nostalgia – The Posted Past

Legal Landscapes

The vintage postcards we see every week usually come with semi-anonymous backstories, available to examine and share freely. Still, a variety of legal frameworks preserve the rights of their original creators and govern our ethical use today. Most of what appears here is in the public domain, yet there are relevant reasons to respect family privacy and to protect my own intellectual efforts, as technology gives us new powers to look back.

Flipping a vintage postcard front-to-back is simple, but the laws and ethics that relate to each side can be complicated. The postcard itself is most often commercially published, offered for sale as a multiple, and the image on the front is protected by copyright for a period of time. Once a copyrighted work enters the public domain, it is available for free use. Digitizing it doesn’t change the original copyright, but it does create new opportunities for attribution and citation, potentially expanding the historical record.

The reverse of a postcard, when inscribed, is an entirely private piece of correspondence. It is considered unpublished, and therefore not necessarily available for public use in the same sense. Private correspondence is protected by a different set of principles, in law and in professional ethical code.

Further, the weekly research and writing we (hopefully) enjoy here, along with the website and image metadata are my original work, and garner their own set of protections. This part of the law is concerned with authorship and ownership, but I care as much about how these stories might contribute to new narratives well beyond me. I think of The Posted Past both as a humble offering, as well as something I take pride in and want to protect.

I am not a lawyer, but grounding myself in a legal framework helps me think through the different values embedded in The Posted Past, including the academic, professional, and personal. Let’s walk through five areas of law that seem most relevant: the public domain, fair use, privacy, accessibility, and intellectual property. Please be sure to check with an actual lawyer when it matters to you!

Public Domain

Copyright law exists to reward creators in their lifetimes and a limited term beyond, and eventually retain the fruits of their labor for posterity and the public good. When the copyright term ends, long after the creator is gone, the work enters the public domain. Anyone may then reproduce it exactly, reference it without attribution, or sell it in a new format.

For postcards, the original copyright is determined by date and location. Private postcards became legal in the United States in 1898, and the bulk of vintage cards in this collection date from the decades that followed. Cards published in 1930 or earlier are in the public domain today. Later cards depend on further regulation of notices and renewal rules.

Flowchart titled Postcard Copyright Status. A timeline shows private postcards becoming legal in 1898, the words Post Card allowed in 1901, and the divided back in 1907. Below, questions about where and when a card was published, its copyright notice, and its renewal lead to public domain, protected, or depends-on-country outcomes.

A public domain card is free to scan, reuse, and resell. A faithful scan adds no new copyright, so the image stays free and available for others to use, too. Creative work built on top of a card, such as a new design, animation, or significant restoration may earn its own copyright. Foreign cards and sales abroad need a separate look, because other countries count years differently and some very old cards may still be under protection.

Fair Use

Fair use is the part of copyright law that encourages criticism, teaching, and scholarship by allowing for an original work to be referenced in another work without permission. For example, this provision lets a writer show or quote someone else’s work in order to describe or analyze it, but only within certain limits. Nothing about it is automatic, and each case can be tested against four factors.

For practical purposes, most of what we do here fits into fair use guidelines. While some of the postcard images may still be under copyright, the use is considered fair because of our analysis of specific cards, their imagery, messages, and historical context. Though some postcards are for sale on the site, the use of images is primarily related to the discussion, which is free. Crediting every image is good practice even where no law requires it. Especially with rare postcards, documenting those details can be a new contribution to the historical record.

People and Privacy

Two areas of law meet on the back of a postcard. Copyright protects the ownership of the image on the front, and it also covers the words a person writes, even in a private note on the back. This is so writers of all kinds can decide whether and when their work goes public, and so that regular individuals can avoid undue scrutiny in their private affairs. An image in the public domain on the front of a postcard does not free the message on the back. Privacy laws mostly protect the living, and professional ethics add a second layer of duty toward the authors and the people named in the writing on a postcard.

How to Handle Handwriting. A flowchart asks whether a private message is copyright protected and ends in free to use, use with care, or protected outcomes. Next steps cover paraphrasing, quoting short excerpts, or cropping the handwriting, followed by a privacy check for every card.

Many messages are free to use. Short phrases and plain facts carry no copyright, and details from some long-gone writers may be seen as functionally irrelevant in terms of copyright protection. Fair use can still apply, too, especially when a message serves as evidence of how people lived or supports scholarship more broadly. Paraphrasing, quoting short excerpts, and obscuring real addresses are all strategies to ensure sensitivity toward the real lives represented in postcards.

Digital Access

Accessibility law exists so that people with disabilities can take part in public life on equal terms. The Americans with Disabilities Act began with making accommodating adjustments to buildings, ramps, and doors in public spaces. These regulations now apply to digital content and websites, too. Screen readers, for example, require certain technical protocols in order to make them functional for all users.

For The Posted Past, that means alt text for every image, clear headings and captions, and intentional use of visually descriptive language in the text, along with an accessibility statement and regular process for updates and error correction. Beyond compliance, the robust use of metadata can make our explorations more interesting, detailed, and reachable for everyone.

