Vintage Tea Room Postcards

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===Dating Postcards by Back-of-Card Postmarks, Fontography, and Handwriting===
===Dating Postcards by Back-of-Card Postmarks, Fontography, and Handwriting===
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The text on the back of a card — if it has any — will certainly provide a clue as to the decade, if not the year, of manufacture. Sho-card lettering, hand-inked deigns, and eccentric type mark the early era, after which we see regular serif type, followed by a mix of serif and sans-serif, and, finally, the domination of sans-serif. As for handwriting, that too changed over the decades, as methods of cursive writing were modified in the school systems. Of course, dating the handwriting by decade will only provide a clue as to when the writer was born, not when the card was written and mailed -- but a "Grandma" with 1890s cursive will look different than a "Grandma" with 1940s cursive.Postmarks can only give us a "last date mailed," which is not the same as "date photographed. Despite this, a 1915 postmark on an otherise undateable card at least gives us a clue as to probable decade of manufacture. However, speaking as a postcard fanatic, i can tell you that back in the day when very few people were collecting linens and i could buy them for a nickle or a dime apiece, i sent hundreds, if not thousands, of them through the mail to my hippie friends. So if you find a linen on eBay with a note signed "cat" that was postmarked from 1964 through 1984, that was me, and i messed up your postmark dating system for you. Sorry 'bout that!  
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The text on the back of a card — if it has any — will certainly provide a clue as to the decade, if not the year, of manufacture. Sho-card lettering, hand-inked deigns, and eccentric type mark the early era, after which we see regular serif type, followed by a mix of serif and sans-serif, and, finally, the domination of sans-serif. As for handwriting, that too changed over the decades, as methods of cursive writing were modified in the school systems. Of course, dating a person's handwriting by decade will only provide a clue as to when the writer was born, not when the card was written and mailed -- but although "Grandma" with 1890s cursive will look different than a "Grandma" with 1940s cursive, postmarks can only give us a "last date mailed," which is not the same as "date photographed." Despite this, a 1915 postmark on an otherwise undateable card at least gives us a clue as to the probable decade of manufacture. However, speaking as a postcard fanatic, i can tell you that back in the day when very few people were collecting linens and i could buy them for a nickel or a dime apiece, i sent hundreds, if not thousands, of them through the mail to my hippie friends. So if you find a linen on eBay with a note signed "cat" that was postmarked between 1964 and 1984, that was me, and i messed up your postmark dating system for you. Sorry 'bout that!  
==Tea Room Postcard Index==
==Tea Room Postcard Index==

Revision as of 05:00, 6 September 2020

Copper Kettle Tea Room, 23 Mercantile Place, Los Angeles, California, postcard front, circa 1909. The hand-lettered caption on the black and white photo that was the basis for this card reads "Copper Kettle Inn," but that is an error, because all advertising ephemera and references to the establishment in contemporary newspapers and magazines identify it as the Copper Kettle Tea Room. The Copper Kettle opened in 1908 under the proprietorship of two sisters, Smith college alumna Harriet Morris (1880 - 1961) and Barnard College alumna Mildred Morris, helped by their friend Beatrice Wigmore. In addition to tea and light lunches, The Copper Kettle sold Japanese and Chinese basketry and gift wares; by 1915 they were also marketing confections or candies that were sold along the Southern Pacific Railroad route. The building that housed The Copper Kettle was demolished in 1923.

The beginning of the tea room movement happened to coincide with the the postcard craze, which was in full flower from 1905 until World War One. Even after postcards waned a bit in popularity during the 1920s, many tea rooms kept on printing the, as they had learned that illustrated mailing cards were an inexpensive way to boost their business.

