Cultural Entomology from the Golden Age of Postcards

Behold, the humble picture postcard! Picture postcards were born in the nineteenth century from the influences of calling cards, trade cards, printing advancements, and postal reforms (Fig. 1). However, upon closer examination, the postcard is neither mundane nor lowly. Many of these old postcards were colorful (both figuratively and literally), and they featured nearly boundless subjects, including insects and related arthropods. Insects were illustrated on Victorian trade cards to attract attention (top right and bottom left) or to embellish calling card scenes (bottom right). The business postal card (top left) sent to American entomologist Charles H. Fernald in 1879 to acknowledge receipt for his subscription to Canadian Entomologist was slightly smaller than modern postcards. Although the first picture postcards recognizable to us became available in the 1890s, the Golden Age of the postcard is considered to extend from about 1890 to 1915 (Bassett 2016). During this time, print colors, subject material, and the sending and collecting of postcards reached a zenith. Billions of postcards were purchased and mailed during this Golden Age. In 1913 alone, the U.S. Postal Service recorded more than nine hundred million mailed postcards (Bassett 2016). Postcards had some advantages over letters (besides reduced postage rates). They provided a means of staying connected through just a few lines of writing, and the picture on the front added visual impact. Each card represented a vignette that connected the sender with the recipient. Today, nearly every antique shop or flea market and many online auction companies have old postcards in their inventories. As entomologists, the two of us were first drawn to insect-related postcards by amusement or curiosity, but we gradually realized that these old postcards were more than amusing pieces of musty paperboard. To us, the most captivating cards were not necessarily the pristine or unposted cards, but rather the postal-canceled and annotated cards that reflected the human–insect experience. Postcards with stamps angled at different degrees also revealed additional unwritten meanings and messages, and different countries published keys for interpreting this: a normally aligned stamp in the upper right corner could mean “Write soon.” An upside-down stamp could mean “I love you” or “I miss you” (Urbina 2005, Cochrane 2013). People selected, treasured, and saved these postcards in albums or bundled them away in hidden places. Postcards also provide a glimpse into how people not trained in entomology regarded insects. Even today, we are still amused by the depictions of insects and the individuals associated with them. It’s intriguing that more than a century ago, a segment of society was also captivated by insects. Postcards reflect a unique aspect of the confluence of insects and humans and highlight a distinct facet of cultural entomology, which is defined by Hogue (1980) as “the influence of insects (and other terrestrial Arthropoda, including arachnids, myriapods, etc.) in literature, languages, music, the arts, interpretive history, religion, and recreation.” Although a postcard was available for nearly every topic, display racks probably were not brimming with insect-related postcards during the Golden Age, and some insects and related subjects must have been more common than others. For example, butterflies commonly adorned many postcards, while others pictured flies (especially mosquitoes), beetles, bed bugs, fleas, and bees or wasps. Some postcards featured events and places related to insects or entomology. Unless the sender stated their reasons in a written message, we will never know why a certain postcard was chosen. The subject probably reflected a sender’s taste or experience, the addressee’s preferences, or a combination of both. The peculiar or odd postcards are possibly the more interesting ones, leading us to ask “Why would anyone ever send that?” Just asking this question led us to pursue this largely overlooked aspect of cultural entomology. During the Golden Age, standard postal stationery cards (Fig. 2) were often used for business or official matters. These cards generally included printed postage but no illustration, and some historians (e.g., Bogdan and Weseloh 2006) do not include them within the definition of a postcard. However, a seemingly unassuming postal card might convey potentially important contents. Leland Ossian Howard, better known as L. O. Howard, was chief of the USDA’s Bureau of Entomology when he received such a postcard from Theodore D. A. Cockerell in 1908. Cockerell was one of the most prolific taxonomists of the time, publishing nearly 4,000 scientific works and describing more than 9,000 species and genera (Weber 1965), in addition to writing more than 1,700 articles about topics such as education and political reform (Lewandowski 1991). True to form, Cockerell’s postcard focused on a potentially new species that he had considered describing. He told Howard that the scale insect “looks new, judging from superficial appearances.” Because Cockerell “took a week from illness,” he thought it best to send the specimens to Howard and told him to keep them for the collection. Typical of federal bureaucracy, Howard (or perhaps his staff) stamped the card as “RECEIVED.” Twenty-seven days later, someone stamped the card as “ANSWERED BY LETTER” and tucked it into the USDA’s correspondence file. Though it is not adorned with the colorful imagery of the picture postcards, this card does give a unique glimpse into both entomology and government officialdom during this time. Today, we still value additions of species diversity to collections and the timestamps on our correspondence. This plain government postal card from 1908 records an exchange between L. O. Howard and T. D. A. Cockerell regarding a possible new species of scale insect and the deposition of specimens. From the USDA’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory correspondence file on T. D. A. Cockerell. In the early 1900s, Washington, DC, represented a confluence of government bureaucracy and politics, entomological research, and tourism. A visit to the attractions around the National Mall warranted the purchase of a picture postcard as a commemoration of the occasion or a reflection on the insects (Fig. 3, left). The entomology collections and research were kept in the buildings on the right-hand postcard in Fig. 3. When this postcard was sent in 1911, major changes to the National Mall had already made the card passé. The Smithsonian’s arthropod collections had been moved from the National Museum (now the Arts and Industry Building) to the newly opened National Museum of Natural History in 1910. The third floor of the Department of Agriculture building also held entomology collections and housed many of the early personalities of federal entomology, but it was razed in 1930 (Howard 1930). This single postcard