![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838081/titleImage.png)
Brian Capouch
The Big Picture
- Continuous-tone images "know" much more than is easily seen
- Real picture postcards (RPPC) capture valuable historical detail
- Digitizing RPPCs is easy, and has manifold benefits
- Chicago's Charles R. Childs was a picture-postcard pioneer
- Non-RPPC images have their place, too
Here's hoping the images are big enough and clear enough!!!
I. About continuous-tone images
Continuous tone
- Similar to grayscale; colors vary continuously
- One color shades gradually into another with no gaps
- There may be hundreds of shades in a single square inch
- Such images capture enormous detail
- Old-fashioned film pictures are continuous-tone
Halftone
- Printing presses can only print one color at a time!!
- It's easy to fool the human eye
- AT A DISTANCE!!
- Halftones represent a tradeoff
- Consist of many dots of a single color
- Dot sizes vary--the bigger the dot the darker the shade
- The dots blur to simulate a continuous-tone image
- AT A DISTANCE!!
e.g.
Continuous-tone postcard by ML Photo
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6841718/gangwerCloseUp.png)
Halftone postcard, S.D. Kropp, Milwaukee
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6840444/windowsHalftone.png)
Continuous tone imaging is the "secret sauce" in the RPPC
II. RPPCs hold a lot of information
Some important dates
- 1893: Postcards introduced at Columbian Exposition
- 1902: Kodak sells photographic "paper" with pre-printed back
- 1907: Post Office allows messages on the backs of postcards
- 1907: Kodak introduces "Real Picture Postcard"
- They continued to produce them until ca. 1950
- Postcards became a major social phenomenon
- Chicago was the commercial production epicenter
Some Chicago-area shops
- C.R. Childs
- ML-Photo - Morris L. Masure
-
2837 Milwaukee Ave Chicago
-
- Crose - Thomas Albert Crose
- He was born near Brookston
- Harry Stilwell - studio in Monon
Case studies
The cool stuff is found using the zoomer
1. Frank Pullins (1875-1958)
ca. 1915 by Harry Stilwell
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838361/frankFromImage.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838364/frankPullinsAccident1-24-Mar-88.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838366/frankPullinsAccident2.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838371/arthurPullinsAccident-16-Aug-90.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838372/frankPullinsMotherAccident.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838362/pullinsFamily.jpg)
2. Dr. Hackley's (1871-1942) House
Neill Williams (1884-1965) Glass Negative
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838378/hackleyShutters.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838379/hackleyWindowArches.png)
3. When did Wm. Leader's cornice collapse?
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6842131/leadersCornice1.png)
ca. 1920 by Crose
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6842137/leadersCornice2.png)
Regular people made RPPCs, too
I got two "personal" RPPCs from Don Behny, a man I never met
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6846583/a3FoldingCamera.jpg)
Seeing Frank Baughman (1865-1932)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6867030/frankMaryBaughman.png)
Crowd admires Brush Runabout in front of old Horner's Store building
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10625909/macOckerBrush.png)
Ocker later moved to Wheatfield
Was a "rainmaker" there
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6852105/mwaLogoHorners.png)
An aside. . .
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6867033/frankFromBrush.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10843786/baughmanBros.png)
Baughman Bros. Store, Mary Baughman photo
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10843790/niceSweater.png)
Arthur Wright, sweater model
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6840381/threeGents.png)
Those guys by Frank look familiar . . . .
ca. 1915, photographer unknown
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6840378/compareFolks1.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6841745/combinedPeople.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6838510/womenCarGrab.png)
Childs view of Iroquois - taken from near present-day "Busy Bee"
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10839634/rensCollapsedBldg.png)
Childs image of Washington Street
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10839649/rensselaerPO.png)
III.The digitization process
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6851991/microtekI900.jpg)
Thanks to the late Jim Schilling, of the Starke County Historical Society
Scan resolution matters
Horner Store - Mary Baughman Collection
Scanned ca. 2005
2018 Scan w/i900
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6840416/fullZoomLowRes.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6840414/fullZoomHighRes.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6840426/fullZoomLowRes2.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6840428/fullZoomHighRes2.png)
File format matters too!
- General advice: archive in TIF
- Most .jpg formats LOSE information
- GIF and PNG "okay" with caveats
Even film has "resolution"
- Photographers use the term grain
- The finer the grain, the higher the resolution
- Not all RPPCs are created equal!!
IV. The amazing career of
C.R. Childs
Childs biographical highlights
- Lived his whole life in Chicago area (1875-1960)
- Very little is known about him
- Estimates vary 25,000-80,000 cards produced
- They document life in many small towns
- Not all are RPPCs
- Later work was "artsy" instead of documentary
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6839949/crcofficeexterior.jpg)
Image courtesy of Chicago History Museum
Childs proof, 1913
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6851775/bremerCardBack.jpg)
Back of Childs "proof" card
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6851794/localAndLD.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10839780/localAndLD.png)
Some Childs Proofs
Medaryville Free Methodist Church
Medaryville Cemetery, est. 1852
Medaryville's Third School, 1888, with additions
Sometimes his images were "borrowed" by others
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6864220/sjcPennantCard-1k.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6866735/scratchedOutID.png)
V. Other types of images can be useful, too
Glass negatives
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10839739/bettingOnFight.png)
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10839751/houseAndBaby.png)
Newspaper photos
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/10839760/seventeenDays.jpg)
Personal photos
Mary Baughman photo
![](https://s3.amazonaws.com/media-p.slid.es/uploads/353104/images/6854141/poseyPriceList.png)
1974 Cheap-camera photo, courtesy Charles Clawson
A few words about the book . . .
Real Picture Postcards
By capouch
Real Picture Postcards
- 1,515