SOS, Missouri - State Archives: Mary Alice Hansen Postcard Collection

SOS, Missouri - State Archives: Mary Alice Hansen Postcard Collection: "'Wish You Were Here:' Postcards from Missouri

The postcard originated in 1869 in Europe as a cheap means of brief communications between friends and family and the trend quickly became popular in America. These initial cards were very plain until 1898, when the United States Post Office no longer had a monopoly on this form of letter writing. Once it relinquished some control over the format, publishers proliferated and small illustrations were widely used on the front of the cards.

In 1907, the U. S. Post Office permitted the use of the divided back card, allowing the message and mailing address to appear on one side, thereby making it possible for the entire front of the card to be used for imagery. Since then, millions of color postcards have been traded by collectors. These view cards documented people, places, and events all over America. Printing processes continued to improve and there has proved no end to card subject matter. Today, postcard collecting has its own name, “deltiology,” and is the nation’s third most popular hobby outside of coin and stamp collecting.

Mary Alice Hansen was a Minnesota deltiologist who extensively traveled Missouri. Her nephew, David Quick, donated 209 color and black and white postcards his"