Ologies with Alie Ward - Deltiology (POSTCARDS) with Donna Braden

Episode Date: June 19, 2018

Why were postcards invented and why do they still exist? Why do we lie to people and say our lives are better than they are? Alie stopped into the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan and talked to curator of 40 years, Donna Braden, about her work with the postcard collections -- as well as her musings about how emotions impact memory, why Americans love to hit the open road and what the biggest postcard you're allowed to mail is. Listen while riding off into the sunset or sipping tea on a porch and then send someone you love a giant postcard because you can.The Henry Ford Museum Postcard ArchiveMore episode sources & linksBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, pins, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramSound editing by Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media & Steven Ray MorrisTheme song by Nick Thorburn

Oh, hello, old uncle Wally Ward here, back with another episode of Ologies. Now this one, well, it's something to write home about. We're talking Deltyology, which is the study or just the collection of postcards. Yes, kiddos, there is an ology for that. I wanted to know what in the frickin' frick that was about. So I was outside of Detroit shooting the CBS show Innovation Nation at the Henry Ford Museum. I was like, hey, hey, you guys got any ins with the Deltyologist?

And they were like, what is that? Is that a word? And I had to be like, well, according to some dude named Randall Rhodes of Ohio who coined this term in 1945 based on the Greek for Deltyon, meaning little tablets. Yes. Yeah, that's a word. And they were like, oh, okay, cool, because yeah, we have a museum curator who studies and collects, who cherishes and archives and displays postcards.

And I was like, let's get it on. Let's do this. Also, sorry, the Henry Ford. Sometimes there's swear words in my podcast. I think I kept them to a minimum. I'm just me being me, but I'm pretty sure it's pretty clean. But before we get into what is, according to Wikipedia, the third most popular hobby worldwide, I guess people like stamp and coin collecting more.

And I'm not sure if by coin, they just mean money, like amassing wealth, but whatever. Before we get into it, let's say thank you to the patrons for their coin that they toss at the podcast in exchange for getting to ask theologist questions, 25 cents an episode gets you in. You can also support for no money just by telling a friend or your secret lover or someone handing out a piece of roll samples at Costco or your accountant about the podcast. Spread the word. You can rate and review on iTunes.

That also helps keep us in still the top 20 or so science podcasts. It's so exciting. And also, I'm really creepy and I read all your reviews that you leave because I want you to feel seen and I'm kind of thirsty. So this week, Mallard the Duck says no divorce required. Amazing podcast can take any topic and make it interesting through Allie's personality and the guestologists. Oh, thank you.

This podcast kept my wife and I entertained and happy on a 2,000 mile road trip to Canada. So can't wait for the return trip home to listen to new things and I won't need to find a divorce attorney after 4,000 miles of driving. Thanks Allie. So Mallard the Duck, 23, I hope you and your continued wife are enjoying this episode about postcards. You better send me one. Okay.

So Mallard Deltyologist, she got her bachelor's degree in anthropology, a master's in early American culture and is now the curator of public life, which is a thing, at the Henry Ward Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. So she's been there. Are you even ready for this? 41 years, 41. I checked her LinkedIn profile and I also just looked up to see what the traditional 41-year anniversary gift would be and it looks like it's land.

Like when you commit to something that long, you just deserve chunks of the earth. So she curates artifacts relevant to, according to the museum website, vacations and world fairs, to civil rights and social activism, to advertising and retail, and has referred to the museum's vast collections as, quote, a bottomless pit of wonderfulness. She loves her job. So I nabbed her for a chat in the museum. We ducked into a little classroom off the main hall to talk shop about postcards. So yes, we'll cover some history and their uses, but this talk turned into a really fascinating

look at how we tell our own narratives and how we want others to see our lives and the luxury of travel and how etching out a message changes the way that we remember things. So it's a loving gaze at postcards, of course, but it's also a look at how we live and how a curator is tasked with collecting and presenting back our own story for us. So it's really cool. You can hear in my voice that I'm, and I'm almost apologetic, but not really to you guys, how excited I was to be having this conversation because she's just so down to earth. She's like this bespectacled hero because she's an artifact badass, and I just kind

of was fangirling for a lot of it. So collect these museum musings and postcard wisdoms from delteologist Donna Braden. Can you test and see if it's okay? So it looks like your levels look good. And I feel like I'm about to inform you that you are a delteologist. That was a new word to me, but I love the fact that there is a word about the love of postcards. I mean, you, you don't just love them. You also are a curator here at the Henry Ford.

So you also deal with the collection of them, the inspection of them, the cataloging. Yes. I have looked through a huge swaths of our postcard collection and we have many. How many postcards do you think you have in the collections here? A few thousand. We have a lot. How do they get stored? Are they in like U-Haul boxes or are they like all in acid free paper?

