More on Old Photographs

Yesterday I posted a few old pictures that I have of my relatives from the early 1900s. What is interesting about these old pictures is that they are so well preserved. I just wanted to share a couple of examples of how they printed pictures then.

The top picture is one of my great-grandma's 6 month pictures from September 1912. As you can see, it is printed on a type of hard decorative cardboard. I have 3 pictures that are printed this way and they are all in much better condition that the ones that are printed on paper. It was common in the early 1900s for people to have formal portraits and such printed on this hard board in order to preserve it.

Another thing that they did was print photographs as postcards so that they could then mail the picture to family or friends easily. Above you can see another picture of my great-grandma (Mary Rosalia Lytle) as a baby with her dad. It was printed on the front of a postcard. You can see the back above. My great-grandmother's mom, Florence, mailed the card to her sister Mary on June 12, 1912. The inscription reads, "Just a glimpse of "Dad" and Mary Jr. --Flor."