Cyrill Demian, the Squeeze Box and Why Momma Doesn't Sleep

 

A French peasant in his smock and wooden sabots dances with his wife at village café in this early post card.

I’ve heard it called the second most dreaded instrument in the world, after the banjo.  But I am partial to the banjo.  I admit to having a harder time warming up to the accordion which I associate mostly with amateur musicians in local talent contests, and polka, a popular form of dance music to which I never took a shrine to even though my wife’s father Art Brady and her uncle Al Wilczynski played on Chicago radio in successful polka bands after World War II.

But I may have been harsh in my judgment.  It turns out that the instrument can be versatile and applied to a wide range of musical styles.  It also made making music affordable, portable, and easy to learn for the working poor of Europe, many of who participated in one of the great mass migrations in human history.

                                Although others may have preceded him, Cyrill Demian got the first patent on an accordion and is generally credited as the inventor.

We can credit—or blame—Cyrill Demian, an Armenian piano and organ maker who was living in Vienna, Austria.  On May 23, 1829 he was granted a patent on a new musical instrument that he called the accordion.  In his application papers he described it thusly:

Its appearance essentially consists of a little box with feathers of metal plates and bellows fixed to it, in such a way that it can easily be carried, and therefore traveling visitors to the country will appreciate the instrument….It is possible to perform marches, arias, melodies, even by an amateur of music with little practice, and to play the loveliest and most pleasant chords of 3, 4, 5 etc. voices after instruction.

Demian was not the first one to tinker with a portable instrument using free reeds which produce sound as air flows past them vibrating the reed in a frame.  Nor was he the first to use a bellows device to produce the airflow rather than direct wind from blowing in a tube or from air pushed from mouth-inflated bags.  Some Russian instrument makers had employed bellows boxes as early as 1820.  Christian Friedrich Buschmann is often credited with building the first such instrument in Berlin in 1822.

But it was Demian who obtained a patent and who went into commercial production on at least a modest scale.  The left hand on the bellows box musicians could press buttons regulating air flow over the reeds.  An entire chord could be produced by depressing a single key. There were only eight buttons in the model described in the patent, but he noted that more could be easily added. There were no buttons or keys on the right side, the player used the strength of the usually dominant arm to push and pull the bellows. Demian’s instrument was bisonoric—it could produce two different chords with the same key, one for each bellows direction.

Whoever has the best origin claims, the accordion was clearly an instrument whose time had come.  Its popularity spread like wildfire, especially in Russia and Eastern Europe, but soon in Italy, Germany, and France as well.  It seems like every maker made his “improvements.” Dozens of different button arrangements were designed.  Some were unisonic, producing the same notes or chords on the draw or the push.  In Eastern and Southern Europe, they were tuned to be able to play in minor keys.

By the mid 1830’s tens of thousands were being produced in centers across Europe.  They were sold mostly to amateur musicians or to the lowest grade of professional—those who played in cafés and taverns or on the street for tips.  The instruments were easy to learn and to become proficient on and perfect for playing by ear.  They were also loud and easily heard.  Most importantly they could be used to play traditional folk music of all sorts of people.  The accordion could assume the voice of a church organ, a violin, various stringed instruments, and horns.  And the player was free to sing along.  Some played single notes instead of chords so they could be used to play melody, often in combination with other accordions playing chords and harmonies.

Accordions reached London by 1832 where newspapers reviewed public performances poorly.  But they rapidly caught on with the public.  They were demonstrated in New York City in 1841.

In 1844 English inventor Charles Wheatstone came up with a compact instrument which could play both chords and melody in one squeezebox. He called it a concertina.  In different forms they became very popular in Italy as well as in the British islands and were favored by sailors who took them around the world.

But it was the political turmoil of the 1848 Revolutions that swept Europe, the Irish Famine, and decade of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe that gave squeeze boxes of all types of legs.  Refugees and immigrants brought them wherever they went along with the familiar folk songs of home.  Many, of course came to the United States.

M. Hohner company of Germany mass produced early accordions like this which quickly swept Europe.

In the late 1800’s the piano accordion was perfected in Germany.  Larger and heavier than most other instruments, the right hand played melody on a piano keyboard of white and black keys while arrays of buttons on the left side played an array of chords in multiple keys.  The instrument became popular with professional pianists and organists who felt comfortable on it and who appreciated the musical possibilities it offered.  Honer, one of the principle German manufacturers, encouraged this and promoted its piano accordions as concert instruments and began publishing transcriptions of classical music for it.

