A Postcard’s Worth a Thousand Words

A Postcard’s Worth a Thousand Words

By Jim Potter

I can imagine teaching history by showing PowerPoints of digital postcards to my students.

Recently, I purchased several postcards at the annual Wichita Postcard Show. From my haul, I’ve selected six cards for “show and tell” in this blog post.

As a collector of reward (or wanted) postcards, I favor cards with identifiable suspects. As a result, I’m often able to learn the criminal’s personal history from online research, especially when I use the US Census, Find-A-Grave, and newspapers.

The $100 reward postcard displayed here is especially informative because it includes two photos of the accused embezzler, W. W. Allen, a former bank president in Atoka, Indian Territory. Allen’s detailed description includes his age, height, weight, eye and hair color, plus his habit of snapping his fingers on his right hand.

The postmark on the reverse side of the reward card is June 15, 1906, a year before the territory became a state in 1907.

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My favorite postcard photographer is Marion W. Bailey (1869-1944), not only for the quality of his prolific, skillful work, but because he lived in Hutchinson, Kansas, for a decade, 1905-1915. During those years, his home was near the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory (KSIR) where he took many photos of and for the institution. Another reason I like this postcard is that I taught school in the prison’s education department 1977-1980.

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At the postcard show, I found another work of art by Bailey. The person who grew the seventeen-foot-tall corn stalk was identified as J. C. Potter. He was my great-grandfather, James Chamellis (1865-1955). I remember meeting Great Grandpa when I was a child, and I still find it remarkable that I’ve talked with a person who was alive during the American Civil War.

Although the corn card wasn’t postmarked, I knew the photo for the postcard was taken in September 1908. That’s because I had previously read an article in the Hutchinson Gazette about the gigantic stalk. The Gazette explained that the record-breaking corn was entered into a contest at the fair by J. C. Potter of Salt Creek, Reno County, and that the corn ears were twelve feet above the roots.

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The Great War, also known as the World War, was eventually referred to as World War One. The accompanying soldier’s overseas free mail postcard was sent the day of the Armistice, November 11, 1918. The written message was addressed to Miss Mabel Cochran by US Corporal Wilkens who announced “the great victory of the allies.” Wilkens also stated, “France is drunk with joy” and that the American boys were receiving “a deluge of hugs and kisses.”

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At the show, I ran across a postcard of The Beatles, published in 1964. It flooded me with memories, so I purchased it.  As a young teenager in the mid-1960s, I was caught up in Beatlemania.

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I’ve had fun collecting exaggerated postcards for decades. They were created as humor, not as fake news meant to confuse people. Often, the cards show a farmer’s crop with enormous-sized produce, a fisherman’s gigantic catch, and hunters showing off their trophies. The card I purchased at the show wasn’t a black and white exaggeration card from the early nineteen hundreds. Instead, it’s a manipulated color photograph of two hunters carrying a pole of eight, three-foot long, harvested grasshoppers.

The reason I purchased this relatively “modern” exaggeration card was because I’m planning on giving it as a gift to a friend. She’s a native of Thailand who still enjoys a daily treat of fried grasshoppers. When I deliver this unusual postcard to her, I wonder if it will make her feel hungry.

If I was teaching a history lesson in a classroom, using the six postcards I’ve reviewed, I’d ask my Thai friend to cook up some fresh ‘hoppers to serve to the students. While most of the pupils might respond with comments about the food being “gross” or inedible, it could lead to an engaging cultural conversation about how we’re all different. We might also learn how we have more similarities than differences.

Until next time, happy researching and writing,