They're like, yeah. Imagine shoeboxes that are like acid free. Okay. So there's a protective certain kind of cardboard that is okay for that quality of postcard paper. And they're all nicely organized by topic, usually state, but then by topic. So like Wisconsin, fishing, Wisconsin, bears. Right.

Right. And we have two different collections. The main one is all indexed in our computer so we can look up any topic or any state or any year and find those postcards and then just dig them out and look at them. I think there are pictures of most of them as well. And then there's a whole nother collection that I found more recently that you have to know we have. What?

So the museum recently discovered a pristine postcard collection by this publishing company, which was kind of like this papery time capsule into postcards past. And I don't know if they had to wear gloves to touch them, but I'm going to picture them wearing gloves to touch them. They're not indexed. They were not written by people and mailed. So they don't have messages like, Betty, I wish you are on the boat with us. Right.

And then a lift stamp. Exactly. Those are separate. I mean, those are great because you get postmarks on them and you can date them that way. But the ones that have no messages in this one company's collection, you get a very more complete run of every postcard they ever made. So a couple of years ago, I was delving deep into the history of Yellowstone National Park. And I found that those postcards seem to be earlier as well, kind of these really early

teens and twenties era postcards of every attraction at Yellowstone. And I was like, oh my gosh, you don't or not finding these on the computer, but I'm going to get them digitized so people can see them now. So what is the history of postcards? Did they just always exist? Like forever? Like did the dinosaurs pop them in the mail and they're like, hey, down to Mexico for vacay.

There's some huge comment or some shit. I don't know, man. Made for some red sunsets though. Talk to you later. No, not so much. Postcards were invented for a reason relatively recently because they were cheap to mail. They're like a penny. Everyone's like, dude, these rule, technology.

It's so crazy. And then from there, they evolved. So let's get all up to speed on the history of postcards. I swear this is fascinating. You'll never look at them the same way. You'll be like, OMG, look at the border on that. Ooh, a linen finish. And maybe you'll join a deltiology club and meet the love of your life.

I don't know. The world's crazy, but let's get into it. The first postcards were put out by the government, the post office, and you had no choice over what you got. And then they, they, an act passed where private companies could produce postcards and then it became a bigger deal. And that's when you got kind of that golden age of early, the early 20th century postcards put out by these companies.

And then if you're familiar with postcards, there's that, that early look on kind of a rag paper that looks almost like a painting sometimes. That's those early 20th century postcards. Okay. More little tidbits. So the first, first, first postcard ever was invented by this British author, prankster, and playboy, this guy named Theodore Hook, and he sent this hand-painted postcard to himself in 1840.

And on it, unflattering drawings of a bunch of postal workers. He's like, you've been served, boom. Now that postcard sold at auction in 2002 for 27,000 British pounds. So some Latvian guy, his name is Eugene Gomberg. I looked him up on Facebook. I spent some time looking through his vacation photos last night. I'm not going to lie. None are photos involving this postcard.

I bet he legit forgot that he bought it. Anyway, I'm going to give you a quick rundown. In 1861, the US allowed postcards to be sent through the mail. And then 10 years later, they were like, hey, let's make some and sell our own pre-stamped postcards for God's sake. Let's make a little money. And then from there, in the late 1800s to early 1900s, this was officially the golden age of postcards.

What a time to be alive. They really started taking off. People were like, they're so cheap. They're so easy. I won't get hand cramps writing these long ass inky letters. And wagons with photo equipment started traveling and printing pictures onto these mailable postcards. Now, there was also a white border period.

That was in the early 1900s. That saved ink by printing on a smaller surface. 1930s, there was a shift to linen texture. 1950s, some scalloped edges. And now what we know today, they're printed to the edges with modern chrome full color. So congratulations. You now know the whole history of postcards. We did it.

It's weird that postcards have an origin story. They're like a superhero or a rescue dog. It just makes you love them more. And Donna loves her work. So there's a big shift in how they look. And what tends to happen, the reason you can't date that that well, unless they have postmarks, is that those early postcards continue to be offered for years and years after they're not made anymore.

Oh, really? So they keep going? Yeah, they keep going. So you see people in outdated clothing. I know this was not taken this year because it's so much cheaper just to keep producing those same postcards. Right. Like when you see people with feathered 80s hair and Venice Beach postcards, you're like,

whoa, man, this is very nice. This is still around. This is definitely still around. Our lady is with big hats and Gibson Girl looking outfits. And it's like the 1930s. And it should be like, or the 1940s. That's like 1910. Yeah.

Okay. That needs to be updated. And that was just, I mean, the discoveries here are always every day. Even for me, and I've been here 40 years, every day, new things, that's what's so great about it. So does that mean when you digitize them, do you have to scan them or photograph them? And then does someone have to catalog like them, okay, this one has a barn in it and a bucket.

