Postcard-menu combinations by John Sayers

Not only is John Sayers giving his collection to the Bodleian Library, but each tranche of his donation is accompanied by articles on specific types of ephemera or individual items. His notes on menus attached to postcards provide fascinating insights into a little-known genre of ephemera.

Dinner menu 2nd class. White Star Line Steamer Baltic, Aug 22, 1910
Dinner menu 2nd class. White Star Line Steamer Baltic, Aug 22, 1910

It is relatively easy to find menu postcards from shipping lines – a brilliant marketing concept in which the traveler is given a menu and on the back is the address side of a postcard. On ships, these were generally for the lower classes of passengers.

If you travelled on the Baltic of the White Star Line on August 22, 1910 (PM80A) your Second Class Dinner Menu would offer you the challenge of making decisions regarding Kidney Soup; Hake with Parsley Sauce; Beefsteak Pie; or Roast Mutton. To the collector with a developed sense of culinary delights, the offerings in this menu may not be very impressive. No caviar. No smoked salmon. No lobster. No elegant pâté. And no hint of foie gras.

Those highlights certainly appeared on menus of those travelling in First (a.k.a. Saloon or Cabin) Class. However, to put the situation into context, if you were migrating to North America from crop failures in Europe, potato famine in Ireland, or subsistence living in a large British city, these menus would seem like a king’s feast.

The back of this card carries the announcement that “The Largest Steamers in the World” are being built, and refers specifically to Olympic and Titanic “Each 45,000 tons”. Yes there was room for a brief message, but the primary objective was to promote the line and its services, while presenting the menu for the meal.

Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen
Norddeutscher Lloyd  Bremen

For several years I was attracted at postcard shows by beautiful artist-drawn cards of the North German Lloyd shipping line (PM80B) and the Red Star Line, with the name of a ship and a date in the early 1900s. Being an ocean liner collector I bought them, but couldn’t solve the puzzle of why the shipping line would have put a date on them. The name of the ship – yes. The date that the card was obtained – no, why would they do that?

The problem was solved after many years when my wife, Judith, and I found three postcards with menus attached below them at a vintage paper display at the vast antiques fair in Brimfield, Massachusetts. These were from the Red Star Line, a creator of some beautiful cards a century ago. At the top – a detachable postcard. Below – the menu for a meal on a particular date on board the ship.

With this format, the two worlds came together. Since then we have found more menu/postcard combinations of the Red Star Line, plus White Star, Cunard, North German Lloyd, NYK, and some minor lines. These are not common. When one has found only some 70 examples in 40 years of collecting, while searching at fairs in Canada, the U.S.A. and the U.K., it is reasonable to say that they are scarce

For the shipping collector, the synergies are blatantly obvious. But why collect these as a postcard collector? First, they represent the way that the postcards first appeared – attached to a menu. Second, they establish the place where the postcards were acquired – a dining room on a particular date on a specific ship. How many postcards (artist-drawn, shipping, or otherwise) provide this type of provenance unless they have been posted and have a clear cancellation?

S.S. Point Bonita, Christmas dinner menu, 1920
S.S. Point Bonita, Christmas dinner menu, 1920

Finally, and in many ways the most important feature, the combination shows that the postcard alone is in some cases missing a significant part of the artwork’s image. The most extreme example is a 1920 Xmas Dinner card and menu of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (PM80C).

When you look at the illustration, you can see that having the postcard alone would tell only part of the artist’s story. The beautiful garden would be cut off, the lower Geisha girl would be chopped in half, and the balance of the picture – the entire effect of the garden trailing into the shipping line logo – would be missing. Who would want an artist-drawn card with a piece of the artwork missing?

For the ephemera enthusiast, these have the delight of carrying the menu for a meal on board ship, with the specificity of the date and the name of the ship, and in many instances excellent artwork, signed in many cases by the artist such as Cassiers working for the Red Star Line and Tivo for the North German Lloyd.

Of course, you wouldn’t know that you were missing part of the image. If you weren’t alerted before you read this report, you now know to scrutinize postcards for: (i) the name of the ship and a date printed in black; (ii) an image that seems to have been cut off (i.e. it looks like it might bleed beyond the lower edge of the card); and (iii) the lower edge of the card is not clean-cut (these cards were generally perforated or otherwise scored, and detaching them would not have left a clean edge). You may also find that the card is smaller than the normal card size, where the perforations did not hit the right place on the initial sheet.