Protecting My Work

The general purpose of copyright law is to reward creative work, and it affords certain rights to authors the moment the words go down on the page or up on a website. The weekly essays I write here belong to me, along with the captions, descriptions, and alt text I use throughout the site. The trademark, logo, and the website’s custom design are protected, too. It’s important that I don’t make a copyright claim of public domain works shown here (that can create legal troubles around false claims) but the discussion of them is my own.

I am careful with my use of AI in research and drafting stages, and to assist me in developing the infographics like the ones here. In all ways, those sessions are bounded by my original queries and subsequent investigations, and nothing is published here without my creative direction and editorial control. I love to write, so popular worries about human authorship are a bit lost on me. If anything, my writing is better for all the cogent research support. I’m excited about the new technological capabilities, but use them in tandem because being human, quixotic, and curious is more fun.

So to recap: Check the copyright status of the postcard first. When referencing copyrighted work, use excerpts and paraphrasing, and include only what your analysis needs. Credit the sources and keep track of the research steps that make up your original work. Protect the people named on the card, even if they have passed. Write in richly visual language and provide metadata so every reader can connect. Share credit, and define your contributions.

My next step is to create a brief statement that shares my ethical considerations, an accessibility plan, and a way to contact me if there is a legal concern, a descendant inquiry, or a new discovery.

Not So Much

Postcards get more interesting as they get older. But, not all of them.

Every collector inevitably confronts the question of what not to keep. Previously, I have discussed all the reasons to keep something. That’s not the point. Ask anyone around you (or just yourself). Something you own isn’t all that valuable and it can go to the heap. Brutal, I know.

So it is with postcards, especially the ones Dad collected later in life. As a lawyer, I imagine he argued each case back and forth. Rare cards, of course. Famous people and places, yes. Every exact example of the weekly HVAC circular that came in the mail for two decades? I don’t know, Dad.

Instead of seriously sorting, I think he settled on a simple logic that made the days more joyful. Every card could be valuable to someone eventually. Enough said. If it came in the mail, it went in a plastic sleeve.

I was pretty sure the albums I pulled out today were going right in the bin, but I sat down to sort through them all the same. The postcards are still paper and can be recycled, if fated so. The plastic sleeves are very helpful and get reused if not damaged. The dusty, cracked three-ring folders will go out to the curb today. Unless you want them?

First I sorted all national advertising into a pile. No local address, no interest. But that rule flexes around brand names like Disney, or national movie promotions. If it’s lush looking tourism, I kept that as well.

Then local commercial cards get split into categories. By far, it was the dentist who was best at staying touch. They remember birthdays, send cartoons, and never forget the holiday wishes with happy teeth in festive outfits.

Some realtors are marketing geniuses, like printing the entire sports season with checkboxes for wins and losses. There seemed to be two star homesellers in this batch of postcards. The other one kept the whole neighborhood apprised of every sale, complete with address and multiple photos. I won’t post them here but I am tempted to drop them back on the same doorsteps two decades later.

The full deck is perhaps the easiest group of cards to pick out of the pile. An exact matching set, sometimes in changing colors, over a time range. No one is complaining, but the 2-for-1 massage deal has been back for a few years now.

Charity requests for clothes and furniture are also regular. Each quarter, a brightly colored card reprints the routine. Label boxes and put them curbside. We’ll leave a receipt. Call with questions. Big thanks from Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Nice to be reminded that good works never cease.

Food on postcards, especially recipes, is an entire collectible category. So, these relics stay for reasons that have nothing to do with their provenance. Except, who remembers Pampered Chef parties?

I tossed all the glossy cards that arrive as advertising inserts in everyone’s mailbox. Many are local businesses, but even I have a limit. This frog is too cute, though.

Occasionally a not-so-old card still stands out as weirdly prescient. Here’s how the Boeing Company was selling the aerospace field and the future of flight.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t pass on a message from the dentist.

Ink on the Blink

A postcard can be a polite apology between letters, like this one.

In the early years writing to you about postcards was a simple exercise to explore the materials in our family’s collection and become comfortable writing in this form. Next I began to delve into our subject matter from a variety of views, with growing confidence that I was making culturally relevant connections. Along the way, I fell in love with research again. In fact, today I’ve found two recent scholarly books on postcards that are certainly going in my bibliography, and may turn up here in a book review.

Lately, our social mission to address loneliness has me looking in the mirror, and to the past, wondering about our habits and expectations for staying in touch. I am not always great at it, as family and friends might attest. But, in defense, the social rules around communication have changed profoundly.

The Victorians would say so. One unmistakable theme in postcard correspondence from the late 19th century is the postcard apology for not writing a letter. As I visually scan the reverse of each card, sometimes batches at a time, the same sentiments come up often. It’s been too long since I’ve written. I’ll tell you more in the next letter. When will we hear from you next?

In an essay from late 2024, I muse about how important it is to hear from each other In the Middle of Things. I notice again how much the familiar phrases create a call and response. Your news is my news.

