Seasickness Postcards

 

Recently, while researching transatlantic ocean liner travel in 1926 from Liverpool to New York City, I discovered a category of postcards that I had never known existed. This occurred while speculating on whether Gladys Gamble Parks (1908-1993), an English woman from Hull, might have been seasick during her ten-day immigration voyage to America.

One online search about seasickness led to another. Soon, I discovered the existence of “seasick cards.” Later, a postcard collector explained to me there was a similar category of postcards referred to as “puke cards.”

Odd as it may sound, I became mesmerized and amused by the range of seasickness cards available on the internet. Many were published in England, Germany, France, and the United States during the early 1900s to the mid-1930s. This earlier period included the Golden Age of postcards, roughly 1905 to 1915.

Ocean liners were known as floating palaces and floating hotels because they designed their ships to mimic the best hotels in the world. When passengers were enjoying entertainment, meals, and rest, all in palatial quarters, there was no concern about the dangers at sea.

For obvious reasons, the ocean liner companies were known for minimizing the degree of seasickness prevalent on their ships. Transportation companies didn’t want to lose money by scaring away potential customers and they wanted healthy passengers. So, liner companies suggested ways of preventing and treating onboard symptoms of dizziness, headaches, nausea, and vomiting. The most popular motion sickness medication in the 1920s was Mothersill’s Seasick Remedy.

Due to my curiosity about seasickness themed postcards, I’ve had the good fortune to correspond with Helmfried Luers, publisher/editor of “The Postcard Album” (TPA), an international publication for collectors of old picture postcards. It’s an especially valuable tool for postcard collectors who are researching German postcards. It covers various aspects of interest to collectors, including research on long gone (German) postcard printers and publishers.

Most of the seasickness postcards I’ve examined show passengers on ships who look queasy, but not in the next stage of putrid vomiting.

There’s a long list of tips about preventing seasickness and most of the ideas sound reasonable until it becomes clear the tips are contradictory. One person promises you good health if you lie down in your cabin, the next person swears that if you’re feeling ill you need to stay on deck where you can watch the horizon and breathe fresh air.

My favorite remedy for people who are seasick is classic: “Sit under a tree.” While that’s clearly a joke, nowadays there are twenty-deck cruise ships (which are not ocean liners) that mimic luxury shopping on 5th Avenue in New York City. Some ships have outdoor parks with flowers, trees, and walking paths, the perfect place to go if a passenger feels any symptoms of seasickness. It’s easy to forget you’re at sea when you’re in Central Park.

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Stay tuned for my next blog post. It will follow up on the theme of seasickness. Three of my friends who are writers, Sean McArdle, Tetbury, England; Tracy Million Simmons, Emporia, Kansas; and Bud Biery, Hutchinson, Kansas, will each share a story, recalling a time when they were seasick or how they avoided the puking experience.

Until next time, happy researching and writing,

To view an issue of the informative and well-illustrated magazine, “The Postcard Album,” visit here: http://www.tpa-project.info/html/body_news.html