Houses on Postcards

by Robyn Sheather

When organizing postcards there may be different categories such as religious, historical, scenic, political, novelty, civic, and transportation.  If you were to place houses into a category it would fall under historical.  It would fall under historical because normally if you have a postcard of someone’s house, that house generally belongs to someone well-known. It could be an author, a political leader, an actress or actor, or just someone who has made a difference in the world.  When a person is remembered after he or she is gone their house is remembered too.   If you were to walk down the street and pass a house such as John Balch’s house you would stop and look at it just because he made a difference and it is a way of recognizing him.  [1]

Another reason for putting pictures of houses on postcards is to attract tourists.  A tourist might come to Beverly because they know that their favorite writer (such as Oliver Wendall Holmes) lives in Beverly and they would like to pay tribute to him by seeing his house and where he lived. [2] When visiting a person's house you get a better feeling of what that person was like by seeing their belongings.  Famous people’s houses tend to be used as museums after they are gone.  After visiting this museum you might walk by a rack that has postcards with a picture of this house on it and you might buy it to show friends and family at home that you have been there.  In a way it’s proof that you have actually seen it. [3]   

Pictures can be used as historical evidence.  They can also be useful when comparing two different time periods.  A postcard is just a picture that you can write on.  When a house is depicted on a postcard it can be used to represent a time period just by showing what style of house it is. Taft’s summer house, for example, is a colonial style house, yet it is made to look in the fashion of modern-day. [4]

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