These new books I found take their investigations seriously, and I have a lot of reading to do. In particular, I want to look closer at those communication dynamics around loneliness. What does that nudge back and forth really do? There is a whole social scientific literature on information behaviors related to health. I suspect my bibliography will get longer, though these weekly essays might get smarter and shorter.

Unpacking Gratitude

Old glass sheds light on the timeless tasks of analysis and appreciation.

After a long period of away, I came home to a small cardboard box in the entry hall. My sister brought it in and placed it there while she was checking on the house. Shipped from a friend in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t waiting too long. Still, dust gathers in the summer sun.

I pulled back the layers of packing tape to reveal a sturdy shoebox full of old postcards. Surprised? No, I knew they were coming. But, I had only a few clues what the cards might be about. I could have guessed but it wasn’t necessary. The cards were labeled and paperclipped (egads!) to reveal a nicely organized collection of Medieval stained glass in churches and cathedrals throughout Europe.

These cards were collected by the authority on the subject, Dr. Meredith Lillich, who passed away this year. She used them as convenient and cost effective reference tools for the subject she studied, visited, and wrote about in the course of a storied career. Through a series of friendly connections, the cards were entrusted to me. I am pleased to be the postcard lady, especially if it includes the chance to hold a small part of a beautiful legacy.

Abbey of Our Lady of Epau founded by Queen Berengere of Navarre in 1230

I have looked at each card once, noticing the usual attributes of place and subject matter, along with the paper, printing method, era, and condition. So many beautiful chrome color cards capturing astounding architectural details and the intricate glass embedded in lofty ceiling and windows. A number of images are real photos in black & white, and there are even a few drawings and sketches. Most have the printed particulars from their source, and only a rare pencil mark from Dr. Lillich. Her thoughts on the matter are in her many scholarly works and in the memories of those she mentored.

Looking at the cards, I noted the difficult photographic task to represent the God-like glow of sunlight through colored glass. This highly sculptural substance is meant for us to understand and feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, in situ. Capturing its true effect on paper is a technical feat.

High Priest of the Temple of the Sun, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, UK
The Angel Raphael, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, UK
A Ship (circa 1530), King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, UK
Shepherds with their sheep, King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, UK

I suppose my friend called me because he’s been following my efforts with The Posted Past. At first, my only charge was to comprehend the scale and dimensions of Dad’s collection. Then, it took time to find some finesse in researching and writing about postcards (which are about everything). Now I am the steward of a simple but sneaky mission to stay in touch. As I do, these wonderful opportunities arise. Slow momentum is so satisfying.

For example, Dad was still alive on the day I found the hidden trove of real photo postcards from the 1920 Olympics. Convinced of their cultural significance, I hopped into the room wondering who I should contact. The Olympics! Call them directly?

“Yep,” he said, and smiled quietly.

Years later, those rare relics are now entrusted to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. I’m incredibly proud of that exchange, and grateful to the kind and talented staff who facilitated such a homecoming. No doubt, Dad is cheering from the stadium upstairs.

What comes around, goes around. Postcards are sweet evidence of the time we set aside to stay in touch and to foster each others’ dreams. My aim is to keep just such kindness in circulation for another century or so.

Precipice of Peace: Postcards from 1920 Antwerp Olympics

Always Ready

The people of South Shields designed and built the first lifeboat in response to seaside tragedy. Their town motto still keeps us afloat today.

In September 1789, a ship called the Adventure ran aground on the Herd Sands, the treacherous banks where the Tyne meets the North Sea. The wreck sat close enough to shore that the South Shields town folk watched helplessly as it happened. The sea was too rough for the boats they had to be of any use. Everyone on board the vessel was lost.

Though grief-stricken, the town would not accept that outcome twice. A local committee formed and offered a prize for anyone who could design a rescue craft built to survive those elements. William Wouldhave, a parish clerk, entered the contest. So did Henry Greathead, a local boatbuilder. Neither design won outright. The committee took the best of both and asked Greathead to build it. Simply called the Original, the first purpose-built lifeboat launched within the year. Its successor, called the Tyne, is credited with saving over a thousand lives. Greathead went on to build roughly thirty more.

“Always Ready” made for good seafaring advice long before it was made an official motto. When South Shields became a municipal borough in 1850, the new coat of arms included the phrase, along with a lifeboat, oar, sailor, and anchor. The “new” town hall opened in 1910, making Nurse Aird and her loved ones present in a time of prosperity just before the Great War.

A resilient spirt has been evident throughout our time in the Teeside region. We first visited Redcar more than a year ago, then another pair of cards had us admiring the old seaside mining town again. Sorting further turned up an unexpected glimpse of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra when they opened Kingsway.

Reading Nurse Aird’s own cards gave us her voice directly—work, faith, family, and the small pleasures of an independent life. Last week, we heard from fellow nurses, patients, and friends writing back to her between cases.

No doubt Liz knew of her hometown’s historic tragedy and the innovative response that followed. It remains a matter of pride in South Shields today. She seems to have applied the principle in her own life, too, as much as one can tell from a stack of old postcards.