reflects the long association between the Smithsonian Institution and U.S. Department of Agriculture and mirrors the close relationship among agencies, entomology, and the individuals associated with the science. The association was not lost on the postcard publisher or the person who purchased and sent the card. Some places were considered “awful for insects,” but other places were wonderful places for entomology. The postcard from Washington, DC, captured images of some of the buildings associated with entomological research and the national collections. Visiting Washington, DC, or any city in the early twentieth century, often involved lodging in a boarding house. Offerings of a room with a bed and meals (board), whether for one night or an extended time, were common. Unfortunately, cohabitating with insects in these establishments was also common. For the layperson, the term “bug” would suffice for almost any insect they encountered; boarding house “bugs” could include cockroaches, bed bugs, fleas, or lice. Period postcards jokingly drew parallels between lodging circumstances and the reason to visit (or leave) the city, illustrating lodgers with their insect cohabitants. One card shows a crew of insects equipped with boots, wash pails, cleaning brushes, and even a ladder to scale the bed (Fig. 4, right), offering a new interpretation of housekeeping. At the time, the slang term “big bugs” referred to important people, so a single postcard boasting about seeing “all the big bugs” (Fig. 4, left) could cover multiple aspects of a visitor’s experience. Boarding houses and “big bugs” were popular postcard subjects during the Golden Age. To the layperson, the use of the word “bug” was often befitting for any insect encountered. Even travelers who weren’t bitten or annoyed by the insects portrayed in boarding-house postcards might have been bitten or annoyed by insects in other locations. For many entomologists and kindred spirits, summer is a much-anticipated time for outdoor collecting and insect appreciation. However, other folks may not share this enthusiasm, especially if stinging, biting, or irritating insects are involved. Two postcards sent in 1905 (Fig. 5, right) and in 1906 (left) reflect this, using wordplay to underscore the fun, “swell” time everyone was having. There’s artistic license here, too—several “insects” have only four legs—yet there’s no doubt everyone is being attacked unmercifully. The insects are pictured as relentless assailants, and any chance that their victims will escape or manage to relax is unlikely. The sender of the 1906 card made their intent clear with the note that he or she “Was thinking of your first night at Maud’s.” Evidently, Maud’s place (and its associated insects and frog) left an impression. “Having a swell time” could have a double meaning. More than a century ago, people were no less busy than we feel today. The postcard in Fig. 6 sarcastically echoes those busy times with a timeless caption and a disturbing illustration. We haven’t decided whether the fellow is grimacing or smiling at the cloud of mosquitoes surrounding his head, and we also wonder about that trolley car in the background. Has he been dropped off, or is he running away from it, or is he the conductor, in need of a break from his busy schedule? What’s really disturbing is the message on the reverse of the 1910 postcard, in which the writer mentions a visitor and declares, “will have fly soup for dinner.” Perhaps he or she was too busy to keep the flies out of the soup. Regardless, it is a poignant statement from a time when Howard (1909) was warning about the prevalence of filth fly populations and their ramifications for public health. The illustrations on picture postcards highlighted the written message. There’s little doubt this person (and the insects) were busy. The insect net is one of the most recognizable and serious tools for collecting insects. However, on a postcard, a net was sometimes a prop that underscored eccentricities. In 1906, G. Peterson sent a postcard to W. E. Henry (Fig. 7, left). The message highlighted some event in September of that year that involved “catching butterflys [sic] for Louie crazy Louie.” A postscript (“Is it a swallow-tail affair?”) was also printed on the card. The phrase “swallow-tail affair” referred to a formal occasion, specifically one at which gentlemen would be expected to wear coats with long tails. Though the term is seldom used today, attending swallow-tail affairs might have been more common in 1906, and the visual pun would have been immediately understood. Butterflies and the insect net were symbols that emphasized eccentricities. Even today, entomologists sometimes contend with the idea of appearing unconventional in the public eye. Long before digital image manipulation, artists created special effects by hand, as shown on the postcard in Fig. 7 (right). It combines photographic elements (a female butterfly hunter) with a painted-in background, a retouched insect net, and hand-drawn “butterflies” with the heads of human men. Its postage stamp, bearing the Russian coat of arms, has a cancellation date of 1906. This tinted card is historically interesting because it depicts a woman in the entomological collecting gear and garb of the time. In addition to her net, she has a collecting bag attached to her belt. Such depictions are uncommon on postcards. The strange imagery of the mustachioed butterfly men conveys an old trope: this woman is hunting for a husband. She is certainly focused on the blue-winged butterfly with the Tyrolean hat—maybe that’s how we all look when we’re about to net a trophy specimen. A translation of the card’s inscription might have revealed more of its intended meaning, but the cursive writing made this difficult. Some postcards are hard to interpret, but others can be interpreted as nothing less than bizarre. An example is the 1908 postcard in Fig. 8 (top), which leads us to more questions than answers. Why are those babies seesawing with a beetle? And why are those butterflies hovering above? What does all this mean? Perhaps the butterflies are encouraging the beetle, or possibly they’re getting ready to land on the seesaw. We think the 1908 postmark may provide an explanation: The beetle represents the “1” in 1908, the three butterflies roughly outline a “9,” the crosscut log is a “0,” and the eight babies represent the “8.” Voilà, 1908! (Sometimes interpretation requires imagination.) Some postcards from the Golden Age defy explanation. The associated message provides little help as to what it all means. A Valentine’s Day postcard for some could involve arthropods or arthropod-like symbols and creatures. One example postmarked on 13 February 1907 (Fig. 8, bottom) features winged, heart-faced characters being caught in a spiderweb. At the web’s center is a sketchy, heart-faced male character, waiting to entrap a female heart-faced character with stylized insect wings. 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