If you take Highway 12 east out of Madison, and follow the farm studded fields south, you eventually end up in Wauconda, IL. This is exactly what I did this week, on a particularly snappy fall day during height of southern Wisconsin autumn color. With brittle stalks of sun-reflecting golden corn alternating with the brown stubble of harvested fields; it would have been a pleasant mid-week escape even if I wasn’t heading toward the largest public collection of postcards in the world. However, this collection—situated on the grounds of the Lake County Discovery Museum—is well worth the trek across the border for anyone interested in postcards. In Wauconda, it’s not an exaggeration to say that postcards outnumber people here by thirty to one. That works out to over 350,000 postcards!
As I toured the Archives with Corinne Menominee, collections cataloguer, and Debra Gust, imaging and licensing specialist, I learned this abundance is due to the donation of the Curt Teich Postcard Company. The Curt Teich Company was begun in Chicago in 1898 and produced postcards of scenic places throughout the U.S. and the world. Sold in 1976, the company’s archive of postcards and related material was donated intact to the Lake County Discovery Museum in 1982. The archives maintains copies of most of the postcards the company produced, as well examples of every postcard in album form, and over 100,000 work files for individual postcards. For several years the archives was solely focused on cataloging the thousands of items they received from the company. But now the archives accepts donations of other postcard collections—and field far more offers than they can possibly accept.
This being a blog about Wisconsin postcards, I couldn’t visit this archive without looking at some examples from the Badger state. This was not difficult to do, as the archives has postcards from 10,000 cities and towns, including over 400 Wisconsin communities. I had the opportunity to look at several examples of postcards of Wisconsin cities from throughout the 20th century and was struck by the variety of styles and views. The postcards I saw of Madison and Milwaukee were incredibly comprehensive in their locales and angles. Most of these postcards were artistic renderings of photographs, using the bright, punchy colors the company was known for in later decades. One can trace the aesthetic evolution of the company by noting the change from muted, muddy colors in the 1910’s to brighter, sharper colors in the 1930’ and 40’s and beyond.
These work files are invaluable to researchers because they document the process of creating each postcard, sometimes revealing the images are not always what they appear to be. For example, Corinne showed me a postcard of Bayfield WI. It was a simple view of a country road with an approaching automobile. But the corresponding work file reveals that the photograph used in the postcard is labeled New York, not Bayfield, WI. Corinne also mentioned the artist’s habit of adding small touches to postcard art to create a more pleasing scene (for example, adding a trolley car to an otherwise empty street or removing buildings for a less cluttered look.)
Learn more about the Curt Teich Archives at: http://www.lcfpd.org/teich_archives/?rdct=teicharchives.org
Images courtesy of the Curt Teich Postcard Archives and fotosearch.com
Entry compiled by Kaitlin Dunn
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