One result of that was its use in formal ballroom dance styles which were being written by the finest composers in Europe.  These included waltzes but especially polkas.  This was, at the time, considered a major break from being rooted in folk music styles.  The dances, however, especially polkas, became very popular with Poles and Germans, many of whom immigrated to the United States.  Semi-trained emigrant and American musicians began writing their own lively Polkas that were far less refined than those played where dashing officers in comic opera uniforms swept the floor with belles in enormous dresses.  German immigrants brought these kinds of polkas and accordions to the Rio Grande Valley, where they became the basis of Tex-Mex Music and can be heard in Mariachi.

                                    Less than two decades after its introduction in England, this young Black boy was playing a concertina as a Union Army musician.

Eastern European Jews brought their special accordions along with traditional melodies and Klezmer music evolved, eventually incorporating jazz elements.  And speaking of jazz, in multicultural New Orleans Black musicians incorporated accordions into their street marching bands and with riffs from Spanish military music and the distinctive Acadian sound of the bayous.  Many early jazz bands included accordions.

Mother Maybelle Carter and the Carter Sisters on the Grand Ol' Opry with Anita Carter on accordion.

They began to encroach even on traditional fiddle, guitar, and banjo Appalachian and Southern folk music.  Mother Maybelle Carter sometimes played one, as did her daughter June.  Accordions were incorporated into many bands, even on the super traditionalist early years of the Grand Ol’ Opry.  Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys sometimes included an accordionist.

Piano accordion playing twins entertain at a mid-'60' USO show.

The so-called golden age of American accordion really took off with the huge popularity of Pietro Frosini and the two brothers Count Guido Deiro and Pietro Deiro who performed largely classical repertoire on the American concert and vaudeville stage in the early decades of the 20th Century along with Honer’s relentless promotion.  Music schools began offering classes and music stores offered the instruments on time.  Although not cheap, the instruments were less expensive than pianos or home organs, so parents enrolled their children in classes by the hundreds of thousands well into the 1950s.  Despite the heavy weight of piano accordions, they were especially popular among young women.  Accordion ensembles were common.  There were even accordion marching bands.

The Johnny Vednal Orchestra was a popular Cleveland polka band of the 1950's. Note the bandstand admonition.

Dance bands like Paul Whitman’s, Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, and, of course, Lawrence Welk featured accordions, but so did more cutting-edge swing bands.  In the early years of rock & roll the accordion was alongside the chattering saxophones at the heart of several bands.

Buckwheat Zydeco introduced jazzy Cajun style music to a new generation in his folk festival appearances and roots music concerts.

But eventually the guitar triumphed as THE instrument of rock & roll, and the extended folk revival drew many young people to abandon the accordion, which was now seen as hopelessly square, in favor of six strings.  By the early 21st Century it had virtually disappeared from popular music except for novelty acts like Weird Al Yankovic and  Judy Tanuta. 

Today, partly because they have been out of favor for so long that they have become ironic, accordions are reappearing in cutting edge music.  They may even become hipster like little fedoras, skinny ties, and bushy beards.

 

A Monumental Temple of Books on 5th Avenue

 

The grand and glorious New York Public Library in a hand-tinted linen post card from the early 1930's

.

There may be taller buildings.  There may even be more beautiful buildings. There are certainly more profitable uses for prime Manhattan real estate.  But maybe no building in New York City is more justifiably admired and beloved than the Main Branch of the New York Public Library which opened its doors for the first time on this date in 1911 at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street.

It was named the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in honor of the billionaire banker who pledged $100 million for restoration and repair of the structure.  It hardly put a dent in his personal fortune.  Schwarzman made headlines in 2012 when he compared President Barack Obama’s proposal to raise taxes to “Hitler’s invasion of Poland.”  Luckily, no one outside his immediate family and his billionaire buddy former Mayor Michael Bloomberg ever uses that name for the iconic building. 

Several smaller libraries were consolidated into a new city institution in the late 19th Century. Big gifts from a bequest by former Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate Samuel J. Tilden and from steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and library patrons made the erection of an imposing building possible.

A rough design of the building was developed by the System’s first Superintendent, Dr. John Shaw Billings.  His vision was the basis for a well-publicized competition among the top architects in the country.  A relatively little-known firm, Carrère and Hastings, won for its Beaux-Arts design.

