Postcards
Postcard Album of Mrs. Robert J. Cramer. Circa 1900-1908.
Unfortunately we know very little about Mrs. Robert J. Cramer, the donor of this postcard collection. She lived in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and saved the postcards she received from different cities of the United States. She assembled them in a “postcard album” which was later donated to the Lehigh University Libraries. The four postcards displayed here were sent to her from Atlantic City, New Jersey; Toledo, Ohio; Redondo, California; Birmingham, Alabama, circa 1905.
Common primary source materials for understanding the geographical, architectural, civic and social aspects of different places, postcards also provide today’s researchers with valuable historical and material culture evidence of the era in which they were produced and mailed. These postcards depict the panoramas of four unique American cities from the early 20th century.