Picture Postcard

Dr Ann Wilson lectures in visual culture and photography history in the Media Communications department in the Munster Technological University in Cork. Her research mainly focuses on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century visual and material culture in Ireland.

• Contents: Edwardian Ireland and the picture postcard craze: Responses, debates and anxieties – Collections, collectors and collecting – Postcards: A medium of private and public communication – Irish identity: Empire, modernity and revival – Ireland and the wider world: Travel, emigration and tourism – A suitable hobby for young ladies: Postcards and women’s lives in Edwardian Ireland.

«This is a strikingly original, absorbing and evocative account of a neglected aspect of life in early twentieth century Ireland. In vividly portraying the impact of picture postcards, Ann Wilson has done justice to a communications revolution that revealed so much about identity, consumption, the status of women, religion, humour, politics, social anxieties and networks, celebrity culture, travel, emigration and tourism. Here we have on display the various Irelands, sometimes contradictory, that were constructed during the Edwardian era through postcard imagery.»(Diarmaid Ferriter, Professor of Modern History, University College Dublin)«A fresh, lively, and beautifully illustrated investigation of the culture of «picture postcards» and their circulation in early 20th century Ireland. Wilson convincingly argues how these supposedly «ephemeral» objects are anything but: mining a rich (but previously untapped) vein of social history, she explores postcards’ relationship to Irish identity, gender, consumption, and class in this fascinating and intelligent account.»(Emily Mark-FitzGerald, Head of School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College Dublin)