 

In this 1920's cartoon famous writers are depicted using the Reading Room.  The most recognizable is James Joyce with the dramatic wing on his hat.

Construction began in 1897 and the cornerstone laid in 1902.  It was the largest marble building ever constructed in the United States with walls three feet thick.  It cost a hefty $9 million when that was an almost unimaginable sum.  It took 14 years for master craftsmen, many of them European-trained masons, to complete the building.  It took more than a year just to move in and shelve on miles of bookcases from the collections of the consolidated libraries.

President William Howard Taft joined Governor John Alden Dix and Mayor William Jay Gaynor for the opening ceremonies.

                           

                                        New York Herald coverage of the library dedication.

The library was not only immediately one of the largest in the world, but it was also noted for an efficient system to produce volumes from the vast stacks and deliver them into the hands of patrons within moments.  The first book checked out, a scholarly study of the ethical works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Leo Tolstoy in German was in the hands of the library patron in just 11 minutes.

The most famous feature of the library is the grand and vast Rose Main Reading Room.  Walls are lined with reference books, two rows of large tables accommodate readers, researchers, and students and the room is appointed with crystal chandeliers, brass lamps, and comfortable chairs.  On sunny days the room is flooded with light from a row of large arched windows.  The room has been featured in movies, described in novels, and memorialized in poems by the likes of E. B. White and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

The Main Reading Room of the Library is an impressive public space with the reverence of a Temple. 

Almost as famous are the two proud lions which flank the wide stairs to the main entrance.  Original named, Leo Astor and Leo Lenox in honor of two of the library’s principal founders, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia dubbed them Patience and Fortitude during the Great Depression when the great reading rooms were filled with the out-of-work passing the time away in self-improvement and when some of the homeless reportedly found ways to sleep in the stacks.

 

One of the Library's famed pair of guardian lions.

It took until the 1970 for continual acquisitions to fill up the generous space that had been included in the original designs.  In the 1980’s the building was expanded by 125,000 square feet and literally miles of new shelf space by constructing an underground addition below Bryant Park.

Work began in 2007 to clean and restore the begrimed and damaged exterior of the building and remodeling continued inside.  More work with Schwarzman’s—and other donors—money continues to be done.

Meanwhile former Mayor Bloomberg slashed the operating budget of the Library, closed many branches, and reduced hours open to the public.  Money for staff and new acquisitions was cut to the bone. It took years of scholar and public protests and two huge lawsuits to preserve the Library as an institution and complete massive repairs, restoration, and a double decking of Bryant Park underground.  Hundreds of millions had to be raised from wealthy donors, Privat Foundation grants, and begrudgingly given City contributions.  The bulk of the work was completed in 2023, but some is on-going.

Next up--surviving the war on science, freedom of the press and speech, "woke" ideology, and the safety of employees and patrons alike. 

The Man Who Put America in Denim With a Murfin Memoir Growing up in Jeans

   

In high cowboy blue jean splendor for Cheyenne Frontier Days circa 1958 or '59--Tim Murfin, next door neighbor Sharon Niddlekoff, Patrick, and cousin Linda Strom.

Like most American guys, I grew up in my blue jeans, at least after my twin brother and I prevailed upon our mother not to make us go back to school in corduroy slacks and suspenders for-christ-sakes.  We had to have them.  All of our favorite cowboys in the old two reel westerns that played on TV every afternoon wore them and so must we.  We rolled the bottoms up, which was good for mom, because they gave us growing room.  A sturdy pair could last a couple of years.  When they inevitably wore out at the knees, Mom would repair them with iron-on patches.

Mom was too cheap to pay for Levis or Lee Riders.  She generally stocked up on ours with store brands from J.C. Penney’s or Montgomery Ward’s.  Like real Levis, they were stiff and scratchy when new—chapped the hell out of my inner thighs when I walked.  Mom liked that look and at first starched our jeans to preserve it.  Stopping that was an epic battle all its own.  The dye in these off brands ran even more than Levis.  Our Jockey Shorts were the same color of blue as an old church lady’s hair for the first few wearings.  Eventually, however, the jeans settled down to soft comfort and a far lighter hue. Neither of the high schools I attended allowed jeans at school.  But I was out of slacks as soon as possible after school and on weekends.  They were all I took to college, except for one pair of slacks for chapel services and faculty dinners.

