California Railroads in the

California Railroads in the “Golden Age” of Postcards

Introduction

Welcome to a new feature of our website; California Railroads in the “Golden Age” of Postcards. We hope you will enjoy not only these antique postcards for their interesting and historically significant photographs of California’s railroad history, but be able to look at them as being virtual “time machines” taking you back to a vanished era to view not only the trains, but the towns, the industries, the scenery, and especially the people during the time in which these railroads played a major role in all facets of California life.

The Series

Our “California’s Railroads in the “Golden Age” of Postcard series will be an ongoing project. Each week a new set of postcards with a specific theme will be added. Our first series is titled “California Depot Postcard of the Week”, which depicts outstanding examples of depot architecture. Added each month will be new “theme” series of postcards showing class one railroads, shortlines, trolley/interurban lines, logging railroads, and even inclines/funiculars that operated in California during this era. A few series will have fictionalized stories to go along with postcards having a common theme.

Nearly all the postcards shown are from my personal collection. Some are scanned copies of cards I have made over the last ten years of collecting at postcard shows, antique shops, and including a few from the Internet. I had to resort to using some scanned cards as they were of a view that was necessary for the completion of a themed series, and I wasn’t able to purchase the card. Some just exceeded my hobby budget.

Not only will postcards be added each week, but one can view all the series to date as well.

The Golden Age

The “Golden Age” of postcards is defined by those that were produced roughly between 1905 and 1918. This was a glorious time for postcards for several reasons:

The entire world was gripped with a new fad, postcard collecting. People could see views of places or events for the first time that otherwise were not available in the printed media of the time.
It was a very inexpensive hobby with mass appeal in an era that few had the resources or leisure time to devote to any hobby. A penny postcard and the required penny stamp meant that even people considered to be among the poor could afford to be a part of the collecting craze.
For just two cents, it was the most economical way to communicate with friends and family all over the world. Pennies had real value then. A loaf of bread cost three cents, and a hair cut and shave cost ten cents. Money was hard earned by most, and just a few pennies here and there could determine if one had bread for the table. Therefore, the cost of stationary, an envelope and the required two cent stamp to mail a sealed letter could be cost prohibitive at just ten cents.
The technology to be able print “colorized” photo postcards was introduced during this era. At the time, seeing colorized photos was akin to seeing for the first time the scene where Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” first steps out of the fallen farm house into Munchkin Land. For those who had only seen black and white films up to that time it was an epiphany of sorts. This technology was taken to a fine art form by German lithography companies, until World War I stopped production and halted all trade with Germany. The post war quality of the postcards never achieved the level of pre war cards, as most of the lithography companies and many of the highly skilled lithographers were lost during the war.
And lastly, postcards were used for some of the best marketing plans ever devised, and I feel Southern Pacific Railroad’s series of postcards promoting the wonders and opportunities along its route to be unsurpassed.

The Southern Pacific Railroad and Boosterism Postcards.

California was “magical” in people’s eyes at the time, due in no small part to what is known as California “boosterism”. Boosterism is a term used to portray and/or promote something in only its best light, even to a point of exaggeration. California boosterism postcards portrayed everything as larger than life, or more beautiful, or more abundant, and they openly exalted or subconsciously alluded to the unlimited opportunities to make a better life and subsequently fulfill one’s dreams in California. Boosterism helped create the second California gold rush.

The Southern Pacific Railroad constantly sought ways to increase the number of paying passengers and more importantly to significantly add to the numbers of industries to serve along their line. The SPRR took full advantage of the postcard collecting fad by taking boosterisn to a new “art form” with company subsidized lines of postcards, one of which was known as “Road of a Thousand Wonders” series. The postcards were meant to lure not only tourists with views of the scenic beauty, but especially to lure people from all over the world to work in the growing California factories or to farm the still largely undeveloped land, a significant percentage of which was owned by the SPRR.

This was a stroke of marketing genius in my mind. A postcard would cost less than one hundredth of a cent to produce. The public would then buy the cards at a great profit, and then also pay for their distribution all over the world. Advertising was not only free, but profitable. Secondly, they were not like newspaper ads that would end up in outhouses or for wrapping fish the next day, they became treasured family mementos held onto for a lifetime or in some cases, as collectables.

Technology Changes

Needless to say, everyone wanted postcards of “their” home town, but the commercial postcard companies limited their cards to ones that would sell in large volumes. They could take a picture of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley and know it would sell for years and years to come. This was a logical financial decision, as how many people would purchase postcards showing Poudunk’s train station or city hall as compared to views of glorious Yosemite? Small towns or areas with nothing more than wheat fields as scenic highlights were left out early on. Yet at the time, most of America lived in towns like Poudunk and were clamoring for local cards.

Kodak saw a need and found a solution by inventing a “postcard” camera, whose film could print directly upon a blank postcard. Now, anyone could choose the subject matter of the card no matter how obscure, and it was up to the operator as to how many cards would be printed. Local drugstore owners in small towns would buy the camera, print postcards of the local civic or scenic highlights and place them for sale in their store and sometimes they would run some extras to be sold to passing tourists from a rack at the train depot as well. These cards mostly fall into a category known as “real photo postcards”, and are the “Holy Grails” for some postcard collectors. Their production run could have been as little as just one card. Therefore, as a result of their scarcity or the obscurity of the subject they can cost in the hundreds of dollars in the current marketplace. As an example, I just saw a real photo postcard showing a Pacific Electric trolley whose asking opening bid on eBay was $450.00.

Cards depicting catastrophes, such as nearby train wrecks, or unusual events, such as a President arriving by train, were very popular and highly collectable even then. These real photo postcards mostly showed ordinary views of day to day American life as it was at that exact place and moment in time. Because of this, they are now extensively used for historical, architectural, industrial and social research.

Your Postcards

I know my collection is very limited and feel there are cards that should be included in every series. If you feel you have a postcard that fills a hole in one of the series and would like to display it along with the others just for fun, scan it at no larger than 300 DPI x 300 DPI and forward it for approval to our webmaster to have it posted and to receive acknowledgment in the screen display as you being the donor.

The Tour

Come with me, and enjoy an amazing ride in my postcard “time machine” back to the first part of the twentieth century in California.