On February 27, 1861, an Act of Congress allowed for privately printed cards to be sent in the U.S. Mail. The first copyright for a postcard was issued to John P. Charlton. In June 1872, another Act of Congress approved government production of postal cards with the first being issued on May 1, 1873. These postcards were plain with one side for a message, the other for the recipient’s address.
Privately printed cards were still allowed, but the cost to mail these was two cents, which was double that of the government printed cards. This changed in 1898 (another Act of Congress!) when all cards were deemed equal with a one cent stamp needed. Post cards with pictures on one side leapt to popularity during the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which began on May 1, 1893.
The School Sisters of St. Francis Archives houses a small collection of postcards. The oldest in our collection is of St. Joseph Convent in Milwaukee, our Motherhouse to this day. This card was postmarked 1903 or 1908. Our archivist, TaraDawn Knull, believes this to be 1903 as this card has printed on the reverse ‘Post Card – Carte Postale’ which was only printed on cards between 1898 – 1901. This was no longer required in 1901 when Post Office order No. 1447 was issued which allowed the words ‘Private Mailing Card’ to suffice for all cards, private, government, or international.
Our collection allows us wonderful snippets of the history of the School Sisters of St. Francis. While we do not have provenance on many pieces in our collection, some have come to us directly from sisters who had tucked them away and happily found them years later.
We look forward to growing this collection. Should you come across a postcard, postmarked or not, that has a connection to the School Sisters of St. Francis and would like to share it with us, please do so! TaraDawn can be reached via email at tknull@sssf.org or by phone at 414-944-6031.
Click the postcard to view a larger image.