Postcard stamps only cost one cent back then, so in some some tea rooms, when you sat down to order, a pre-stamped postcard showing the room in which you were seated accompanied the menu, and you were encouraged to write a message and mail it to a friend. Thus, today's postcard collectors find many tea room cards with messages on the back that read something like this:

Hello, Edith —
We found this wonderful
little place on the way
to the Falls — Maybe
you can come along next
time and we'll stop here
to eat. The view is lovely
and the food is great.
— Mabel

Contents

Dating Tea Room Postcards

New Tea Room, Second Floor, Kolb's German Tavern, New Orleans, Louisiana; postcard front; because the word "German" in American restaurant terminology was a signifier for "beer," this tea room is apparently a woman-safe dining space situated above a tavern in which alcohol was served before the passage of the Volstead Act; the potted plants ark it as an upscale establishment, probably photographed before World War One.
Hotel Jefferson Tea Room Saint Louis, Missouri, postcard front. The uniformed staff standing at attention behind the Chinese bamboo tables and chairs under a canopy of silk flowers in the form of dozens of blooming Chinese wistaria vines makes an unforgettable sight.
Alma's Tea Room, Intersection Route 3 and 38, Manchester, New Hampshire, postcard frontwhite border era. Seating capacity 250. Open the Year Around. Est. 1925. Alma M. Truesdale, Prop.
Day’s Ice Cream Garden Tea Room, Ocean Grove, New Jersey, postcard front, chrome era.
Blue Parrot Tea Room Foyer, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, postcard front, linen era.
M and O Tea Room and Wishing Well, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Blanche Moffett, proprietor 1949, postcard front, linen era.
The Sun Parlor Tea Room at the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), Dallas, Texas, circa 1920; postcard front, white border era. Note the open-weave rattan furnishings, which are similar to those found in the 1909 view of the Copper Kettle Tea Room in Los Angeles, California. The presence of a bed in the middle of a tea room is unique to this photo; the implication is that it was placed there for the use of someone in the YWCA who was infirm but was still considered a member of the tea room's social set.
Crawfordsburn Tea Room, Crawfordsburn, Northern Ireland, 1890s, albumen print.

On this site you will find many, many interior and exterior views of quaint, old-fashioned tea rooms, as well as the backs of cards, some with messages and some simply indicating the name of the printer or additional information about the tea room. A few of them are photographic prints, but most take the form of postcards.

Dating postcards can be a little tricky. There are four basic ways to date a card, and before i turn you loose with the list of the tea room images archived here, i would like to introduce you to some postcard dating techniques:.

Dating Postcards by Era of Manufacture

  • Pioneer Era (1893-1898): These are the earliest known postcards. They do not contain images.
  • Private Mailing Card Era (1898-1901): The phrase "Private Mailing Card" was required to be printed on any card that was not produced by the United States Post Office.
  • Undivided Back Era (1901-1907): These cards have the word Post Card on the back, but only the address was allowed on the back, hence any message had to be written in the image area or outside, in the border area.
  • Real Photo Postcards or RPPC (1900 to present day): These are direct photographic prints made in a darkroom on a fairly heavy grade of photo paper. The back often will be marked with the brand-name of the paper. Most Real Photo cards are black-and-white, according to the availability of film in the early 20th century, although a colour photo could be developed on the same kind of heavy paper. Like any photograph, RPPCs are subject to fading in the sun and paper curl due to humidity or lack thereof. They should be digitized and stored flat, away from light. Because they are hand-made in a darkroom, RPPCs were ideal for sales to small businesses that could afford to pay for thousands of cards. During the height of the RPPC era, from 1900 to about 1940, local or wandering photographers would take business exterior and interior views "on spec" and try to sell the proprietor on buying a hundred or so cards. Very often on an RPPC, the name of the locations was written in the negative and appears as white lettering on the print. Because they continued to be made in small batches for so long, and could be reprinted at will, the fact that a tea room postcard is an RPPC does not provide a solid clue to the actual date of the photograph.
  • Divided Back Era (1907-1915): With the postcard craze in full swing, and collectors wanting un-defaced images, the USPO relented and allowed messages to be written on the left-hand side of the postcard back, as long as the address was written on the right-hand side. Some postcard fans ignored this rule and wrote straight across the back, and then put the card into an envelope to mail, in order to preserve it from cancellation mark smudges on the front side, which would ruin the image. Many view cards of this era were black and white photos that had been half-toned and overlaid with pastel colours of ink to give them the look of colour photography. The use of a loupe will help you distinguis an RPPC from a half-tone print.
  • Chromolitho Era (1905-1918): Chromolithography is a lamentedly lost technique for producing colour prints using fine-grained stones upon which the artist draws in grease pencil to create resists for colour ink lay. A good chromolitho or chromo, as they were called, might be comprised of as many as twelve colours of ink, in the form of tiny grains or dots, to craft the illusion of continuous tone blending. Rarely employed for view cards, chromolithography was used by artists to create topical cards. Topics included season's greetings, birthday wishes, and series of 6 or 12 cards on subject matter such as patriotism, cute animals, good luck, divination, and the like. For chromolitho cards about tea leaf reading, see the page on Fortune Telling Postcards by Fred C. Lounsbury
  • White Border Era (1915-1930): With colour printing of black-and-white photos becoming more common, a particular grade of smooth white index stock was selected, and most companies employed a white border around the edges of the image, for ease of trimming and to keep the presses cleaner. In other words, RPPCs and over-printed black-and-white or tinted images that had previously run as full bleeds, from edge to edge, now had white borders. As previously, these black and white photos were half-toned and overlaid with pastel colours of ink to give them the look of colour photography.
  • Linen Era (1930-1945): In 1930 a different kind of index stock was introduced, called Linen Finish or Linen, embossed with a pattern that resembled woven cloth. These postcards began as black-and-white photos but were artfully hand-retouched until the finished art was a work of radiant, harmonious colour. The outer borders were ivory in tone, to better set off the fabulous colouring jobs.
  • Photo-Chrome Era (1939 to present day): Chrome-Coat or Chrome index stock paper is used for printing colour photographs without artful retouching. The mid-century modern colours are often garish. 'Nuff said.