We haven’t found many of these at postcard shows. Our experience shows that you are much more likely to find them at an ephemera fair, categorized under ‘Menus’. It makes some sense, because a postcard dealer offers postcard collections, generally coming from an estate. His or her protective sleeves and display boxes are designed for the dimensions of postcards, and these postcard/menu combinations do not fit into a conventional postcard display.

A first-cousin, as it were, to these postcard/menu combinations is a full-page menu designed so that it can be folded in three panels with space on the back for an addressee on one panel, and room for a brief letter on the other panels. This format is represented in the President Jackson and President Wilson examples in PM 78 and PM79. There are other examples elsewhere in the Collection, notably in the menus of the NYK Line of Japan, contained in that section.

This style of menu and message combination appears to be confined to the Pacific Ocean passenger liner fleets of both Japan and the United States. As with the postcard variety, the objectives of the shipping line were to facilitate the passenger sending messages about his or her trip, to give those passengers an activity for their spare time during the long voyage, and most importantly to promote the shipping line and whet the recipients’ appetites for ocean travel.

These postcard and letter card variants might not appeal to a narrowly-focused postcard collector. That postcard collector would face the prospect of having to acquire A4 or 8 ½ x 11-inch acid-free sleeves and put these trophies in a separate 3-ring binder as Menu Cards, or merge them in the same type of sleeve in the body of a Menu collection. From personal experience, postcard/menu combinations in a dedicated binder could be fairly sparse for the first 20 or so years!

 

John Sayers

November, 2015

The Sayers Collection of Ocean Liner Ephemera: an interview with the collector

We are delighted to announce a major donation of Ocean Liner ephemera: the Sayers Collection.  To launch it, we interviewed the collector & donor: John Sayers, seen here with his very supportive wife, Judith, on the roof terrace of the Weston Library.

Photograph of John and Judith Sayers
John and Judith Sayers

What sparked your interest in ocean liners and, in particular, the ephemera relating to them?

A combination of personal recollection and a lifelong interest in history. The personal recollection dates back to travelling with my parents on the RMS Queen Elizabeth; the interest was sharpened by my history major in university and in particular a fascination with both design and social history.   

How (and with what items) did your collection begin?

I began with enamel souvenir lapel pins, like the one that I brought back to Canada in 1954 as an RMS Queen Elizabeth souvenir gift for my late aunt Beth (you know, the maiden aunt who has everything!). That interest expanded to other three-dimensional objects with enamelling. That focus was then enlarged by the first foray into ephemera, to reminisce about meals on board [Figure #1], baggage labels [Figure #2], and all the other printed reminders of life on a great ship. However, I discovered such a broad information landscape in ephemera that I eventually divested my three-dimensional objects to become completely immersed in ephemera.

Cunard children's menu cover
Figure 1

 

White Star Baggage Label
Figure 2

 

 

 

 

 

What did you aim to achieve through the collection?  Has that aim changed?

In terms of ephemera, the objective was to provide a record of what took place on board a ship; what happened beforehand to plan the trip; and any effects afterward where there is a relevant follow-up experience.

The change of the aim occurred when I discovered that there was a further enlargement to my scope. The scope had originally been established as North Atlantic steamships. However, I came to realize that those that plied the South Atlantic were also interesting and relevant. Then I discovered Pacific Ocean shipping.

Fushima menu cover
Figure 3
SS Manchuria Passenger List cover
Figure 4

Part of the attraction was the beautiful artwork on the Japanese NYK Line ephemera [Figure #3], and the equally attractive designs produced by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company [Figure #4] and the Dollar Line. I believe that the way to describe this phenomenon is ‘topic creep’.   

 

 

 

 

How has the collection evolved?

As well as the directions I have already mentioned, the collection has gained a greater reflection of social history and business elements. As with most collections that have evolved over 40+ years, there has been an increasing appreciation of the nuances. 

Gallipoli tour 1936 brochure cover
Figure 5

For example, as well as First War Hospital Ships that served during the campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean, there was a Cunard tour in 1935 to Gallipoli, advertised in a Cunard promotional booklet, to revisit the terrain and the landmarks of the First War [Figure #5]. I would guess that the primary participants in the tour would have been the next of kin of those that did not come back alive, but one speculates on the motivations of those who sailed in 1936 on that Cunarder. A similar event occurred in 1936 with the pilgrimage of over 5,000 people from Canada to attend the unveiling of the Vimy Memorial.

Are you still collecting?

Yes. Passionately. I have described my collection as a pointillist painting, that continues to need more ‘dots’ to add to the clarity of the image.

