Are postcard, which its origins?

Origins of the postcard

Small generally hard-bound sheet of rectangular form, the old postcards impassion thousands of cartophiles throughout the world. It remains also a means of correspondence very appreciated: more than 300 million specimens are sent in France each year! When the postcard was born and which are its origins?

What was there before the postcard?

One can easily go with Antiquity to find the first steps of the postcard, and more particularly back to the 4th millenium before Jesus-Christ. In Assyrie, clay shelves served as supports to transmit messages engraved by the scribes. Towards the end of the Rebirth, it is with the turn of the tickets of visit to circulate: these ancestors of the postcard took the shape of playing cards or charts of thanks.

The history of the postcard and the picture postcard collecting continues in Belgium. Starting from 1840, the charts printed in lithography become increasingly popular in this country and circulate by the post office by 1856. These last do not contain any personal message but are used as publicity for the tradesmen, the café owners or the musicians. Also called porcelain charts because of white lead which recover them, these charts will be prohibited in 1865 because of dangers caused by this white pigment.

Heinrich Von Stephan: a decisive role in the history of the postcard

Born in Prussia in 1831, Heinrich Von Stephan first of all worked as post-office employee before becoming chief executive officer of the stations of Reich. In 1865, it attends the conference of the German Association of the stations of Karlsruhe. It is there that he proposes to create a “hard-bound layer of correspondence” which would circulate with overdraft. No action pursuant is taken to its idea but this one remade surface in 1869.

Emanuel Herrmann, an Austrian economist, supports the proposal of Heinrich Von Stephan and manages to convince the Austrian postal administration of the interest of this hard-bound support called Correspondenzkarte. Thus, on October 1st, 1869 marks the emission of the first postcard. This one is of rectangular form, measurement 12cm X 8,5cm and transmits a message to overdraft. The postcard is an immediate success in Austria since 140,000 specimens were sold in a few months!

The postcard: an appearance in France in 1870

Although France and Great Britain express their mistrust as for the message discovered and the lack of discretion that generates, the rest of Europe is not long in being allured not the postcard! The latter appears in France in 1870: at this period, the town of Strasbourg is besieged by the German army of the general August Von Werder because of the war free-Prussian.

The committee of Strasbourg of the Company of help to the casualties wishes thus that the casualties, and more generally the of Strasbourg one, can speak to their family. This proposal is submitted to the general Von Werder who accepts in only one condition: the stamps being reproduced on the postcards must be Prussian stamps. These first charts forward thus by Switzerland before arriving to France in August 1870.

The term “postcard” really appears in France only in September 1870. Two years later, this means of correspondence is introduced in an official way into the country thanks to Louis Wolowski. The lawyer, economist and deputy French indeed propose a finance law which is adopted in December 1872. The first official postcards then make their appearance in the post offices in January 1873.