We find the same heartbreak at a smaller scale, and an accompanying readiness formed into habit. Not sorrowfully bracing for each impending disaster, but rather cheerfully building up the ordinary qualities that come before whatever might be next: caring for people, going where connections take you, keeping faith and family in good repair, and staying generous and attentive toward others. More than a century later, Nurse Aird is still prepared.

To Read More

RNLI, “1785: The First Lifeboats” — Account of the Adventure wreck, the Lawe House design competition, and the rivalry between Wouldhave and Greathead.

Fabulous North, “South Shields Lifeboat Memorial” — The 1889 Golden Jubilee memorial built to honor them both, and a picture of the lifeboat.

Between Cases

Nurse Aird moved from case to case, and was never one place very long. Her friends always managed to catch up.

Over several weeks, we have been learning about Elizabeth Rowen Aird, who worked as a private nurse in the Teeside region of England in the early part of the 20th century. Her distinctive handwriting boldly appeared among a collection of vintage English postcards from 1902 to 1916. Two cards charted a course back to Redcar and an earlier essay about an unusual seaside stroll. Another single card happened to be in the right place and time in regal roadworks.

This week, we examine the postcards Liz received from fellow nurses, faithful friends, and grateful patients. This view expands the territory, too. Her friends write from Glasgow and Isle of Wight, and from more familiar stations. The cards also follow her from case to case, often forwarded to a new address where she was working.

Nurse Aird was not attached to one hospital ward. She took private cases one at a time, perhaps through a nursing registry or through established relationships with convalescence homes. She picked up patient cases on a weekly or monthly basis, often staying in the family’s home and moving on when each case ended.

William Smart’s mother still in great pain, no hope of decreasing it. Am with very pleasant people. I am keeping very well but get well tired. Went to Unity on Sunday evening – hope you both keep well. Expect to be here till away case – it only came off a week ago. Bob Payhrs is not so well. Will get direct train when it comes out. Liz

Fellow nurses kept in touch, perhaps to ease the loneliness of a stay away in a family home that may have seemed unfamiliar.

So glad to receive your letter – will answer it later. Came here on Saturday; an old lady again. This is a very old town, but we are quite in the country & it is so lovely. Am quite well & hope you are Yours, B.E.W.

Or, simply to gossip!

Thanks for pretty P.P.C. Can’t think of how P. delaying so long. Probably could not forgive herself for the ‘ride’ not coming off, sort of penance. I am wondering if you have got any fresh storyettes about ‘nurses’ now don’t keep them all to yourself you know I enjoy them immensely. Weather lovely, no work of course. how can a mere student? Ta Ta you N.S.

We don’t know if Nurse Aird had formal training or even if she chose the nursing profession. Nurses in her era had to remain unmarried to be employable, and unmarried women often became nurses. Liz must have offered a kind word to a young woman thinking about her options.

Dear Nurse, Thank you very much for P.P.C I have not been through Darlington twice. Yes, I am still thinking of going in for nursing. I shall soon be old enough. They will take them at 22 at Aston. So I shall not have long to wait. I will write you a letter in a day or two and tell you all the news. Hope you are keeping well. When are you coming over to see us. Yes I think we are all pretty well. Harry is getting married soon. I will tell you when in my letter when I write. We are having a concert next Saturday. Shall be glad when it is over. Hoping to hear from you again, I remain your loving friend. S.

Nursing would not become a registered profession in Britain until the Nurses Registration Act of 1919. Liz worked steadily for at least two decades before that law existed. Though she moved within a firm social architecture, there were few legal protections, and no patient meant no pay.

Will stay here next week & then if nothing turns up will come over during race week. Nurses are all on holiday, as there is nothing doing. Glad the belt is alright. This weather is very relaxing – the country is lovely just now – went for a drive with Miss Lucas yesterday. Liz.

Rest and relaxation came through friendships, church, and a seaside social calendar. Alice A. Lucas belonged to Liz’s own circle in Darlington, built around the Unity Society there. Her December 1906 card included good news of her mother’s health, and also her evening plans.

It was kind of you to send such a pretty P.C. to Mother. She is not quite ready yet to need you to nurse her, but has only just escaped that fate!! We have had her in her room since Friday, by Sunny Jim’s orders (a slight internal bother) We hope to have her down tomorrow. How are you, dear? We shall be glad to see you back. I am going down to the singing practice now. Mr Side is doing very well. We are arranging for a “Unity Church Society” for study of social & other questions. Goodbye – with our united love, affectly yrs, Alice A. Lucas.

This congregation met in Darlington from 1873 to 1922, part of the Unitarian church in England. It was a big part of Liz’s social world during her time there, from 1906 to 1915. Over the years, she attended concerts and lectures, walked in the park, and traveled to see friends connected through church.

6 South Ter Harrogate, Thanks for card. We wondered how you had got on. Rev S.S. Brettell comes 14 Sun Oct – fear you may not get here – we do not record.

Her mother attended a separate Unity congregation back home in South Shields. Through their correspondence, we see the bond between mother and daughter, and also the goings-on of a socially progressive faith community. A 1912 card confirms a standing weekly commitment in South Shields.

