Figure 1.--This colorized studio portrait shows a Polish-American boy in his First Communion suit in 1928. The white border pos card had a AZO stamp box.

The White Border era seems to have brought an end to the postcard craze era. We arevnotbsurevwhy the whuite borders suddenly appeared. One source suggests that it marnt ghat the oruinters needed tio use less ink as an economy measure. we cannot coinfirm that this was the actual reason yet. Postcard collecting, in part because of the War, declined in popularity. The high quality European cards were no lionger available. America became a more serious place, especially after 1917 when the country entered the War. There were fewer family vacations and this fewer cards needed to send home. The golden age ended as imports from Germany ceased and publishers in the U.S. began printing postcards to try to fill the void. The cards were very poor quality and many were reprints of earlier Divided Back Era cards. These are easily distinguished by the white border around the pictured area. They were especially common in the 1920s. With the passing of the golden era of postcard collecting, the use of the posrcard became much like it is today. Postcards became common for vacations, but were no longer a fad as was the case in the 1900s and 10s. These were mostly commercial cards, but we see some studio portraits with white border images and postcard backs. The stamp boxes are still useful in dating them. Here, hiwever, the dating of the white border era seems to trefer to the commercual cards. The family photographs seem to have had white borders before 1915 when we begin to see them on the commercial cards. A good example is Frank Morrison who was photograophed in 1909. It was done with a wide white border. We are not sure why we see the white borders here. It may have had to do with photo oprinting methods. Perhaps readers will have some idea about this.

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Created: October 7, 2000
Last updated: 2:23 PM 6/19/2024