So I have to put those keywords in. That's a great question. I think they do put the keywords in. But in the old days, before computers, when I was here, we had to actually physically describe them, but we do have to do the company, the date, those keywords, I think materials sometimes, and we put a title at the top so that it's descriptive. And then something that curators add is something called a narrative, which is a short write up explaining the context of each thing, which keeps us really busy and we'll never catch

up, but it's something that's ongoing that we try to do. So every time somebody looks something up on our website, they find a little write up about it. And so it might be like a woman picks apples in an orchard while a puppy looks on or something whatever. We actually try to be more interpretive than that. We try to explain why the woman is there, what she's looking at, why she looks the way she does, what kind of was the place of occasion place or sort of try to provide some context

and some background. That's what we curators try to do. So I went down a deep, deep, deep, deep rabbit burrow looking at the digital archives of postcards and the Henry Ford collection. And I was just tickled to see this one was this black and white full length portrait. It was titled, Gentleman posed with a chair, 1910. And it features this small framed man in a dusty suit and like a brimmed hat cocked far back on his head and he's got this silvery mustache over an uncertain grin.

Just a plucky looking guy and the museum caption of it reads, this man likely decided at the spur of the moment to have his photograph taken. He has left his tie tucked in as he would while wearing a work apron. He probably saw the temporary setup by a traveling photographer of a painted canvas in a store or a public building. And postcard paper meant that he could mail photos to friends and relatives and not to get too sentimental. But museums are so powerful, not only when they just display our past for us to see but

when they lay out moments and stories that we'd never even consider and postcards kind of tell those tales of what aspiration meant in past eras. And Donna curated promotional postcards for one exhibit about motels and they tell the story of hitting the open road in a car with your nuclear family for some time away, just kind of weaving sunburn and heartburn and discovery into all these new memories. So the motel postcards, for example, I looked up each motel on the internet is like, what can I find on them? What can I find on the owners?

What is the back saying when it says air cooled rooms, new mattresses, all these crazy things that they say? Television. Exactly. What does that mean for the era? And is it a tiny little motel did it last? Is it still around? Is it a one-off?

Did it go away? Is it a popular tourist area? These are the things we try to find out. Why are there so many motel postcards in your collection and your creation of postcards in Deltyology? Do you find there are, okay, there are state postcards. There are motel postcards. There are get well postcards.

What are the genres? Well, the get well postcards are very early form of postcards, which was more like greeting cards. And the companies that made the early postcards actually started with kind of holiday greetings. People sent them to each other. And it was a very inexpensive way of sending, it was amazing to have something colorful and printed to send people and it was very cheap. Postcards also ended up as a way to send like stupid messages, kind of like a jiff in today's

world. Okay. We were talking about lighthearted postcards. Turned it more into like jokie postcards than, you know, greeting postcards because of course you can find greeting cards everywhere now. Right. It became a big industry. The tourism postcards is what's such a gigantic, what became such a gigantic industry.

Of course, you know, everywhere you go, you can go to the souvenir shop and buy a memory of some place that you've been. The motel postcards are an interesting case because sometimes you still find, but not so often anymore, you would find a free postcard in the drawer of the motel you would stay in. And this is when I was growing up, this is what we all did. And that's what free. You could send your family or your friends. This is where I'm staying.

And they were ads for the, for the motels. They were like the best, most inexpensive advertising for these motels. And they, they become such a document, but I still have because I save postcards when I was a kid. It was a free way to build a collection and all these great messages, I would say from my friends and family. And then people would start sending them to me because they knew I collected them. But my parents would occasionally escape from me and my four brothers and go somewhere

always not very expensive, but, you know, they go somewhere and then we'd get a postcard from my mom that would circle the room and say, this is the room we're staying in. And it would just paint, I mean, she was so proud to let us know that they were staying, you know, in a lodging that wasn't at home and it just gave us sort of painted a picture of where they were. So that was really cool. Do you still have that collection personally? Of course.

Really? Yes. I have savored that collection. I would, it's very personal. But what's really funny is when I was, I don't know, elementary school, I had a cork bulletin board in my bedroom and there was a period of time where I thumbtacked all my postcards to the board. And so I look at these postcards now and they all have holes in the corners or varied places

where I changed the holes and it's like surrounded by these holes and it's like, why did I do that? But it brings such a funny memory back when I was just so proud to display these until it got to be too many. So note to potential museum curators, don't poke holes in things. Your future self will build a time machine out of lawn mower parts and come back and hurt you in the face. So Donna has her personal collection all stored in a box at home.

How many are in there? How many do I have? Probably a hundred, you know, that seemed like a lot. And I, you know, recently, every once in a while I come across and I'm like, oh, I have to look at these. And I was like, you know, sometimes like I'd go to the, well, I grew up in Cleveland and the art museum was one of my favorite all time. I took art classes there and it was just this magical place and I'd always buy a postcard.

So I have all these wonderful postcards of paintings and things from when I was a kid. So it's, it's, and so many levels, it just kind of brings joy to have those, that little pile of postcards. Do you think that postcards back in the day were the equivalent of a text message whereas a letter was an email? That's a great, I think you could have something there because particularly because the back was divided in half and one side you had to put the address on. So you were left with one half of a postcard to write the message.