From then on, it was all about the jeans.  I will even admit to a pair or two of elephant bells, then flairs and boot cuts before going back to old straight leg jeans like I wore in school.  But now I could buy them by length as well as waist so no more roll-ups.  I settled into a daily uniform of jeans and a chambray work shirt, denim pearl snap, or plaid flannel depending on the season.  So did a lot of other guys. 

 At an IWW CTA fair hike picket in Chicago in 1970--boot cut jeans and a fringed leather hippie sash for flare.

By the time I was in my mid-40s I had teen-age daughters who were all about designer jeans.  I remember the near heart-attack the first time Carolynne demanded a pair of Jordache jeans that cost more than I made in a day.  I grew even more perplexed and outraged when first stone wash, then acid wash, and finally pre-worn complete with rips and tears became teen must-haves. 

It was all about denim in the ’80s.  But fashion was also pressing prices of my work-a-day attire of choice up.  Wranglers, the least expensive of the big three brands got to $40 a pair and house brands only $5 or so less.  To keep my daughters fashionable, I sank to the cheapest jeans of all—no-names from discount houses.  The dye wasn’t really denim blue, it was a sort of purple and the stitching was in white thread instead of gold or blue.  They tended to fall apart after two or three washings, so the $5 investment in a pair was not worth it.

I swallowed hard and began paying the damn $40.  But not for long.  My body was changing—and not for the better.  Jeans made for 20 year olds didn’t fit right anymore and even relaxed fits or embarrassing pairs with elastic waist bands did not entirely solve the problem which was caused by the combination of my expanding waistline, lack of ass, and short, stubby legs.  My funny looking body made up its 6’2” height in a freakishly long torso.  I started wearing pants out not in the knees, but along the seams of the crotch where the material began to pull apart after just a few washings.  After my last pair of $40 jeans bit the dust in this way after only a dozen or so launderings, I had enough.

I gave up my beloved jeans, which were as much a part of my identity and image as my cowboy hats.  But khaki slacks were $15 a pair if you took a pass on Dockers and bought the house brands at Wards or K-Mart.  And they were versatile.  They were fine for everyday wear with just a buttoned sport shirt.  Throw on a dress shirt, tie, and sport coat and they were fine for almost all business and dress up occasions short of a wedding or a funeral.

For my work as a school custodian I got blue work pants to go with my uniform shirts.  The same worked when I began working second jobs as a gas station/convenience store clerk. When I had the part-time job as maintenance at a local mall, I had similar brown twill pants for my tan shirts.

But most of the time it was khakis for many years, a choice made by a lot of other duffers and men who just don’t give a damn anymore.  I never had to match my pants with my shirt or jacket.  Didn’t have to even think about them.  Just pulled ‘em from the closet and put ‘em on until the cuffs frayed or I stained them with some kind of food or drink catastrophe.  Even then they were good a while longer to mow the lawn in or do other dirty work that I couldn’t shirk or avoid.

                                The khaki years.  Reading poetry at a Tree of Life coffee house circa 2016.

I got older yet and began to see men my age still in their jeans.  A lot of them looked good.  They looked comfortable.  Some, the guys with big bellies like mine hanging over the belt and pushing the jeans down past the ass crack, looked ridiculous.  But not as ridiculous as the guys in sweats, cargo pants, and most shorts.  I may have been square, but at least I had my dignity.  Or so I told myself.

Then about ten years ago I found some house brand jeans that looked durable for about what I was paying for my khakis.  I bought a pair on a whim.  They were roomier than what I wore in my younger days but skinny jeans are just for young dudes and hipsters.  The pants were comfortable.  I bought another pair and then another.

Takin' the jeans to the street for a Black Lives Matter march in Crystal Lake.  Daughter Maureen derided these Menard's sale jeans as baggy and droopy for old men.

After I retired from my day job they were about all I wore except for church on Sundays then after a while decided that a sport coat and jeans were as acceptable as a jacket, tie, and khakis.  Since the Coronavirus lock down, I haven’t worn anything else.  But that still makes me more formal than the many guys my age who haven’t been out of sweats or shorts

All of this is a useless, rambling introduction to the true topic—tomorrow is the official birthday of blue jeans as we know them.  On May 20, 1873 Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis obtained a patent on a new style of rugged and durable work pants.

Levi Strauss about the time he was establishing himself in San Francisco. 

Strauss was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Buttenheim, Germany on February 26, 1829.  When he was 16 he accompanied his mother and two sisters to the United States to join two brothers who had an established J. Strauss Brother & Co a successful wholesale dry goods business in New York City.  Young Levi moved quickly to Louisville, Kentucky where he dealt in his brother’s dry goods.