Dear Mrs Aird The U.S. meeting will be at the above adress tomorrow night. The N.E. Cafe is let for the whole of the winter for Thurs. if it suits the members I hope you will be able to be there.

Mother and daughter each had their own circles, engagements, and schedules, which sometimes overlapped.

Going up to Tyne Dock to see Harmonium to-night. Come down as soon as you can to-night. I may go to park. Liz

Despite the typical brevity and levity of postcards, they do sometimes deliver devasting news. Liz’s cases were not always easy.

Hope you are keeping better! Last Sunday I had blue baby at church in the afternoon. She had a convulsion at 11 at night & died Monday morning. It was very unexpected. The patient is alright but her mother is ill and not expected to recover – I miss the baby more than anyone she was such a sweet little thing. How cold here the weather is, a great change, you must be careful not to get cold. Much love to both, Liz.

The postcard she sent from Sedgefield Asylum comes with an ominous chill. Also known as Durham County Lunatic Asylum, it was built in 1858 and expanded in the 1880s until it held 700 patients under one roof, with its own chapel, stables, and water supply. That same building was absorbed into the newly formed National Health Service in 1948, renamed Winterton Hospital in 1949, and continued treating patients into the mid-1990s.

Bark House, Sedgefield. Hope you are all well. Have been very busy – patient still in bed. Have you read the failure of Mr Stopkus. I was with them a year ago – regular fraud – I expect to go thro the asylum next week. Hope they wont keep me in. Send me a few lines this week, not sure if I can get next week. Much love to both. Liz

Other patients wrote to Liz with the encouraging and frustrating details of getting better. Given the number of these messages, we have to assume she stayed in touch with some patients and families long after the case was over and she had moved on.

“Have been here five weeks. Am feeling much better & stronger & staying a little longer. Kindest regards. E Beaumont”

Maud, recovering in Nottinghamshire in August 1907, wrote with wry humor.

“Thanks for card – Am improving everyday – Can walk splendidly! Plenty of fresh air of course – unfortunately can’t get away from nurses – there is one visiting here just now – Are you not sorry for me? Yours”

A few messages indicate that Liz was generous, too. Gifts and parcels were exchanged regularly, including some little bonnets that seem to have been for sale. Messages nearly always offered a health update and wishes for her own wellbeing, and her parents.

My dear Nurse, Thank you very much for your nice parcel. The little bonnets are lovely. They will sell I am sure. Hope you are feeling better. Father has been ill but is better. Love from all. E.S.

Dear Miss Aird, I received your letter thanking you very very much for the present it was quite a surprise. I am enjoying myself very much and having beautiful weather. Hope you are keeping better and also your mother. Gertie.

Dear Miss Aird, Thank you very much for the biscuits. we are sorry your father & you are so ill. Mother on the improve but not able to go about yet. She will write to you as soon as she can. With love from all, Rachael

A few cards taken together trace a long friendship. Rennie, writing from Whitley Bay in July 1910:

15 Park Parade, Whitley Bay. We arrived here yesterday. Hope you will be over to see us. We are here for 10 days with Yeoman Eli. Love from Rennie.

A missed meeting the same month:

Very sorry I can-not meet you tomorrow, hope you will have a nice day at Whitby. Love from Rennie

An invitation the following September:

Cherryburn Gardens Fenham, Thanks for your invitation, shall be pleased to come on Monday leaving here 2.0 but must return 5.30. Hope your Mother is keeping better. With love from Rennie.

And a week at Langholm in 1913, with her own mother:

Mother & I have been here a week. Leaving Monday. We are enjoying the rest, a change. The weather is good, rain this afternoon for the first time. How is your father keeping? I hope better. Love from us both, from, Rennie

These cards we first approached as places—Alnwick, Nottingham, Newcastle-on-Tyne—were not scenery chosen at random. They were where Liz and her circle actually spent the free time that their arduous work allowed them. The seaside villas, the castles, and parks were the landscapes for their lives.

Read together, these cards describe a social system built almost entirely on goodwill and improvisation. The National Health Service, founded in 1948, was built to respond exactly these gaps: free care for all, a regulated nursing profession, hospitals and asylums brought under one public system. Liz’s world and her own work preceded what we think of as healthcare now. What came after was far from perfect, and it is worth appreciating what it replaced.

Nurse Aird’s Own Hand

If you wanted to know the first thing about Nurse Aird, it could be found in her handwriting.

Research efforts for the past several weeks have been to disambiguate an album of 200+ English postcards from the early 20th century. Having organized them alphabetically, we took a quick trip back in Redcar Revisited and mapped out a single important intersection between our collection and the King & Queen themselves.

To explore the collection further it was necessary to shuffle the neatly organized cards, scattering them out again to look for different attributes. Knowing that this would happen a number of times, I paused to carefully catalogue and transcribe each one. For two days, I took comfort in the tedium, resting my eyes on each address, all the postmark dates, and the easy-to-miss cancellation details with clues to rail stations and delivery lines.

