The item is a card from Washington DC to Washington state. It is a postcard sent from Mrs. J.C. Cotton and it is dated 1908. In other words, it is over 100 years old. It has no address on it, or at least the current form of address. Instead, it just has the plain place of the location. The postcard has pictures from four national sites, including Pennsylvania Avenue, the Congressional Library and the Rotunda Library of Congress.
Its purpose was to send a greeting to a friend in another state or perhaps to welcome someone to a state. It was also to show a family member where a person is located and what the place is like. In an age before e-mail, quick pictures or easy phone access, the postcard was how people communicated.
The handwriting has really changed since then. People wrote in a style that was nicer back then. We've kind of lost that over the years. It was an artform, I guess. The ink for the stamps have changed and so has the way that we write our addresses. It reminds us that we used to know the people in a town and that now we need a big organizational system to replace the personal side. The cars in the picture have changed and so have the outfits. Finally, the whole concept of sending a postcard now seems a little outdated in an era of cell phones, text message, e-mail and myspace.
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