1162
Cyanotype; Platinum Print; Platinotype Co. (Willis
& Clements); Burnett, Charles John; Herschel, Sir
John Frederick William; Toning; Poitevin, Alphonse
Louis; Carbon Print; Fresson Process; Autotype Fine
Art Company; Demachy, (Léon) Robert; and Niépce,
Joseph Nicéphore.
Further reading
Brothers, Alfred, Photography: Its History, Processes, Apparatus,
and Materials, 2nd ed. London: Charles Griffi n, 1899.
Brown, George E,. Ferric and Heliographic Processes, London:
Dawbarn and Ward, 1902.
Burton, W.K., Practical Guide to Photographic and Photo-Me-
chanical Printing, London: Marion and Co., 1892.
Clerc, L.P, Photography Theory and Practice, 2nd English edn.
London: Isaac Pitman 1937..
Crawford, William, The Keepers of Light, Dobbs Ferry, New
York: Morgan and Morgan, 1979.
Eder, Josef Maria, History of Photography, trans. Edward Eps-
tean, New York: Colombia University Press, 1945.
Farber, Richard, Historic Photographic Processes, New York:
Allworth Press, 1998.
Glafkides, Pierre, Photographic Chemistry, trans. K.M. Hornsby,
London: Fountain Press, 1958.
James, Christopher, The Book of Alternative Photographic Pro-
cesses, Albany, New York: Delmar, 2002.
Jones, Bernard E. (ed.), Cassell’s Cyclopaedia of Photography,
London: Cassell, 1911.
Lietze, Ernst, Modern Heliographic Processes, New York: Van
Nostrand 1888; reprinted Rochester, New York: Visual Stud-
ies Workshop, 1974.
Nadeau, Luis, Modern Carbon Printing, Fredericton, New
Brunswick: Atelier Luis Nadeau, 1986.
Nadeau, Luis, Encyclopedia of Printing, Photographic, and
Photomechanical Processes, Fredericton, New Brunswick:
Atelier Luis Nadeau, 1989.
Neblette, C.B., Photography: its Principles and Practice, 4th ed.
London: Chapman and Hall, 1942.
Reilly, James M, The Albumen and Salted Paper Book, Rochester
NY: Light Impressions, 1980.
Scopick, David, The Gum Bichromate Book, 2nd ed. Boston:
Focal Press, 1991.
Stevens, Dick, Making Kallitypes, Boston: Focal Press, 1993.
Wall, E. J., A Dictionary of Photography, London: Hazell, Watson,
and Viney, 1895.
POSTCARD
A postcard is a 3½ × 5½" stiff card with a printed image
on its face (recto) and room for an address, message,
and postage on its back (verso).
The postcard, however ubiquitous in the twenty-fi rst
century, is a quintessential product of the nineteenth
century, embodying many of the characteristics of the
age in which it was born and developed. On one hand,
the postcard was a means of rapid, brief communica-
tions in an increasing busy age. Gladstone, for example,
wrote much of his voluminous daily correspondence on
plain halfpenny postcards. On the other hand, the craze
for sending and collecting picture postcards epitomized
the Victorian mania for acquiring, classifying, and ar-
ranging specimens.
The postcard’s visual antecedents include eighteenth-
century pictorial visiting cards and trade cards, nine-
teenth-century pictorial writing paper and envelopes,
and cartes-de-viste, the collecting craze of the 1860s.
The development of the postcard’s physical format is
directly linked to nineteenth-century postal regulations
imposed by both individual countries and the Interna-
tional Postal Union. In the early nineteenth century,
mail rates were based on the number of sheets in a
letter (including the envelope), and the distance it was
to travel. In 1840 the British Post Offi ce instituted the
penny post, establishing a fl at rate of one penny per half
ounce. Letter writing became affordable for a greater
part of the population. As people became dependent on
corresponding by post for both personal and commer-
cial use, they sought ways to exchange messages more
rapidly and economically.
In 1865 Dr. Heinrich von Stephan, a German post
offi ce offi cial, proposed an “offenes Postblatt” or open
post sheet, at the Austro-German postal Conference. He
described a printed, postage-paid card with one side for
the address and the other for the message, which could
provide the user with a certain ease and convenience not
associated with paper-and-envelope letters. Although
von Stephan’s idea was not adopted by the Germanic
postal service, the idea of open-sheet letters, sent at
printed material or penny post rates was adopted by
some people throughout Britain, Europe, and North
America, especially for business matters. In fact, the ear-
liest postcard is generally acknowledged to be Lipman’s
Postal Card, a plain card published in Philadelphia in
1861 (patent applied for by John P. Charlton).
The idea of a postcard continued to gain currency
throughout the 1860s, culminating with a suggestion
by Dr. Emanuel Herrmann, an Austrian professor of
economics, for a “Correspondenz-Karte” to be printed
by the post offi ce on a “thin buff-colored slice of card-
board.” Similar to von Stephan’s idea, Herrmann saw
his card as a solution for sending a brief message by
post. Later that year the Austrian post offi ce produced
what is considered to be the fi rst offi cial postcard. On
its face of was printed the Austrian emblem with “Cor-
respondenz-Karte” above it, a two kreuzer stamp in the
top right-hand corner, and three ruled lines in the center
for the address. It was immediately popular —2, 936,102
cards were sold in fi rst three months.
The fi rst offi cial German, English, and Swiss post-
cards debuted the following year, and the fi rst U.S.
postcards were printed in 1873. The standard postcard
size was 4 ¾ × 3 1/3 or 4 ¾ ×3 inches (4 ½ × 3 ½” for
the British size). In the fi rst year of their use 75 million
halfpenny cards were posted in Britain alone. By 1903