What are your favourite items?

Shipping ephemera with a tinge of social or design elements. For example, I recently acquired a Real Photo postcard captioned “On Board SS Grantully Castle en route to Capetown, 27.6.14” [Fig #6]. The beginning of the First War was only two months away. The young children pictured in the deck scene would not have been directly affected, but their fathers, if not already in the military, would certainly soon have been.    

Postcard of SS Grantully Casstle
Figure 6

What insights into social history does this material offer?

The material in the Sayers Collection touches upon issues such as; class differences; matters relating to the status of women; the struggles of immigrants; the habit of smoking; the treatment of children; racial stereotypes; and troopship life in both World Wars.

Specifically, the frustrations of women and the tinder for the sparks for the women’s rights movement are quite evident in some material. For example, a 1930s postcard image of a Smoking Room among the 100 or so of them in my collection was later displaced by an identical image on a card written by a woman bemoaning the fact that she is not allowed into this men’s domain.

What inspired you to donate your collection to the John Johnson Collection in the Bodleian Library?

We have been supporters of the John Johnson Collection for over a decade and during that time we have come to appreciate the professionalism applied to the Collection and their broad appreciation of ephemera. An emotional reason is my British parentage and the massive role that Britain has played in global shipbuilding and shipping operations over the years.

The Sayers Collection reflects the role of Britain as a major influence in global shipping operations, whether it be as the builder of Canadian Pacific’s 1930s premier liner, the RMS Empress of Britain [Figure #7]; as the operator of ships such as Cunard’s RMS Berengaria, originally the German liner Imperator, seized as war reparations after the First War [Figure #8]; or as a major global competitor to shipping companies of several other nations (whose ephemera is also well represented in the Collection for purposes of comparison).    

Empress of Britain brochure cover
Figure 7

This collection will add extensively to the ocean liner material collected by John Johnson, to provide many more opportunities for study and research.

Dining room of Beregaria
Figure 8

 

 

 

 

 

How do you hope that future users/scholars will explore your collection?

For the design, business, history, or social history scholar, whatever their thesis, there is a good possibility that material in the collection will provide a valuable resource. Alternatively, the material may trigger a line of study for those seeking a fresh avenue to pursue.  

Cover of Cunard 1876 brochure
Figure 9

There are opportunities for study and research on many planes. As a Chartered Accountant, I can appreciate the opportunities to study the various business aspects of the industry, ranging from advertising and promotion (an elaborate 1876 Cunard commemorative book appears to represent one of the earliest examples of modern-day ‘co-operative advertising’) [Figure #9], to the costs of menu offerings over many decades. In regard to the latter, did costs increase using constant dollars, and did they reflect the same percentage of passage charges? What culinary offerings have been added and deleted over the years? Why?

It would be useful if at some stage all the Passenger Lists could be digitized and made searchable. As well as the Cunard ones already delivered to Oxford, there are more to follow from other lines. The end result would be a useful database for genealogists, students of patterns of military deployment, celebrity hunters (at one time they all had to travel by sea!), industrialists, and the frequency of the use of servants, to name a few topics.      

What advice would you give people starting a collection today?

Collect something that has meaning for you. And make sure that you collect ephemera! The great delight of ephemera is that the universe is not defined, so (unlike postage stamps or cigarette cards, for example) you never know what you are going to find that illuminates your knowledge or memories of a particular topic. When a collector describes an acquisition as something that ‘speaks to me’ he or she is describing the impact that the piece has upon their memories or their knowledge. I never purchase anything on line. I have to see it. That means going to postcard and ephemera fairs, which my wife, Judith, and I enjoy immensely.

Cover of White Star Menu Homeric 1934
Figure 10

Don’t feel that every specimen has to be many years old. All ephemera was new once! I like the 1920s and 1930s, and objects of that period such as menus [Figure #10] do not have to cost a fortune, while often providing fascinating cover artwork and food choices inside. Whether your interest is fashion, food, design, autos, ships, planes, social history – or even your local city or town – there is material out there to stimulate your interest.  

Sorting the Lennox-Boyd Collection

Trade card for Bourn, goldsmith Lennox Boyd Collection
Trade card for Bourn, goldsmith
Lennox Boyd Collection

The Lennox-Boyd Collection (of printed ephemera) was accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by H M Government from the estate of the Hon. Christopher Lennox-Boyd and allocated to the Bodleian Library in 2015.  Christopher Lennox-Boyd (1941-2012) was an antiquarian scholar and an avid collector, most notably of mezzotints,  but also of ephemera, fans, picture frames and much else. He owned Sanders (the antique print shop) in the High Street, Oxford.