And I have messages on some of them where, you know, people used up the space because they wrote too big and then they're like writing all around the edges on the top. But I don't think you were supposed to, the post office did not like it if you ran over onto the side with the address because that was like the rule, the address, the stamp and only the side is for the right. So you were, that's a great point. You were forced to write almost like a post-it note size message on there. And that's why when we studied messages on the back of postcards for an exhibit we did

called Americans on Vacation, it was fascinating not only to see what people wrote but also there were certain formulaic ways that people wrote things. I love this, I love this. You had to write in phrases and there were certain things people commented on repeatedly, the weather, car breaking down. They're like one of the kids poked the other's eye out, we're getting a divorce. See you soon. But interestingly, we also found that there was a lot of, we're not sure how far they

stretched it, but people tended to want to make their vacation sound really good. Oh my God, that's what they do on Instagram. And Facebook, I mean, it's a bragging thing, right? We are here and you are not. Yes. Therefore, we're going to make it sound as good as possible. And there's the classic having a wonderful time wish you were here, showed up repeatedly. I mean, it's not made up.

It was always that kind of, we're having a great time and you're not kind of, a little bit of one-upsmanship a lot of times. No one's ever like, the wife got salmonella from the shrimp buffet. You don't hear that a lot on a, maybe a letter. But where people have a little more time to play that out, certainly journals that we've read, sort of trip diaries where they don't expect anyone to ever read them. Oh yeah. I have a lot myself on those.

But postcards, no, it's very short and sweet and it's mostly highlights. And like social media now, it is kind of like that, you know, get a picture and a little bit of impression, mostly positive. So now the Americans on vacation collection you put together, where did you get those postcards and what was it like reading all those little messages and like seeing the handwriting and the postcard? Was that just, was that mind blowing for you? We, I can't even remember how we came up with the idea to do a presentation in the exhibit

on the messages in postcards. I think as we read about vacations, we realized that everybody's familiar with the pictures on the front, but not a lot of people are familiar with what people say on the back. Nobody's written anything about that. It was a new idea. So when we started reading them, they went, this is rich. And we thought, all right, we need to start collecting, we need to start accumulating a collection of postcards with interesting messages.

How do we do that? So we went to antique shows and there was a one nearby here that was every month. And so my colleague I was working with and I went there for the specific goal of looking at postcards with messages. And there were a few dealers we knew that had postcards and they were all organized by state or topic. And they were freaked out by what we were doing. They're like, well, what topic are you looking for?

I can help you. And we're like, no, not really looking for a topic. We're just reading the backs. And eventually they just gave up and threw out their hands and said, okay, you're on your own. And they let us stay for like, I don't know, an hour or two hours at a time. Because they hadn't organized anything that way. No one ever bought postcards that way.

And we just had the best time reading all of them. And we made a pile of, you know, some of the more interesting good and bad messages. And that became this media presentation in the exhibit. So this Americans on Vacation exhibit appropriately toured the country and it featured these chronological looks at types of recreating we did back in the day. And it had this audio visual component of actors reading the backs of vintage postcards, kind of giving life to these long gone moments and voices to people who would never know that their road trip or steamer cruise memories would be in the

hands of postcard collectors and in the ears of future strangers. And I tried so hard to find audio of this, but we're just going to have to imagine. I'm imagining and it's super cool. Okay. They would read a line or two from these postcards. And he put the thing together by showing the fronts and people reading the backs. It is wonderful, wonderful, so cool to see it come to life like that. Sometimes you get media people who don't do what you envisioned, but he his was

beyond what we envisioned. It was really great. So that was a wonderful project. When you go on vacation or when you go to a museum, do you look at the postcards? Do you still collect them? Or do you look at them fondly and say, Oh, that's a cool rack of postcards. Like I'm all filled up here. I still buy postcards, not for exactly the same reason, but what I tend to do with

them, although we do get more than I can do that, do this with, is I keep a daily journal I have for many years. You do? I do. Oh, that's amazing. It helps me organize the chaos and come to terms with it sometimes. And I go through about three different journals a year before I use one up and have to start another one.

And I pick my favorite postcards and I put them in the back of the journal during which the time which I took that trip. And every time I open the journal now or in the future, I see those postcards and it reminds me of the trips. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful thing. So on the subject of archiving and personal memories, I had to ask her about this daily journaling because I just had to.

It's dad's podcast. She'll ask what she wants. And it turned into this really interesting discussion. Wow. How many journals do you think you have? Oh gosh, I hope I'm afraid some future person is going to read them and go, Oh my God, what was this crazy person thinking? But I started, well, I kept journals when I was in high school and college a

little bit, but I started a daily journal in, are you ready for this? Yeah, 1982. And I have daily writings in there ever since then. So you would be a great expert witness. Where were you? I know and I'll tell you how much do you forget? Yeah, myself and my family. And how often I always keep last year's journal out because I was like, when did

we plant flowers last year? And I'll let me check my journal. And these are the flowers we planted. And this is what days we went shopping. And this was the weather. And it always comes in handy. Yeah. I find this extremely adorable.