After the Gold Rush of 1849 Levi was selected by the family to open up operations in bustling San Francisco where one sister was already in residence.  He arrived by ship from New York in 1853 with a load of goods from his brothers and set up an emporium he called Levi Strauss & Company.  He resisted the impulse of other would-be merchants to go to the gold fields to find riches in the mines, a decision that ruined most of them.  Instead he was content to collect the gold from the miners by supplying them with hard-to-get-dry goods at steep prices.  With the added cost of transportation by ship and merchandise of all types scarce, Strauss was able to charge all that the market would bear and still thrive.

Employees of Levi Strauss & Company circa 1880--mostly office workers and clerks but three men sitting on or standing by a crate are wearing the company's signature jeans both over and tucked into boots.

His well-established business outlasted the Gold Rush and was soon supplying goods to far flung corners of the rapidly developing West.  A big demand was always for durable trousers that could hold up under the rugged conditions of placer and hard rock mining.  In 1872 a major customer of Straus’s fabric, a tailor named Jacob Davis approached Levi with an idea to reinforce pockets and other points of stress like the bottom of the fly with copper rivets.  The pair entered business together and obtained their patent for “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Opening.”  They called their product waist overalls, because they eliminated the bib common on a lot of work pants.

 Hard working miners seldom looked this neat in Levi's products as in this advertisement .  Note denim blouse--the ancestor of today's popular jean jackets.

Legend has it that the first pants were made from coarse brown duck fabric.  And some early pairs were made this way.  But the company soon found denim, by tradition dyed blue, was far more durable and was marketing most pairs in that fabric within the first year.  In an early example of trademark branding, the company began to affix a leather tag to the back of the waist band with an illustration of two mules trying to pull a pair of trousers apart.  The illustration of strength helped sell the product, which was ubiquitous among miners and other hard working outdoor laborers in the West by the turn of the 20th Century.

Levi Strauss' trademark and label advertised the rugged strength of the pants.

Some folk believe that Strauss introduced denim to the States, importing his fabric from Nimes, France where it had been produced for centuries.  But Strauss bought his denim from well-established American weavers and dyers who had been producing the cloth for decades for use in overalls and dungarees. 

Many fabrics were commonly used for work pants—home spun, coarse woolens, and Irish laborers introduced mole skin.  Dungarees were among the most common.  They were originally made from Dungi, a durable and heavy cotton fabric first used as sail cloth and imported by the English from India.  Like European denim or jeans, the cloth was commonly dyed with indigo.

As early as the Revolutionary War George Washington specified blue died dungarees as the field uniform of artillerymen who often had to do hard labor moving heavy cannon over muddy ground.

                                                The Master of the Blue Jeans portrayed this beggar boy in a tattered jean jacket circa 1600.

Dungi was similar to, but not identical with denim and jeans, two fabrics which originated in Renaissance Europe.  Jeans were originated in Genoa, Italy in the 17th Century.  The material was a kind of fine wale cotton corduroy which was died blue and became in inexpensive fabric widely used in work garments of the poor.  An unknown artist now known simply as the Master of the Blue Jeans left 14 exquisite paintings of poor people in the easily recognized fabric.

Soon another fabric center, Nimes, was trying to duplicate the cloth that they named after the French pronunciation of Genoa—Gênes.  The fabric of Nimes was not identical to the original.  It was coarser and heavier, although nearly identical in color.  Because it was heavier it was popular in work smocks and jackets and was also used as a cover for merchandise lashed to the decks of sailing ships.  Their fabric became known as d’Nimes—literally of Nimes—or denim.

By the early 19 both fabrics were circulating in world trade and manufactures in Britain and the United States began to copy them.  Jeans and denim became interchangeable.

Early American work pants were very loose fitting often held up by one incorporated diagonal strap running from the waist on one side to the opposite shoulder or were bib style.  When no strap or bib was present they were held up by suspenders.  Sailors often wore light cotton pants held up by rope belts.  But belts were uncommon in most men’s pants.

When Levi introduced belt loops to some models of their jeans around the turn of the 20th Century, the pants quickly gained wide acceptance with another group of rugged outdoor workers—cowboys—who found that suspenders often snagged on brush or gear.  Range photos show that the adoption spread quickly.

 

                             Rodeo cowgirls in their Levi's.