The ephemera collection arrived in 61 boxes (some very large) and bags. CLB had begun to sort some sections but a great deal of the ephemera remained unsorted, often still in dealers’ bags. (although provenance of individual items is not documented).  It is, therefore, a delightful and privileged voyage of discovery – a rare opportunity to discover a private collection.  My trusty team of volunteers and I are currently undertaking an initial sort, and are turning up all sorts of gems.

The material is more varied than I had realised and our list of categories now numbers over 30.  The meat of the collection, however, is in the trade cards, bill headings and note headings. There is a substantial corpus of material relating to hotels.

Bill Heading for Lamplighter, 1773
Bill Heading for Lamplighter, 1773

The smaller, but choice, Ceremonial and Funeralia sections have already been sorted by our History graduate student, Leea.

Coronation ticket, 1761
Coronation ticket, 1761

Another volunteer is cataloguing a small collection of Bookplates.

An index will be produced in due course, and it is hoped also to catalogue the trade cards, which complement those already catalogued and digitised in the John Johnson Collection.  Meanwhile, the focus is on appropriate housing for the collection – in the system of Conservation-quality ring binders with melinex pages begun by Christopher Lennox-Boyd.  We were fortunate to raise money for this at Duke Humfrey’s Night 2015 (item 37).

We will post about the collection from time to time, but here are some items which have caught our attention as we sort:

Visiting card for Marwood, executioner. Lennox Boyd Collection
Visiting card for Marwood, executioner. Lennox Boyd Collection

First an Executioner’s trade or visiting card – the first I have seen. An unassuming item, it is attached to an album page (sadly all that we have) with images of crimals or suspected criminals, two of whom (Peace & Lefroy) are among the 176 people he executed. William Marwood merits his own Wikipedia article.  He developed the ‘long drop’ (more humane) method of hanging.

List of Bristol executions, c. 1829
List of Bristol executions, c. 1829

While on the subject of crime, this handbill listing  hangings in Bristol (42 in 89 years) forms a fascinating overview of the application of the death penalty.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the humblest scraps of paper can prove fascinating, as is the case with this advertisement for the hire of umbrellas, to avoid the inconvenience of carrying them on dry days!

Letterpress advertisement for the hire of umbrellas
The London Umbrella Company advert (recto)
List of stations for the hire of umbrellas
The London Umbrella Company hire stations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the more unusual Lost notices I have seen is this one:

Lost notice, for Wooden leg and foot
Lost notice, for Wooden leg and foot

While most of the ephemera pre-dates chromolithography, volunteer Caroline was delighted to find this early 1900s novelty advertisement for Au Bon Marché.

Au Bon Marché ad: front
Au Bon Marché ad: front
Au Bon Marché: inside
Au Bon Marché: inside

 

 

 

 

 

 

Au Bon Marché ad: back
Au Bon Marché ad: back

Watch this space, as we uncover more treasures!  We will also post gems from the collection as we find them on our Instagram page.

 

 

 

Multi-tasking undertakers in trade cards

Trade card for Willm Boyce, coffinmaker
Trade Cards 28 (89)

Late 18th and early 19th century trade cards give us fascinating insights into undertaking. While there were dedicated undertakers, a startling number of tradesman undertook this role as a sideline to their main trades. Often these had an obvious relation to one of the multiple tasks of preparing a body for the grave (trunk makers, carpenters, drapers), administrating the wordly goods of the deceased (house appraisers, auctioneers), or equipping the mourners (drapers, hatters).

Trade Card for Willson, upholder, cabinet-maker, etc.
Trade Cards 4 (57)
Trade Card for J. & R. Shepherd, naval & military trunk makers
Trade Cards 28 (57)

 

 

 

 

 

Trade Card for Henry Slater, broker
Trade Cards 2 (54)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trade Card for Wilson, Venetian spring parlour
Trade Cards 29 (112)

There are some curious juxtapositions, however: Venetian blind makers, for example and brush manufacturers.

Trade Card for Joseph Seager, brush manufacturer
Trade Cards 4 (3)

 

 

 

 

 

Trade Card for William Castle, cabinet & chair manufactory
Trade Cards 4 (43)

More than one tradesman omits to mention undertaker on his trade card and adds it by hand.