And a lot of times it's like, how was I feeling a year ago? And what kind of work was I doing when I have to document, you know, what I've accomplished for the year or just so many, so many things that comes in handy. How many journals do I have? Probably, I hate to think, somewhere between 50 and 100, probably. That's amazing. Yeah. What happens if you decide you're going to go live in an island or something

and you leave your journals behind? Would you be like, burn these? Or would you be like, I hope one day someone publishes these? I think that if someone published them, I would want them to be me. Fair enough. I think I freak out at the thought of somebody else reading them. I know my husband and my daughter watch me write my journal every day. I hope I would be nervous to think of, because I write things about them.

And would I want them to know? Maybe sometimes, but sometimes not, because it just helps. It's a tool for me to try to figure out what just what happened. Yeah. And how to, you know, proceed from there. And it's so interesting that the notion of public writing, short format, public journaling for others, consumption versus the private journaling. And it's it's interesting because it almost makes you wonder what memories

are etched in permanently. You know, is it? Wow. If we don't if we don't write down the good and the bad, I have forgotten details. A few years ago, I went back and got a second master's degree because I, for various reasons, missed the deep studying of a topic and the writing about it. And it was a cool program on liberal studies, which is interdisciplinary.

And so we took these amazing. I took these amazing classes on time, on place, on memory. So I was always doing these crazy papers. So one paper was on called autobiographical memory. And the whole point was the whole key was that emotional things that are more emotional, you remember better. Oh, that makes it. It totally makes sense.

So the things that are a lot of times the really bad things that happen are the things you remember because the emotions were higher. Right. You had it imprints. It imprints. Exactly. Everyone knows where they were when they heard about 9 11 or JFK or when an earthquake happened, but and there's been studies on those.

But it then they sort of relate it to, you know, in general, what you remember. And it just makes total sense. So the little daily details you totally forget. That's so fascinating. Do you have a favorite postcard that you have ever seen? Like if you, if there were a fire and you had to save a postcard, I know that's difficult. Yeah. Wow.

I have a personal love for Route 66. We did a lot of that road several years ago, and we have one, at least one great postcard of a motel court is it called Coronado courts with a K on Route 66. And the and it's so, you know, Pueblo looking, Southwestern looking and Route 66. And I think it's more all of the memories and meaning wrapped up in that postcard as well as how beautiful the art is. And maybe that's kind of the reason that that one sticks out in my mind. But I'm sure I have many favorites and I love, I love many, many of them.

But that one sticks out in my mind. Every time I look at it, I'm like, oh, I love this postcard. Okay, so I found a picture of this postcard and it looks kind of like a double wide one. Like a, it folds out and it's panoramic and it has a linen finish from the 1940s. I basically right now I'm like the postcard equivalent of a person who's gone to one wine tasting, but changes all my online profiles to salmon in a file. Now her favorite postcard depicts the super cute kind of cream colored cottages with red tile roofs and manicured trees.

And it says Joplin, Missouri underneath. So I went digging to see if possibly that cottage motel is still there because how awesome would that be? And number one, no, just no, I looked everywhere. I used Google Maps to pinpoint the exact spot it was. And I think it was on Seventh Street and Schiffendecker in Joplin, Missouri, where there is now a convenience store named Casey's. And according to Yelp photos, they appear to sell sushi, which is a bold move.

Anyway, then I remembered, oh man, Joplin, there was a twister there. And then I spent like an hour getting super sad looking at aerial photos of the aftermath of the May 2011 tornado and looking at maps of its path. And it missed the former location of these Coronado courts motel by like two houses. So it went right through where it used to be. Nothing like the mutability of the human made landscape to make you appreciate time captured in historical artifacts and our fleeting presence on the planet. Anyway, no, you can't visit Coronado courts on a road trip because it's now a mini

mart, but you can see the postcard online on the Henry Ford's website and all post it on the oligies Instagram, which is kind of like a digital postcard these days. So there's that. I'm not sure that the Coronado courts are still there. I just love the postcard. It looks like a suburban city of little motel courts. And the it just, you know, it's like the best lodging on Route 66. So it's just a great kind of combination of things.

What do you think of the movie? Postcards from the edge. Do you ever see it? Meryl Streep. How have I not seen that? It's postcards from the edge, but it's it's Meryl Streep plays Carrie Fisher. Is that her one about her? Yes. Yes. OK.

And and yeah. So but it's I can't think of any other movies dealing with postcards. Can you? The postcard always rings twice. A little bit with. National Lampoon's Vacation. They show postcards in the credits. Oh, they do.

