Philippine Picture Postcards, 1900-1920

With an introduction by Felice Sta. Maria.

When the Americans came to the Philippines in 1898, they brought with them the fad for picture postcards which started in 1893 and was beginning to sweep Europe and America. Long before movies, television and universal telephone service, postcards were an inexpensive way for people to send a short message with a picture. Hundreds of thousands of cards of the Philippines were printed or made directly from photographs. Many of these were sent through the mails but possibly even more were kept as souvenirs and placed in albums. Fortunately, many of these have survived in collections around the world.

This book gives a short history of the years of Philippine picture postcards, and illustrates many of the finer ones. The author presents types of cards and a wide range of images from Luzon to Mindanao, beyond being a simple history of early postcards and gives the reader a fascinating portrait of the Philippines during the first two decades of the century. It offers us a visual memory of a time which still retained much of the charm of the nineteenth century but was rapidly transformed by political change and the advent of the modern era. -- Gallery of Prints