This Patriographic card was published in 1897 by the American Souvenir Card Co. and is among the earliest cards printed that depict Washingtons government buildings. The White House soon became the most popular subject. Shown here is the White House, sharing space with statues honoring Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont and General Winfield Scott Hancock. Behind the Hancock statue is the National Bank of Washington and the Apex Building facing 7th Street, N.W.

That white space at the lower right was all the sender had to document their travel adventures. This card falls into the category of what deltiologists (collectors who study postcards; from the Greek word deletion meaning writing tablet) called the Pioneer Era (1893-1898).

Continued confusion in the publics mind over the disparity between one-cent postage for government-issued cards and two-cents for privately printed cards necessitated an act of Congress on May 19, 1898. This act granted private publishers the right to print and sell cards that bore the inscription Private Mailing Card. These cards could be mailed for one cent, but messages still had to be confined to the image side. Called PMCs by collectors, these cards fall into the Private Mailing Card Era (1898-1901). This finely rendered view of the McKinley White House North Portico was published by Mrs. Howard Gray Douglas of Washington, D.C. and printed by the Photo Electric Engraving Co. of New York.

Fast forward three and a half years to December 4, 1901, when the government granted the right to private printers to use the term Post Card. This marked the introduction of the Post Card Era (1901-1907), yet writing was still not permitted on the address side. This Sol Art Prints post card was published by the Rotograph Co. of New York City and printed in Germany, whose printers were far ahead those in the U.S. when it came to the lithographic process of printing. Titled Presidents Private Telephone & Telegraph Bureau, White House, plenty of space is set aside the image for a message.

Finally, on March 1, 1907, the post card floodgates burst wide open with the Divided Back Era (1907-1914). From that date on, senders of post cards could pen their messages on the address side, conveniently separated by a vertical line. In 1913 more than one billion post cards were delivered by the Post Office ten times the population of the U.S.

This amazing post card depicts American pioneer Ezra Meekers (1830-1928) visit to the White House on November 29, 1907. Meeker had traveled the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon as a young man. Convinced that the Trails history would be forgotten, Meeker retraced its route initially from 1906-1908 as part of his effort to construct monuments marking the trail.

From 1930-1944 the Linen Era evolved, with new printing processes that allowed post cards to be printed on high rag content paper that featured a linen-like texture. This 1933 moonlit view of the North Portico is an example the Art Colortone by the linen eras most prolific printer, Curteich of Chicago. The post card was sent by a Washington, D.C. member of Esters View Card Club in 1943 to a collector in Lynn, Massachusetts.

The items displayed here are but a small sample of hundreds of Washington, D.C. post cards housed in the D.C. Public Librarys Washingtoniana Division, 901 G Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. A finding aid is available at http://www.h-net.org/~dclist/P30Postcards.pdf.