 

 

 

Trade cards reveal much about funeral practices in the 18th and 19th century, not least through their imagery. Depictions of funeral processions, hearses, the apparel of horses and carriages, mutes, and coffins differ from other sources in that they do not record an actual event but rather encapsulate in the restrained medium of a small-format engraving the correct appartenances of a funeral.

Trade Card for Thomas Matcham , hearse & mourning coach maker
Trade Cards 28 (114)

 

 

Funerals, even of the less afluent, were elaborate in 18th and 19th century England and codes of mourning dress and etiquette were to be strictly observed.  Charles Dickens notably decried the pomp and circumstance (and attendant expense) of even humble funerals and the employment of paid mourners, notably in the form of ‘mutes’, who kept vigil outside the house of the deceased and then accompanied the coffin.   Oliver Twist is perhaps literature’s best-known mutes, during his apprenticeship to Mr Sowerberry.

Trade Card for J. Taylor, carpenter, joiner & undertaker
Trade Cards 28 (106)

Their dress was distinctive: dark clothes with a sash, top hat and a stave swathed in black crape, although white was used for the funeral of an infant.

Trade cards and bill headings which give prices for undertaking services are also invaluable to social historians. The example below gives extensive detail of the components of each of nine classes of funeral for adults and four for children (but alas is not dated).

Trade advertisement for Alfred Beckett, furnishing undertaker
Trade Cards 28 (88)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Trade cards (but not bill headings) in the John Johnson Collection are catalogued and digitised and can be accessed through our online catalogue. Undertakers as a primary trade are at shelfmark Trade Cards 28, but in order to find the multiplicity of cards which include undertaking, set the scrollbar to Subjects, Trades and Products in browse.

 

 

Shakespeare in the John Johnson Collection for scholars and dilettantes

The Bard immortalized in ephemera

Such is Shakespeare’s fame, that he has, inevitably, permeated the culture of our land. Quotations and misquotations from his works pepper advertisements from cosmetics to shoe polish, artificial teeth to linen mesh underwear. The Bard lent a certain gravitas.

Keen's mustard detail
Food 7 (38b) detail
Keen's mustard ad
Food 7 (38b)

Shakespeare’s portrait graced match boxes and cigar labels, and advertisements for (among others) soap, patent medicines, mustard & candles. In her excellent work Portraits of Shakespeare (Oxford, Bodleian Library, 2015) Katherine Duncan-Jones situates these humble ephemera as derivative of the Droeshout engraving or the Chandos portrait.

Shakespeare: Great English writers on candles
Oil and Candles 1 (57)

 

Shakespeare cigar lights
Labels 12 (43c)

 

Pears soap ad showing Shakespeare
Soap 7 (14)

 

 

 

Cellular cloth and clothing catalogue showing Shakespeare collar, 1892
Oxford Trade Pamphlets (7) p. 13

 

 

 

 

 

 

A women’s clothing company (The Shakespeare Manufacturing Company of  Manchester) took his name and a collar was called after Shakespeare.

Inevitably, many circulating libraries and bookshops bore his name or his portrait on their trade card.

Clubb & Greening trade card with Shakespeare portrait
Booktrade Trade Cards 4

 

 

 

 

Hodgson's New Characters in The Tempest Miniature Theatre sheet, 1823
Hodgson’s New Characters in The Tempest Miniature Theatre sheet, 1823

In our ProQuest project (free within the UK), in addition to advertisements, there are sheet music covers, minature theatre sheets, popular and humorous prints, scraps and prospectuses.

However, the major corpus of Shakespeare-related ephemera in the John Johnson Collection is theatrical, with over 2,000 playbills and programmes from London and provincial theatres fully indexed and digitised on our ProQuest site with some playbills from the end of the 18th century on DigitalBodleian.  These playbills constitute a major scholarly resource.

Mrs SIddons in Macbeth, April 14 1812
London Playbills Covent Garden vol. 1811-1812 (159), with Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth

Not only can researchers find details of which plays were performed, when and in which venue, but also who performed them, in whose edition and in what context. As all performers are indexed, scholars can find Sarah Siddons in Macbeth, John Kemble in Coriolanus, Edmund Kean in Richard III.

The couplings of Shakespeare tragedies with somewhat lighter works are alien to our current theatre-going practices and reveal much about the nature of an evening’s entertainment expected by Georgians, Victorians and Edwardians.  Inserted into these long evenings were songs, dances, ballets, burlettas, masquerades, etc.  Musicologists can search for specific pieces or composers of incidental music or discrete works.