Sorting the cards by handwriting was the break I needed. A run of cards in a bold, loose, inky script with a distinctive salutation turned out to be Nurse Aird herself. Easy to pick out once I had seen it a few times, this is Liz writing to her own parents, over a period of about eight years. Read in sequence, her letters cover work, friends, faith, and small pleasures in the Teeside region.

The 1891 census places Elizabeth R. Aird, age 22, born 1869, in a South Shields household with her parents, John and Mary Aird, and two younger brothers, John, 18, and William, 10. We’ll learn more about them as we go, but today let’s get the story from Liz in her own words. She is 34 years old when this series of postcards begins.

September 22, 1903. Mrs Nightingale wants me to stay till Monday – but I want a few days at home before going on outing – so will come on Saturday – the weather is lovely. We have been to the Braid Hills to-day. I would like to see the Forth Bridge. I think I will walk part of the way. It comes so expensive taking cars. Hope you are better. With love to both, your affectionate daughter, Liz.

September 22, 1903. We have been to Roslin to-day it is beautiful – have you ever been? It has been a lovely day – hope you are feeling better! Sorry to hear that Mr is no better. Did Jack get his musical cards? With love, Liz.

October 13, 1903. Hope you are keeping better. I am much better, thank you. I will be coming in on Friday. May get the night but am not sure. With love from Liz.

April 4, 1905. William Smart’s mother still in great pain, no hope of decreasing it. Am with very pleasant people. I am keeping very well but get well tired. Went to Unity on Sunday evening – hope you both keep well. Expect to be here till away case – it only came off a week ago. Bob Payhrs is not so well. Will get direct train when it comes out. Liz.

October 20, 1906. Hope you are keeping better! Last Sunday I had blue baby at church in the afternoon. She had a convulsion at 11 at night & died Monday morning. It was very unexpected. The patient is alright but her mother is ill and not expected to recover – I miss the baby more than anyone she was such a sweet little thing. How cold here the weather is, a great change, you must be careful not to get cold. Much love to both, Liz.

October 27, 1906. Bark House, Sedgefield. Hope you are all well. Have been very busy – patient still in bed. Have you read the failure of Mr Stopkus. I was with them a year ago – regular fraud – I expect to go thro the asylum next week. Hope they wont keep me in. Send me a few lines this week, not sure if I can get next week. Much love to both. Liz.

November 18, 1906. Very wet in town today. Wish November was out then we might have some sunshine. Liz, everyone sends their love to both.

May 30, 1907. Hurworth-on-Tees. Hope you are both well. Weather makes one feel melancholy. Am still on holiday. It is raining here, been pouring down all day, expect we’ll get hot weather all at once. Will run over in a fortnight time if I’m still at liberty. Much love, Liz.

June 15, 1907. Will stay here next week & then if nothing turns up will come over during race week. Nurses are all on holiday, as there is nothing doing. Glad the belt is alright. This weather is very relaxing – the country is lovely just now – went for a drive with Miss Lucas yesterday. Liz.

January 11, 1908. Just going to station to see if there is a decent excursion next week. Will let you know what day – Trust you are well – love to both. Liz.

January 27, 1908. 33 Ocean Road, Monday morning. Mr Robinson going up to Tyne Dock to see Harmonium to-night. Come down as soon as you can to-night. I may go to park. Liz.

November 6, 1908. Many thanks for paper & letter – glad to hear all news. Have not much time for writing – expect to finish next Thursday. Glad you have a private circle. I felt the other was no good, no sympathy – write again – want to know when you go off. Much love, Liz.

December 7, 1908. Expect I’ll be over in time to go to meeting. Leaving here early to-morrow. Love to all. Liz.

December 29, 1908. Thanks for letter. Expect baby to-morrow and money to assurance Wednesday – snow very deep here just came last night, bitter wind. Glad you got to concert. Am just going out before dark. Much love, Liz.

March 20, 1909. Trust you are well, we are having better weather. Having a quiet time, will write to Will Sunday. Does poppy still come to you? Liz.

August 22, 1909. Expect to be here another week – am very busy don’t get any time to myself – may have more time next week. Hope you are well, getting ready for the wedding, I suppose, you will be very quiet when he goes – very cold here – lots of rain – church closed – have you been to any meetings lately? With love, Liz.

May 13, 1910. Friday morning, just got in, been up all night with a patient – am taking night duty till the crisis is over, a few nights or a week perhaps – so am all right this week – don’t do too much – love to both, Liz.

November 12, 1910. Nursing Home, Langholm Crescent, Darlington. Glad to hear from you. When the Hygiana is done let me know and I’ll get you some more. Hope things will soon be settled one way or the other. I’m still busy, very cold and wet to-night. This is a photo of the home, my lodgings are opposite. Much love to both, Liz.

August 8, 1911. Will be with you as soon as I can get things ready here, just left case, so have not much time – love to both, Liz.

Next week, we’ll look at correspondence to Liz from other nurses and the working conditions of private care in that era. Miss Lucas appears again, going to singing practice, concerts, and Unity Society meetings. The cards ahead also reveal the recreation and respite available in these seaside villas more than a century ago.