Real cowboys were used in many of the early two reel western movies and so were blue jeans, rolled up at the bottom to display highly tooled Texas styled boots.  Little boys and little girls across the country saw and wanted the same look.  Soon Levis and other jean companies had a whole new market.  But school officials, churches, and places like theaters often found jeans unacceptably informal and they were banned from those places routinely.  Which helped give the pants the extra allure of forbidden fruit.

Jeans also spread slowly east as they were adopted by more and more factory and construction workers.  Hundreds of thousands of men first encountered them in Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps during the Great Depression.  During World War II the Army issued loose fitting dungarees as fatigues for stateside duty.  Navy enlisted men eschewed traditional white bell bottoms for a tighter fitting style of jeans for everyday work and battle wear aboard ship.  And women flocking to the defense plants got their own jeans—usually buttoning up the side instead of the front.

                     An Idaho CCC fire fighting crew in blue dungarees.

After the war both sexes took to wearing jeans as weekend wear or for chores like gardening.  When James Dean wore a pair in Rebel Without a Cause, they became the instant uniform of rebellious youth.  Marilyn Monroe did the same thing for tight fitting, shape enhancing jeans for women in The River of No Return.

                                                It turned out that James Dean's jeans made a more enduring fashion statement than his red jacket in Rebel Without a Cause.

In 1973 Levis revolutionized the jeans business by introducing their 501 Jeans which were preshrunk.  It was now possible to buy jeans close to the size you could actually wear—being made of cotton there was still some, although much less, shrinkage.  That also meant you could buy jeans the right length.  Good bye rolled up pant legs.  Other manufactures followed.  Jeans also generally replaced the traditional fly buttons with heavy duty copper zippers.

The first pre-washed jeans and decorated jeans were introduced by retailers in New York City in the mid ‘60s inevitably leading to the era of designer jeans.

                                                        My jaw dropped at the price of Jordache jeans with embroidered pocket that daughter Carolynne "had to have" in the '80s.

Today, even though their peak popularity in the 1980’s has passed, jeans are still probably the most common leisure and work wear in the United States.  Most people own three or more pair at any time.  And the look has been just as popular in France where the fabric originated and where nearly as many jeans are now sold annually as in the United States.

Kathy and the Old Man in sport coat, jeans, and a new dress hat rocked New Years Eve at Tree of Life in 2025

 

Post Cards from Poor Man’s Telegrams to Souvenir Collectables to Stone Age Text

 

                       

                             A late 19th Century official Post Office post card with decorative images.

Over the vigorous objections of the United States Post Office on May 19, 1898 Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act allowing private printing companies to produce postcards.  

Privately printed cards first appeared in 1861 under an earlier act and the first card bearing images were copyrighted the same year.

The Post Office had been printing and selling official post cards since 1877 for a penny apiece, less than half of the postage for a First Class letter.  They rapidly become popular with the poor and those who had quick messages and no desire or expectation of privacy. One wag called them “slow telegrams” comparing them to another terse but far more expensive means of communication.  They contributed to the explosion of Post Office business after the Civil War along with innovations like direct business and home delivery in urban areas, and railway mail sorting which slashed delivery times.  Most official postcards were plain with a pre-printed stamp and space for an address on one side with the message written on the reverse.  But the Post Office did offer a limited number of decorated souvenir post cards with engraved decorations on the address side that were proving increasingly popular.

Private companies were allowed to print cards, but regular First Class postage had to be affixed instead of the pre-printed post card rate, a powerful disincentive.  The Post Office was loathe to forgo the advantage this gave them and the growing stream of revenue.  But printers—many of whom were not so coincidently in the newspaper business—got the ear of Republicans who were in firm control of both Houses of Congress, with their complaints of unfair government competition.  The Post Office never stood a chance.  President William McKinley signed the Act into law.

                A Private Mailing Card authorized by Congress.

There were restrictions.  The private printers could not use the words post card or postal card.  Instead, they had to clearly identify their product with the words Private Mailing Card Messages were not allowed on the address side of the private mailing cards, as indicated by the words “This side is exclusively for the Address,” or slight variations of this phrase. If the front had an image, then a space was left for a message.

