How I Became a One-Way Pen Pal for Democracy

I Write Postcards to Try to Reform Ballot Scofflaws. All the While Wondering, Who Are These People Anyway?

Oh, you beautiful souls in Battle Creek, Michigan: the teacher, the pipelayer, the barista, the big-hearted tech at the vet’s office checking in a scared family’s pug. How I wish you would stop being an infrequent participant in our democracy and take the time to vote in the upcoming election.

Scratch that. I’m off script.

I became a one-way pen pal for democracy in 2018, writing letters and postcards to strangers in the lead-up to that year’s midterm elections.

I had spent the months before marching for women, science, immigrants, and Muslims. …

by Melissa Wall | September 4, 2024

In Praise of the Postcard

A Seemingly Obsolete Technology Invites Us to Ruminate on the Possibilities of the Past and the Future

by Frances Tanzer | February 2, 2023

The postcard selection on Vis, Croatia’s most remote island, was not terribly appealing. I considered a card adorned with a photograph of boats in the old harbor. Surely, I thought, …

The Postcards That Captured America’s Love for the Open Road

From Mid-Century Until Today, “Greetings From” Postcards Have Combined a ‘Fantastical View’ of the Country With Car Culture Obsession

by Anne Peck-Davis and Diane Lapis | November 20, 2018

The most prolific producer of the iconic 20th-century American travel postcard was a German-born printer, a man named Curt Teich, who immigrated to America in 1895. In 1931, Teich’s printing …

The Jersey Doctor Who Donated 29 Boxes of Postcards to the Smithsonian

His Hundreds of Thousands of Alluring Images Will Make You Wish You Were There

July 31, 2015

The postcard—dated February 7, 1940—shows an image of bright blue water, palm trees, and people lounging under umbrellas. A printed title rubs it in— “Enjoying Mid-Winter Bathing and Sunshine at …

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