First Day on Kingsway

One day, a long time ago, we saw the King & Queen on a famous road. It was certainly something to write home about.

Cataloging a postcard album doesn’t happen in one pass. I might yearn for an efficient process that handles each card only minimally, but in the beginning even the most obvious information is so dense it can only be processed in stages. When it comes to the narratives on the reverse, the details are even more subtle. Look closely. Look again. Slowly build a theory, and an alternate. Be prepared when evidence says otherwise.

I have made three passes so far on the English album I mentioned last week. First, we sorted them alphabetically by place, then grouped by handwriting, then ordered by date. Each pass asks a different question: Where are we? Who is writing? What happens? And, for this set especially, when is the train?

This card collection was first assembled by Elizabeth Rowan Aird. Called Lizzie by her family and close friends and known professionally as Nurse Aird, she signed most of her own messages simply, Liz. Her postcards span nearly a decade, from 1903 into 1912. They have the rare benefit of including both sides of the correspondence.

Liz and her colleagues wrote to one another from nursing posts in the region. Liz organized her work scheduled by postcard and wrote home to her parents regularly. Luckily, she kept all of those cards many years on. They trace her friendships, her patients, and her long devotion to family back home in South Shields. The essays ahead will follow her travels closely: the places she stayed, the people she nursed, her life between shifts.

Some of her stops include Darlington, Middlesbrough, and West Hartlepool, which sit inside the Teesside region, built around the River Tees. Iron drove the area’s growth during the nineteenth century. Bridge building, railway manufacture, shipbuilding, and engineering all grew mightily from the local pride that ran deep in each trade in that era.

The roots of rail travel began in Darlington in 1825, when Edward Pease founded the Stockton and Darlington Railway. By the time Nurse Aird traveled regularly for work, the North Eastern Railway had knit these towns into a dense network. A nurse could move from patient to patient along the same rail lines built to move coal and iron.

These same railways also carried visitors to the coast. Holidays became easy fare for middle-class families as the railway network opened the seaside to them. The Stockton and Darlington Railway reached Saltburn from Redcar in 1861, and day trippers and holiday travelers followed almost immediately. Cheap excursion trains ran regularly. Whitley Bay, further north on the Tyneside coast, developed the same way.

Nurse Aird’s family and friends enjoyed the view from these places, too. The postcards tell of short trips to the coast, days off between assignments, a postcard sent home to signal a railway return. There is so much territory to explore in Nurse Aird’s travels more than a century ago. We’ll get there.

For now, we start on one very special day for the country as a whole. Nurse Aird’s younger brother John Aird and his companion were visiting London on holiday when they witnessed King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra open “The New Road.”

Seen King & Queen opening The New Road today. This is the 3rd time we have saw them since our arrival.

The London County Council first published its plans for Kingsway in 1898, though talk of a new route between Holborn and the Strand had circulated for years before that. The project became the largest road-building scheme in London since Regent Street in 1820. Building it through one of the most crowded corners of Victorian London meant that 3,500 residents lost their homes. One-hundred feet wide, it was one of the broadest streets in central London with a rail tunnel running under it. The road took the name Kingsway, honoring the reigning monarch.

The formal opening came on 18 October 1905, six years almost to the month after the LCC first laid out its plans. A royal procession led by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra moved through the street. A souvenir program printed on a decorative napkin laid out the day’s schedule and doubled as a keepsake. Alongside the pageantry, a petition from the Poplar Borough Council on behalf of the area’s unemployed.

John Aird and his companion stood somewhere in the crowd watching the procession go by. We know they were on holiday, having just visited Westminster and Big Ben. It was the third time they had seen the King and Queen on their short trip. Could that be true?

The Court Circular could settle the question. This daily official log of the sovereign’s engagements has run in The Times since 1803. If the King and Queen appeared twice more that week, the Circular would name the place and hour. Bound volumes covering this period sit in the Royal Collection Trust’s archive. The daily printed record itself lives in the Times Digital Archive.

It’s easy enough to believe John’s claim, though. The King kept a famously full public calendar. A visitor spending real time in London that October had a genuine chance of crossing paths with the royal couple more than once.

There’s another small clue in the postmark that reads: LONDON NW OCT 18 05 No. 19. Before modern postal codes, there were local office units. So John mailed this notable card home on a date and from a location that fits his story.

We will get one or two more glimpses of John Aird in this collection. Expect two or three more passes through the postcards at least, too, as we ride the rails in this river region. All thanks to Nurse Aird, who so often sent word ahead.

To Read More

Redcar Revisited

On any given day, a postcard can emerge from the collection that takes you back unexpectedly. Let’s return to Redcar.

My aim this week was to alphabetize an album of vintage English postcards, shuffling and sorting a large stack with an ally at my side who knows the geography infinitely better than me. English place names always elicit a story. Only a properly-schooled person can place Norton-on-Tees without at least a few context questions.

Thus, I was delighted to recognize Redcar from our previous research on the old seaside mining town in Heads & Tails: Redcar a Century Ago.