Dating Postcards by Copyright, Postal Code, Publisher, or Series Number

Postcard collectors long ago began indexing and dating cards by the presence of copyright dates, postal codes on addresses, publisher names and addresses, or series numbers. I could go into a lot of detail about such arcane matters, but on the presumption that you are here for the tea rooms, not for postcard collecting minutiae, i will just say that i have specialized in roadside and main street linens from Curt Teich since the 1960s, my mother built her own postcard site back in the 1990s which i have kept online since her death in 2005 (you can find it at [Liselotte Erlanger Glozer's Postcards]), and only good sense and courtesy prevent me from noting which RPPC tea room cards have AZO stamp boxes and which are DEFENDER or AGFA, and whether or not they have stars, triangles, or diamonds in the corners or above and below ... because all of that dating code data is available online already, and you are here for the tea rooms, okay?

Dating View Cards by Automobile Models and Signage

For those who know their car makes and models, dating exterior views of tea rooms and other small businesses is a cinch. I know enough to get the decade right; beyond that, i shall say no more. However, when it comes to signage, i am a demon, and i can often date an image by word-usage, logo-types, or techniques of sign-painting. Of course, as with autos, signs will only tell you the earliest date the image could have been photographed. Always remember that an old car or an old sign can be photographed years after having been created.

Dating Postcards by Back-of-Card Postmarks, Fontography, and Handwriting

The text on the back of a card — if it has any — will certainly provide a clue as to the decade, if not the year, of manufacture. Sho-card lettering, hand-inked deigns, and eccentric type mark the early era, after which we see regular serif type, followed by a mix of serif and sans-serif, and, finally, the domination of sans-serif. As for handwriting, that too changed over the decades, as methods of cursive writing were modified in the school systems. Of course, dating a person's handwriting by decade will only provide a clue as to when the writer was born, not when the card was written and mailed -- but although "Grandma" with 1890s cursive will look different than a "Grandma" with 1940s cursive, postmarks can only give us a "last date mailed," which is not the same as "date photographed." Despite this, a 1915 postmark on an otherwise undateable card at least gives us a clue as to the probable decade of manufacture. However, speaking as a postcard fanatic, i can tell you that back in the day when very few people were collecting linens and i could buy them for a nickel or a dime apiece, i sent hundreds, if not thousands, of them through the mail to my hippie friends. So if you find a linen on eBay with a note signed "cat" that was postmarked between 1964 and 1984, that was me, and i messed up your postmark dating system for you. Sorry 'bout that!

Tea Room Postcard Index

Read about Tea Room History here, and look for the places themselves alphabetically, by State or Nation in our Gallery.

Please note that as we build this site, not every state will have a tea room. Watch us grow!

Tea Rooms of the United States

Tea Rooms of the British Commonwealth

Tea Rooms of Europe

catherine yronwode
curator, historian, and docent
The Mystic Tea Room

See Also

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