Yeah. Oh, man. I just pulled up the title sequence of the 1983 Chevy Chase blockbuster comedy National Lampoon's Vacation and Donna right on the money. It is postcard porn and you are going to love it. So many motel postcards, so many. What do you how do you feel about the style of, you know, it'll say like Wyoming and then each letter has like a whore. Love those things.

I do. They sum up a place. I think they're so clever and they still sell replicas of those. I don't think they make new ones, but they they make. We were just in Wyoming last summer and and I was like, oh, look, one of those Wyoming postcards with the scenery in it and Yellowstone has one. And then if you get to know a place, you're like, well, you have to identify each landmark in the letter and got.

Well, that's not a very good, you know, version of it. I really miss this thing or, you know, who are these people that pick this? But it's really, it becomes very interactive, actually, because it's ours. I just think they're very clever. I always thought it was so beautiful. Yeah. Do you want to do a quick lightning round? Okay.

So these are people who are Patreon subscribers get to submit questions to the ologists. So I put out a call for Deltyology questions. Okay. And here is what people asked. But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors, why sponsors?

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So thanks for listening and thanks sponsors. Okay. Your questions. Charles Anderson wants to know, what's the biggest thing you can rightly call a postcard? There's probably a size limitation, right? Like maybe, you know, I have some giant postcards and I think we have, we have oversized postcards in our collection. Really?

I think they're about a foot. Wow. Y'all, I look this up. I'm too excited. Okay. Technically, you can send a giant postcard through the mail, provided that it is quote, sufficiently stiff to make it through the machines. So you don't get the cheaper rates if it's huge, but you can mail postcards up to 12 inches

by 15 inches. So over a square foot of like, dear Aunt Nadel, I went to a lake and saw a weird bird. And then we ate corn dogs and Barry and Jonas had a water balloon fight. And then, and then, and then there's so much space, so many memes. So you should mail someone, hear me out, a giant postcard and just see what they say. Don't tell them it's coming. Just mail them a giant postcard. Please do this and report back.

Thank you. And you can still send those by mail. That's a good question. Maybe they don't even allow them anymore, but there was a period of time when they were out and whether you needed extra postage, I bet you did. I'm sure you did. Bet you did. But I've seen these oversized postcards.

And probably they're not around too much because they were too expensive. People, postcards are supposed to be cheap. You're supposed to use one stamp and be done with it. So if there are some bigger, good question. Al Martinez wants to know, with social media so prominent, has the romance with postcards faded, do you think? Or do you think people still have a romance about them? I don't know that people send them so much anymore.

I mean, geez, you got to find a stamp. Where do you even find a stamp? At the bottom of your purse, stuck to something else. It's amazing sometimes when gift shops have stamps at the cashier. Oh, God bless them. I know, you have to ask because I always have to send a Mother's Day card to my mom when I'm on a vacation. Someone's like, I forgot stamps.

Or, well, 10 years ago, we were still sending postcards. My daughter, bless her heart, who's 28 now, used to send a postcard to each of her dolls. Seriously? Seriously, when we would go on vacation and then we would get home and there would be the postcards. Did she save those? Oh, of course. She saves everything.

She's her mother's daughter. She's the daughter of a curator. Of course. She probably saves it all. Everything's like, can you please get rid of some things? No, I can't get rid of anything. It's going to be collectible someday. That's her favorite line.

But no, that was, I thought that was the coolest idea ever. But I do think that, I don't think that postcard purchasing has gotten less because people buy them for themselves. Certainly that's what we do. We come home with a bunch of postcards wherever we go and we save them. We have a giant growing and out of space box for postcards that we just put our collected postcards from trips. Well, it's lovely because a lot of times you might take a nice photo but you're not going

to print it out. But it is nice to have something tangible that you can look at and especially when it's a beautiful professional photograph or a photo of a jackalope or something weird. People may send joke ones. That's a good question. I think the biggest problem is the need for a stamp. Because who would think to even bring them and who even knows what it costs to send a postcard now as opposed to a letter.

So I think people buy them in a spur of the moment buying souvenir mania because you want memories, visual memories of those trips. But buying them is important when you're there for your own memories. And you can show them to people but I think they're more keepsakes like other kinds of keepsakes. They're just beautifully stunning, stunning visual records of a trip. And I think when you do buy them and send them, even if you're doing it kind of like the same way people buy vinyl.

People, you don't need to listen to something on vinyl. It is large. It is cumbersome. I think it's interesting when you go on vacation and you buy a bunch of postcards and then if you have people's addresses to sit at a cafe or a coffee shop or a diner and write things out, that's a wonderful idea. It's part of your vacation is to sit there. And I hope that people are doing that because I find that we never have time to sit there

and be reflective. And I have to force myself to keep that journal going. And sometimes all I can do is write notes and write it at the airport or when I get home because we never had time to be reflective. And I'm sad about that. It's like we used to have more time to do that. And postcards are part of that. You have to sit there and think, how do I sum this experience up for somebody?