The Post Office must have discovered that there was no revenue loss from selling stamps for private cards over their own cards with printed postage because after four years in 1901 Postmaster General Charles Emory Smith voluntarily loosened regulations and allowed printers to use the words Post Card instead of Private Mailing Card and dropped requirement for a fine-print explanation that they were produced under the Private Mailing Card Act.  At the time the sales of souvenir post cards with photos taking up the entire front of the card was booming.  But that eliminated the space for a message, and the Post Office still did not allow anything other than address info on the back.  That rendered these types of cards of zero use for conveying any message other than the implied, “Hey, look where I am.”

It wasn’t until the Universal Postal Union which governed international mail cards produced by governments could have messages on the left half of the address side in 1907.  Congress acted quickly to authorize private printers to do the same.  It ushered in the period known as the Divided Back Era by collectors and set off huge new demand.  There was now space to scrawl “Wish you were here” or “home on the 10 o’clock train next Friday” in the somewhat limited space made available.  Producers ramped up production and images were produced of landmarks in even the sleepiest rural hamlets, hence a glut of shots of muddy main streets, local churches, and Civil War monuments that can be found nearly by the bale at post card collector shows.  The wide variety of images and the improving quality including bright color lithography by German companies for the American market meant this period is also called the Golden Age of Post Cards.

An example of the hyper-local post cards issued by small town printers--an early 20th Century view of the Woodstock, Illinois Presbyterian Church, one of a series featuring every church in town.

That ended when World War I abruptly disrupted the supply of German cards.  Even the best American technology could not match the color printing quality of the European cards and interest in collecting post cards, which had become an extremely popular hobby declined, as did sales.  During the war American printers produced cards with white borders to save ink and were sometimes faced with card stock shortages.  Most of the souvenir cards of this period now included a short description of the front image on the message half side of the back, reducing the available space for writing.

Novelty cards with cartoons and funny sayings also became popular, some becoming iconic like the many versions of a gap-toothed hick kid with a cowlick and the words “Me Worry?” which eventually morphed into Alfred E. Newman of Mad Magazine.  Bathing beauties and cars were other popular themes.   Companies also produced Holiday cards for all occasions and advertising pieces.

                                    The forerunner of Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Newman was featured on several novelty post cards

Ordinary folks could make their own post cards with the introduction of the Real Photo postcards produced using the Kodak postcard camera.  The postcard camera could take a picture and then print a postcard-size negative of the picture, complete with a divided back and place for postage.  These could be sent to Kodak which would print them on glossy photo stock like that used in Brownie snapshots.  They were also used by small town companies for the limited runs needed by the local pharmacy, hotel, or even funeral parlor.  These became so popular other suppliers entered the market, but Kodak continued to dominate this which continued popular well into the 1930s.

Both a souvenir and a novelty picture post card.  Wish you were here....

Commercial post cards got a huge boost in 1931 when Curt Teich & Co. introduced a new process of printing on high quality rag count.  These so-called linen cards had a rich texture and could hold brighter inks and dyes than previous methods.  The result was often almost painting-like with highly saturated colors.  Many were hand tinted from black and white originals.  These cards are now highly prized by collectors.

A hand tinted linen post card of the Wyoming State Capitol building in my old hometown of Cheyenne.  I have a framed copy hanging in my home study.

The linen cards dominated the market until the introduction of photochrome color postcards by Union Oil Co. for sale at its Western gas stations in 1939.  Printed on high glossy stock the public embraced the “more realistic” images, and they almost completely replaced the linen cards by the early 1950s.

This 1960s era glossy souvenir post card of San Francisco has everything--cable car, hills, a pier, the Bay, cargo ship, and Alcatraz in the distance.

Post cards remained popular through most of the rest of the century.  But the introduction of e-mail, cheap digital cameras and eventually cell phones, and social media rendered post cards obsolete as a means of communication.  All of the folks back home can now access dozens of your personal photos, including ubiquitous selfies instantly instead of getting a single post card two days after you already got home. 

As sales shrank, so did the number of companies producing cards and the images available.  Virtually gone now are almost all hyper-local cards.  Each major city or tourist attraction now is represented by a very limited number of stock cards which are harder and harder to find.  They are gone now from most gas stations, restaurant, and hotel racks, drug stores, and are even harder to find at souvenir stands and airports.  Those that are sold are packed in the luggage as cheap souvenirs and seldom mailed.  After all, it costs 40 cents to mail a post card now and almost no one has the right stamp so those that are mailed usually have a regular First Class stamp pasted on them.

                                      

  A contemporary generic Chicago glossy post card, hard to find on disappearing card racks.

Oh, and almost no one collects new ones anymore.