, making them accessible to collectors of all ages and means. But more than that, postcards offer a unique blend of visual appeal, historical significance, and personal connection.

To Collect is Human

Humans have been collectors for as long as we know. From prehistoric shells and stones to modern stamps and coins, the act of gathering and preserving token objects is a constant across cultures and eras. But why do we collect?

For collectors of large letter postcards one might choose to focus on cards from a particular state or region, tracing how the depiction of that place changed over time. It’s an exploration of how places have marketed themselves to tourists, of changing aesthetic tastes, and of the evolution of printing technology. Each card is a time capsule, preserving a particular vision of a place at a specific moment in history.

Alternatively, a collector might concentrate on the output of a specific publisher, such as Curt Teich & Co. or Tichnor Brothers, each of which had its own distinctive style. Serious collectors have checklists and databases, and keenly search for highly-prized cards that are known but still not found.

One part of collecting is about finding a comforting order in a sometimes chaotic world. By curating a set of objects, we apply our own structures and meanings onto a small corner of the universe. It’s a way of making sense of the world around us, and also of understanding, exploring, and appreciating our experiences.

Moreover, collections often serve as tangible links to our memories and experiences. Each item in a collection can evoke a specific moment in time, a particular place, or a cherished memory. In this way, our collections become autobiographies of sorts, telling the story of our lives through carefully curated objects.

Collecting also taps into our innate desire for completion. There’s a profound satisfaction in filling gaps in a collection, in finding that elusive item that will make our set whole. This pursuit in itself can become a lifelong passion, providing a sense of purpose and achievement.

Vicarious Views

Large letter postcards are miniature ambassadors from distant lands, carrying with them not just images but also the tangible evidence of their journey—postmarks, stamps, and handwritten messages.

The hunt for these postcards take collectors to antique shops, flea markets, and specialized postcard shows. Online marketplaces have made it easier to find specific cards, but for many collectors, the thrill of the hunt remains an important part of the hobby.

Each postcard is a snapshot of a particular place at a specific moment, and a unique chance to travel in time. From architecture and fashion to social customs and technological advancements, postcards provide valuable insights into the evolution of society.

The messages scrawled on their backs offer intimate glimpses into personal histories. A hurried “Wish you were here!” or a detailed account of a traveler’s adventures can be just as fascinating as the picture on the front.

Personal Place Holders

At the heart of collecting large letter postcards is our connections to place. Whether we’re collecting postcards from places we’ve visited or from far-flung locales we hope to see someday, each card in our collection represents a connection to a specific geographical location.

This connection to place is a fundamental aspect of human psychology. We are, by nature, territorial creatures, and we form strong emotional bonds with the places that are significant to us. These bonds can be with our hometowns, favorite vacation spots, or even places we’ve only ever dreamed of visiting.

Postcards allow us to carry a piece of these places with us. They serve as physical reminders of our travels, tangible links to the memories we’ve made in different corners of the world. For places we haven’t yet visited, postcards can fuel our wanderlust, providing glimpses of distant lands and cultures.

But our relationship with place isn’t always straightforward. In our increasingly globalized world, many of us find ourselves with multiple place affinities. We might have roots in one city, work in another, and care for family in a third. Postcards offer a way to express and explore these multiple connections to place. A collection might include cards from one’s birthplace, current home, ancestral homeland, and favorite travel destinations, reflecting the complex geography of one’s life and identity.

Design Dazzle

Large letter postcards hold a special place in the hearts of many collectors. These distinctive cards, which feature the name of a place spelled out in oversized letters filled with local scenes, represent a perfect marriage of place celebration and graphic design.

The heyday of large letter postcards was the mid-20th century, particularly in the United States. This was the era of automobile tourism, when families would pile into their cars for cross-country road trips. Large letter postcards became popular souvenirs, offering a bold, eye-catching way to say “I was here!”

What makes large letter postcards so appealing is their clever integration of text and image. The large letters dominate the card, immediately identifying the location. But within these letters, we find a series of miniature scenes—local landmarks, natural wonders, or typical activities associated with the place. It’s like a visual summary of a destination, condensed into a single, striking image.

From a design perspective, large letter postcards are a triumph of commercial art. They required considerable skill to create, with artists needing to balance the demands of legibility (the place name had to be easily readable) with the desire to include as many local scenes as possible. The result was often a masterpiece of composition and color, with every inch of the card put to effective use.

The style of these postcards evolved over time. Early examples from the 1930s often featured more space between the letters, with scenes depicted in a realistic style. By the 1950s, the letters had typically grown to fill the entire card, with more stylized, graphic representations of local scenes. This evolution reflects broader trends in graphic design and commercial art of the period.

Postcards in the Digital Age

In our era of smartphones and social media, one might expect the appeal of postcards to have diminished. Yet postcards, including modern versions of large letter designs, continue to be produced and collected. Why do these physical artifacts still resonate in a digital world?

Part of the answer lies in their tangibility. In a world where so much of our communication is ephemeral—tweets and status updates that scroll away into oblivion—there’s something deeply satisfying about holding a physical object that has traveled across distance to reach us.

Moreover, the very characteristics that might make postcards seem outdated—their slowness, their limitations—can be seen as virtues. In a world of information overload, the postcard’s constrained format can be refreshing.

For collectors, physical postcards offer a connection to history that digital images can’t quite match. The ability to hold a card that was printed decades ago, to see the handwriting of someone long gone, provides a visceral link to the past that resonates deeply with many people.

Passionate Postal Pursuits

Whether we’re talking about vintage large letter postcards or their modern equivalents, these small rectangular pieces of card stock are far more than just souvenirs. They are repositories of memory, snapshots of place, and artifacts of design history.

For collectors, each postcard is a thread in a complex tapestry of place, time, and personal experience. A large letter postcard from Miami might evoke memories of a childhood vacation, appreciation for mid-century graphic design, and curiosity about how the city has changed since the card was printed.

In a world where our connections to place are increasingly complex and multi-layered, postcard collections allow us to map our personal geographies. They give tangible form to our memories, our travels, and our dreams of future journeys.

Moreover, in their celebration of specific places, postcards—and large letter postcards in particular—remind us of the rich diversity of the world. In an era of globalization, where many fear a homogenization of culture, these cards stand as colorful testimony to the unique character of different locations.

So the next time you come across a rack of postcards in a gift shop, or spot a vintage large letter card in an antique store, take a moment to appreciate these small works of design. They are more than just pretty pictures or quaint relics. In their own small way, they help us make sense of our place in the world—and isn’t that, after all, what collecting is all about?