These two real photo postcards depict Coatham Road and the seaside pier, both of which are described in the previous article. Shortly, I’ll go back and add these to the original. There’s an even more interesting quest to learn more about Nurse Aird, her charges, and her surrounds.

This week these two cards provide a sweet reminder to keep going though we often don’t know what is ahead or around the corner. I am happy to make a short trip back to Redcar to remember the seaside, the donkeys, and how we keep up these traditions for everybody who comes after.

Pursuits of Happiness

Though the Declaration of Independence reads to some like a guarantee of private liberties, the American pursuit of happiness is a team sport.

John Locke called human choice the engine of happiness, something each person moved toward on their own account. But, when George Mason drafted the Virginia Declaration (a predecessor to the national one) he wrote of a people “pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.” A plural noun doing plural work. The Scottish moralists (widely read in that era) tied happiness to a virtue that can only exists between people, not practiced alone in a room.

Jefferson’s word choice already held two centuries of disagreement. Did happiness belong to the individual as a moral claim to chase? Or did it belong to the commonwealth, something put together like a barn-raising? Historians still argue both sides. Some read the Declaration as entirely Lockean, a document of natural rights. Others see the Scots vision: less about what a person gains, more about what is owed in return. Jefferson wrote a phrase wide enough to hold both, an overlap between our private interests and the social good that framed the dual drives of a new nation.

As I see it, happiness itself is inarguably social, a personal wellbeing tied to others. Try hoarding it, if you wonder. That we need declarations of peace and prosperity is evidence enough. Getting everyone on the same page, so to speak.

But the pursuit of happiness (and the measure of it) stays stubbornly individual. The natural and artistic wonders of a vast world do not arrive at the front door. It requires the drive. The flat open road, the boat out of harbor, the plane in flight, and toward all the dreams beyond–the navigation is always on us.

Large Letter postcards make graphic our search for ourselves and each other. Four cards from the collection illustrate the way.

Washington, D.C. stacks its letters with the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln statue, the White House fountain, the Supreme Court. The statuary of the republic laid out like a garden tour. The walk between buildings, the fountain you sit beside, the steps where a family eats lunch, the institutions and the outing are in the same invitation.

Philadelphia shows Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin’s statue, a colonial rowhouse. The card treats the birth of the country as a place you go, not just a date you memorize. Here you can walk into history on a Wednesday afternoon.

Grand Canyon, Arizona puts Native culture and ancient geology in good relations, with tribal cultures representing the wisdom of people while nature provides the grandeur.

Redwoods of California splits the difference. The large letters are built from tree bark, ridged and red-brown, and the font folds in with the forest behind. Then, a car drives right through the trunk of one letter. Nature and transportation infrastructure occupy the same inch of paper, because by the 1940s they already occupied the same American afternoon.

Today’s collection of 133 large letter postcards is a broad cultural landscape, and the pursuit runs clear to both ends, with a long drive in between. The Capitol dome and the redwood canopy make the same request of a visitor. Show up, and bring someone with you. Look up, and tell the folks at home.

The smaller towns offer the same story at a different scale. A card from Rawlins, Wyoming earnestly calls itself the “Metropolis of the Plains,” packing a courthouse, a garden, and a rail line into a handful of letters for a town of a few thousand people in those days. Topeka spells its name with a church tower, a state capitol, and a sunflower in the corner. Civic pride and natural awe in the same small rectangle. Important most to those who live there, and put on show for far-flung friends and visitors.

The call to each other is what strikes me most. No wonder that roadside murals mimic the large letter design. Packing the car, the long flat highway between stops, the cool breeze from a lookout view. Those fragments gradually form in the personal memories of each traveler. At the same time, the experience often crystallizes at the shoulder of the stranger next to you, squinting in the same afternoon light.

Thankfully, we still make these excursions 250 years on. Personal experiences expanded in service of functioning society. A happy family vacation, a woodsy writing retreat, a career-changing visit to the National Archives are just a few of my own.

We protect and promote these places not because democracy is functionally fragile or simply symbolic, but because they are the grounding locations for each generation to build the nation in their time. The pursuit of happiness is that continuous movement, home and back.

To Read More

Life in Large Letters — The Posted Past essay on the collectors, the publishers, and the design evolution of the form.
America250 — the official site of the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, with events and initiatives around the July 4, 2026 anniversary.
Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection, Newberry Library — the research home of the Curt Teich company’s production files and over 360,000 postcard images, including the bulk of the Large Letter cards ever printed.
Jeffrey L. Meikle, Postcard America: Curt Teich and the Imaging of a Nation, 1931–1950 (University of Texas Press, 2015) — the definitive study of the Teich Company’s linen postcards and their place in American visual culture.
Lydia Pyne, Postcards: The Rise and Fall of the World’s First Social Network (Bloomsbury, 2021) — a wider cultural history of the postcard as a communication medium, from Victorian craze to modern collectible.
Fred Tenney, Large Letter Postcards: The United States — a collector’s reference guide cataloging Large Letter cards by state, a standard resource for deltiologists working this specific niche.