In addition to resources available electronically, there are eight boxes and three folders of ephemera and secondary material relating to the Bard, including undigitised prospectuses of Shakespeare editions. The Shakespeare index is online.

Don’t forget to explore ballads relating to Shakespeare too: http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

Complex relationships: fathers and sons in postcards of the First World War: guest post by Leea Stroia

My thanks to Leea Stroia, graduate historian researching WW1, for writing a series of posts based on the John Fraser Collection of Propaganda Postcards, of which this is the first.

The John Fraser Collection of Propaganda Postcards includes many postcards of children engaged in various activities and filling various roles during the First World War. One common depiction of children on the postcards is in relation to adults, notably sons in relation to fathers. This relationship is revealed in three distinct ways.

WW1 postcard: England shall not ask in vain
John Fraser Collection GB5a (418)

First, boys are shown wishing to be like their fathers and go to war alongside them. While there are many postcards which encourage recruitment by using children, one way this is often done is through showing boys longing to be like their fathers, to join other men at the front and so to be men as well. This sends the message that manhood is achieved during the war by fighting. Masculinity is appealed to in the recruitment posters depicted on postcards by reminding men that their country asks for them to fight. There are many examples of boys looking at the posters with captions such as ‘England shall not ask in vain’.

WW1 postcard: I want to go with daddy
John Fraser Collection GB5 (387)

While the postcards highlighted patriotism for its own sake by depicting boys longing to answer their country’s call, they also encouraged patriotism by showing that joining up would lead to recognition. Therefore, one major incentive to joining war according to the postcards was to gain the admiration of one’s sons. Patriotism and the war effort are advertised in the postcards by showing the zeal of boys who wish they could go to war alongside their fathers.

 

WW1 postcard: I wonder if they'd take me!
John Fraser Collection GB5a (395)

While most show fighting fathers as examples for their sons, there are also several postcards with girls wishing to imitate their father and join up as well. These girls either wish to join and wonder if they can or are simply depicted in uniform.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WW1 postcard: A little soldier maid in France
John Fraser Collection GB5a (494)

The use of girls longing  to fight highlights both the masculine example of soldier fathers but also manipulates men slightly by suggesting that girls may be more manly and so men should prove their masculinity through joining up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WW1 postcard: I'm trying to fill a vacancy"
John Fraser Collection GB5 (100)

Second, boys are shown attempting to fill the empty place that their fathers’ joining up has left. This depiction of absence is done both humorously and seriously. The humorous postcards often depict boys performing tedious tasks, such as buttoning their mother’s many buttons. They depict unattractive or unhappy women with tired boys. The serious ones on the other hand generally have attractive albeit sad women and sad but hopeful boys.

WW1 postcard: Just as daddy used to do!
John Fraser Collection GB5 (158)

Many  postcards show little boys next to their grieving mothers trying to comfort them. The captions make very clear that the boys are trying to be men at home since all the adult, ‘real’ men have gone to fight. They commentate on the illustrations with sentences such as ‘Just as Daddy used to’.  Just as boys wished to be like their fathers and go to war, they also wished to fill the void their fathers have left behind and comfort their mothers.

 

WW1 postcard: Love to daddy
John Fraser Collection GB5a (185)

Third, boys are shown missing their fathers. The masculinity of the men fighting is only emphasised  and solidified by the fact that they are missed by their wives and sons. Boys are seen longingly looking into the distance while writing a letter to their father, women and sons write together, and poems on the postcards articulate that the soldiers are remembered and missed.

 

 

WW1 postcard: Fond thoughts of you
John Fraser Collection GB5a (194)

Often these postcards use sentimental photographs rather than cartoons. Some postcards have no images at all and instead have a letter to the father on the front with a space for a personal note on the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WW1 postcard: Writing a letter to daddy
John Fraser Collection GB5a (180)
WW1 postcard: I want to kiss daddy good-night
John Fraser Collection GB5a (183)

Postcards depicting mothers and daughters are subtly different, emphasising the void left by fathers as girls write to them and wish they could kiss them goodnight. However, these examples also solidify the need for the father’s absence through photographs of soldiers at the Front placed  in the corners of the postcards.  These different depictions of absence serve to solidify that the soldier is missed and thought of by those at home.

All these various cards use the relationships between fathers and sons (and daughters) to highlight the model of masculinity and encourage it. Masculinity during  the First World War related to war in propaganda. The true man was also a soldier. The true man was a model for his sons and was missed. The postcards supported and encouraged this patriotic, fighting masculinity by showing soldiers as fathers who were missed, admired, imitated, and loved.