{"id":2427101,"date":"2026-05-21T21:51:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2427101"},"modified":"2026-05-21T21:51:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T21:51:38","slug":"colorful-greetings-from-postcards-reflected-american-innovation-idealism-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/colorful-greetings-from-postcards-reflected-american-innovation-idealism-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorful ‘Greetings from’ postcards reflected American innovation, idealism | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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CONCORD, N.H. (AP) \u2014 Greetings from Concord, New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Postcards emblazoned with \u201cGreetings from\u201d a state, city or tourist attraction advertise more than just the tiny scenes squeezed into 3D letters. They also reflect American innovation and idealism in both their production and popularity.<\/p>\n

So-called large-letter postcards weren\u2019t new when a German immigrant named Curt Teich began producing colorful linen-textured versions in the early 1930s, but he \u201cwas kind of a genius,\u201d said Will Hansen, curator of Americana at the Newberry Library<\/a> in Chicago, home to largest public collection of Teich postcards in the United States.<\/p>\n

Just as Henry Ford revolutionized automobile production, Teich\u2019s company perfected a system of mass producing large-letter postcards based on the idea that no town was too small to include.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody had really pulled together the idea that we should just do these for everywhere, and that\u2019s kind of a quintessentially American thing,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cYou take an idea, and you perfect it and you replicate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The postcards\u2019 popularity in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was fueled by an obsession with the automobile and the adventure of road travel. Teich and his imitators used saturated colors and simplified scenes to paint an enticing view of mid-20th-century America.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very optimistic-looking,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cThat is sort of in tandem with how Americans are thinking about America at that time \u2014 that this is a country on an upward trajectory, that we have more money to spend, that we\u2019re able to travel freely in ways we couldn\u2019t before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Meggison, a 76-year-old retired community college professor in Westport, Massachusetts, has 10,000 large-letter postcards in his private collection. His favorites include cards depicting his hometown of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and one from Saugatuck, Michigan, that features a vibrant artist\u2019s palette as the background.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s the graphics that appeal to a lot of people, and they really do represent mid-20th century America, which is really quite nice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For non-collectors, sending the postcards to friends and family was an inexpensive way to show off their travel. Today, travelers pose in front of murals around the country that mimic the vintage postcards and share photos on social media. Last year, the Newberry helped The Eagles create a background of gigantic postcard images at the Sphere in Las Vegas for the classic rock band\u2019s performance of \u201cTake it Easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Says Hansen: \u201cEven if folks in that crowd weren\u2019t alive at the time when these were being distributed, everybody knows them.”<\/p>\n\n

Part of a recurring series, \u201cAmerican Objects,\u201d marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more stories on the anniversary, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) \u2014 Greetings from Concord, New Hampshire. Postcards emblazoned with \u201cGreetings from\u201d a state, city or tourist attraction advertise more than just the tiny scenes squeezed into 3D letters. They also reflect American innovation and idealism in both their production and popularity. So-called large-letter postcards weren\u2019t new when a German immigrant named Curt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2427103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[413499],"class_list":["post-2427101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-ap-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Colorful-Greetings-from-postcards-reflected-American-innovation-idealism-Entertainment.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2427101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2427104,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2427101\/revisions\/2427104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2427103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2427101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2427101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2427101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}