Facebook, one line on Facebook with a picture, just ever so much easier. But postcards are so personal because I'm not going to write the same thing to my sister as I would. You know what I mean? For somebody to get something in the mail these days is so exceptionally wonderful to get a personal note. I think we should revive the writing of postcards. I'm with you, Donna, 100%.

Sarah Nichelle says, I see your old weird postcards and I raise you Victorian Christmas cards. Have you seen them before? And are they better or worse than the postcards in your opinion? I think Victorian Christmas cards are like early postcards. They're very embellished. They're sometimes a little imprinted, like they're a little 3D. Oh, like engraved.

Engraved and raised sometimes, if that's what the meaning is. And in the early 20th century, there were, for every holiday, there were these postcard greeting cards. And that may be, I mean, I'm sure there were more Christmas ones of those than any other holiday. And that's what we were talking about in the beginning, that that was early, the early form of greeting cards and the early form of postcards. And then I think as greeting cards became a bigger industry, you could probably thank Comark for that.

Postcards went off in another direction, which was as souvenirs. I wanted some visual references for Victorian Christmas cards because I didn't know what this question was about. And boy, howdy, did the internet deliver. I'm sure there were plenty of examples of like boring bowls of like winter treats and beautiful calligraphy with holiday tidings. But there are some straight up acid trip offerings also. So picture Victorian era postcards with drawings of frogs stabbing each other.

What? There's a robin dead belly up on this plain beige surface, bearing the message, may yours be a joyous Christmas. There's one of an army of ants slaughtering each other, one ant holding a flag that reads, the compliments of the season. Another one I saw has St. Nick kidnapping a child. And then there's my personal favorite, a message of, may Christmas be merry alongside the visual of a frog and a stag beetle dancing in the silvery blue dusk, while a nearby fly plays the tambourine.

I kid you not, I have never considered a tattoo before. But man, that is some solid imagery. And also, I'm like, what? But I suppose people smoked a ton of opium back then. Another explanation is, people didn't care about Christmas as much. And they were like, I don't know, let's make this weird. And or the visuals or socially relevant references that are just totally lost today. Like if you went back in time from the future and you were like, why does this jack-in-the-box magazine ad have a guy in a suit,

but with a clown, huge clown head? He's holding the burger? He doesn't have a mouth? This isn't normal. So I guess, essentially, maybe with these Victorian Christmas postcards, you just had to be there and on opium. Is there, Ashley Perez wants to know, is there proper postcard etiquette? That is a great question. You have to realize that anybody could read it. Yeah, that's true. The postman could read it. The postal worker could read it.

Your mom could read it. It's not private. So, good point. There is tilde God. I have enjoyed relations with 17 new pile suitors on this sojourn to Niagara Falls. You probably do want to think about what you're writing, because it isn't, it's really a very unprivate form of communication. And that's what makes them so cheap, but boy, they are very public. Right. And probably, maybe what lent itself to that sort of formulaic way of writing,

people didn't really reveal what was really going on. And part of it may be... Their postman might read it. That part of it might be they didn't want people to know what it was really like, but part of it might be that they knew anybody could read it. I am willing to wager that every postcard that has been sent through the U.S. postal mail has been read by at least 12 people. Right. And it is a little funny now to read postcards in our collection that you know

individuals meant for their friends and family. And here they are in this public archive, and everybody is reading them. And we're reading them because they're historically, have some historical interest to us. That must be... It's a little funny sometimes to think about the original purpose being personal. But it's also like... I don't know. I think that almost all of us strive for our narrative to be immortal in some way. That's true.

And I think that people were conscious of that when they were... When they write those messages. It's like, who's going to read this? How's it going to sound? It's not... When I write in my own personal journal, it's stream of consciousness. Every once in a while, I think, how can I write this a little better? Most important is just getting all those thoughts down. If you're writing a postcard, you sort of have to think about what to write.

I mean, Facebook too is not unlike, how do I want to word this exactly right? So I get the most likes. Can I word it better? Is it worth sending? What are people going to think of it if I put this picture in? And there's always that quality when you know somebody else is going to read it. But I think it's great that to know that our stories live on past us is... Even if it's just something mundane, like, we had a very delicious cantaloupe at breakfast,

and then we saw flamingos. Like, that's part of your story that would be lost. That takes on an importance. I mean, I've read a lot about going on vacation. And as soon as you leave home, you go off into another frame of mind. You are not home anymore. You are away from home. And it's a different world.

You're experiencing different things. You're hoping to grow from it. You're hoping to come back more relaxed or smarter or just a better person, a different person. And postcards are all part of that. So, yes, to be immortalized because you feel kind of feel that way during your trip, I have done something different. And I've changed in some way person now.

