The Picture Postcard A New Window Into Edwardian Ireland

"The Picture Postcard, a new window into Edwardian Ireland uses the material culture of the picture postcard as a lens through which to examine life on the island of Ireland during the Edwardian period (1902-10). Picture postcards became extremely popular worldwide at the start of the twentieth century, when literally hundreds of billions of them were produced and sold. People collected and gifted them because they were visually attractive, cheap and accessible, and they also used them for all sorts of fast and convenient communication. In Ireland, as elsewhere, they became ubiquitous and unavoidable, and were consumed and used by all sorts of people, even those who did not engage with other media. A large part of their appeal was that they allowed individuals for the first time to customize ready-made and constantly updated imagery and text with their own messages, in ways similar to current communications via social media. This book uses postcard collections to access the everyday lives of people who rarely make it into conventional historical narratives, and to make connections in an Irish context between their 'small histories' and broader, well-studied discourses such as identity, nationalism, empire, modernity, emigration, tourism and the roles of women"--