It’s a summer and vacation must-have. The postcard is there, in plain sight, affixed to the turnstiles of beach shops or in somewhat bohemian pop-up shops. Often kitsch, looking to the past, or flocked with a more modern design, the postcard seems to span the ages… How long ago exactly?
Behind its somewhat outdated appearance, these pieces of cardboard in fact have a rich history, marked by a timid and controversial beginning, before experiencing thunderous success, notably thanks to an event that will mark history. A success story to which modern modes of communication have put a serious dent in their wings, without making them disappear.
From a joke to a revolutionary concept
Who invented the postcard? The question remains shrouded in mystery, as countless European countries claim its authorship. If we have been sending letters since Antiquity, the postcard, which is distinguished by its illustrated front side and is sent without an envelope, would have taken its first steps in the middle of the 19th century.e century, through a certain Theodore Hook.
This Briton, playwright and novelist (in addition to being quite a joker), sent a funny “letter” in 1840: a piece of cardboard, without an envelope, provided with a stamp and colored by hand, representing a drawing mocking postal workers. The recipient? Himself.
After this experimental and visibly mocking prototype, comes the time to structure the concept. In 1865, an Austro-German postal conference marked a turning point. The postcard is then officially designed and its concept approved. Barely four years later, in Austria, an economics professor, Emanuel Herrmann, gave the model a decisive boost. It offers a low-cost correspondence card without an envelope. The postcard was born.
As a good complainer, French skepticism is appropriate in the face of this new concept from the East, where its use is exploding. Too intrusive, it exposes the recipient’s writings to everyone – especially small staff – and the intimacy of the messages is revealed in broad daylight. We had to wait a few more years before open correspondence was finally authorized in France… notably thanks to the Franco-German War of 1870-1871.
Stamped golden age
In the midst of the conflict between France and Prussia, an event will mark the forceful arrival of the postcard in the customs of France: the siege of Strasbourg in 1870. The Society for the Relief of the Wounded circulates a cardboard stamped with the Red Cross, allowing French soldiers to reassure their families, with no news of their surrounded men. This initiative, authorized by the Germans, marks the first massive use in France of this new means of communication. Two years later, its use was officially authorized.
In no time, the postcard gained ground. Cheaper and faster than the letter, it is an effective alternative in a world where the postal system is still booming. At the dawn of the 20the century, these little pieces of cardboard are downright fashionable and we are snapping them up. Proof of this is with the first French illustrated map representing the Eiffel Tower, dating from 1889. Its publisher, Libonis, sold no less than 57,500 copies in twenty days, a record for the time.
Postcard mania took another turn after 1890, when a Marseillais named Dominique Piazza sent a very special card to an Argentinian friend. Its specificity? It is in fact a photograph of the Marseille city, stuck on cardboard. Very quickly, the concept (which Dominique Piazza did not register, a blow for him) exploded. We illustrate everything: landscapes, historical events, everyday scenes… and cats.
We are then in what could resemble the very first social network in history, straddling Facebook and Instagram. The messages are short, readable by everyone, document society, sometimes relay propaganda, make people laugh, can be exhibited, can be collected. And we grab the improbable illustrations that accompany them, real viral memes, which we hasten to share. A true golden age.
Zapped like never before?
We added color to it in the 1950s, we integrated LPs in the 1960s so that it made music (a flop), we changed the form, the illustrations (which often took a sexist turn)… In short, the postcard went through all the stages. Until his fall?
It’s no secret: the golden age of the postcard has passed and its decline began a long time ago. Since the arrival of the telephone, as early as 1945, even. Emails, SMS, social networks each time put a little more strain on these little pieces of cardboard, which have become almost obsolete.
Should we, however, bury the postcard once and for all? Not quite. Every year, another 74 million of them are sent to France. If the latter has somewhat lost its power of correspondence, it has transformed into a symbol of personalized and particular attention.
It is no longer so much the content, but the fact of having sent it that counts, in a world where the immediacy of ephemeral messages blurs proofs of love and friendship. A symbolic gesture which marks a tangible memory, which no other means of communication, however modern, allows. The postcard is dead, long live the postcard!