So true. Also, studies show that just planning a vacation and having something to look forward to boosts your mood for months before the trip. So get a good deal. Just book something in advance. Go somewhere, anywhere, even if it's not that far away and you camp in the dirt, because it's worth it. And it's working brain magic on you before you even go.

Allie Ward pleaded with herself via an aside on her podcast. I have two more questions for you. Okay. What is the hardest thing about your job? Especially when it comes to postcard curation, what's the most annoying thing? What is the most... Is it paper weevils? Is it alphabetizing?

Well, I've been lucky that I don't have to be the person who does the conservation, the arrangement, the cataloging. I just get to look at them. Possibly the most frustrating part of it is that as technology of our computer system changes, the information chain looks different. So that we did a massive cataloging and imaging of our postcard collection 20 years ago. And the pictures don't look good anymore. So you can see some weird, vague version of it, as opposed to other collections that have been

more recently digitized, because with how many 2000 postcards, you cannot look at them all in person. You have to select. As I pick new things for new projects, they then re... They digitize them so they look nice, but that's a very long, slow process. So photographic archiving. I think that's a good way of putting it. But at the other end is, oh my gosh, I get to go look at postcards today.

That's so... Oh my gosh, look at these amazing things in our collection. That's the coolest thing. The coolest thing is get out of your office and go look at postcards in the archives. And it makes my day to do things like that. So it's the best job on earth when I get to do things like that. That was my next question. What's your favorite thing about it?

But does it feel like you're cheating because you're getting paid to do something that you want to do anyway? No, it all bounces out at the end of the day. You're like, I'm still at work. That's like the high points to escape from the emails and the meetings and just kind of work with the peer collections. And that's always been what I've loved about museum work. It's not just looking at them, but figuring out what the context is behind them.

The whole reason I'm in this is what do objects mean in people's lives, past and present. And that's what I most love. So being able to go look at a collection of postcards, it's the best. Staying, always learning is something that you probably love about your job. That is good for you to pick up things well. That is one of the main things I love in general. I always love to keep learning. And creativity and learning are two of the things that keep me going, just in all ways.

And if I can bring them into my job, so much the better. If it feels creative, I'm good. You know, it feels like I'm learning new things. I'm good. So yeah, you got a good beat on that. Thank you so much for doing this. This is so interesting. Now you know, you're a deltialogist.

I'm a deltialogist. Isn't it crazy? Wow. I know. I love it. It's great. So Donna, once again, is the curator of public life at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, which is such a lovely place.

It's filled with all kinds of history from like Edgar Allan Poe's desk to the Rosa Parks bus to presidential limos and postcards. And I'm a correspondent on their Saturday morning CBS show, the Henry Ford's Innovation Nation with Mo Raca. But they are in no way paying me to make this episode. And I try to hide this podcast from them because I swear so heavily in it, usually, except not that much in this episode.

And actually, I'll be there at the museum shooting from July 8th to 13th coming up. Just in case you see me around the halls, if you happen to be there, say hi to old Dad Ward. You can join up on the Facebook Allergies podcast group. Typically, if they have meetups, they usually arrange them there. We did that last time I was there a few weeks ago. Digital postcard archives are at thehenryford.org.

And I'll also post links from this episode at alleyward.com slash olergies. You can also find photos of images that we talked about on the olergies Instagram, just at olergies. We're also on Twitter at olergies. And I'm alleyward on Twitter and Instagram. Thank you to Hannah Lippo and Aaron Talbert for being just lovely and wonderful friends and admitting the Facebook Allergies podcast group.

And if you'd like to support the podcast, you can do so by getting yourself some sweet merch at olergiesmerch.com. There's shirts and totes and pins and dad hats and phone cases and onesies. Thank you, Bonnie Dutch and Shannon Feltas for running all of that. And you can kick in as little as a buck a month and you can become a patron at patreon.com slash olergies. You get to hear what episodes are coming up next and submit questions for me to ask theologists.

And thank you all for making this podcast possible. I would not get the incredible editing of Stephen Ray Morris without you. The music was written by Nick Thorburn. And actually the title of the theme song officially is Ally at the Museum. Is that cool? So now you know. And you also know at the end of each episode, I tell you a secret.

And I'm going to tell you about my latest horrible snack because I know Shannon Feltas loves those. Tonight, like a few hours ago, I really wanted cookie dough so bad. And I didn't have any cookie dough, but I took some margarine and I mixed it with a little bit of brown sugar in a bowl. And I ate it. And then I remembered that I had these lentil potato chips in the cupboard and I was like, would this be a good dip?

And so I put some margarine and sugar on a lentil potato chip and it wasn't as gross as it sounds. Anyway, I've been gone a lot and haven't been grocery shopping. So cupboards are a little bare and I will rectify that tomorrow. There's your secret. We all eat weird stuff, right? Okay, so please continue to ask super smart people just stupid questions because honestly, I think those are kind of the best questions anyway.

And I think that they really secretly love it. All right, bye-bye. you