Vintage Paris Postcards

 

 

 

 

 

 

And 17 more…

You can send these cards from the website. If you need translation, click on the black and white icon close to the bookmarks star.

 

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Greetings from Paris: Expect the Unexpected

 

 

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Greetings from Paris: Expect the Unexpected

The postcard became a widely popular item during the Universal Exhibition of 1889 when a card representing the Eiffel Tower was sold at 300,000 copies.

 

A postcard shop near the Louvre

The first postcard made its official appearance in 1869 Austria. The French adopted the idea as an emergency measure one year later, during the Siege of Paris, when mail was sent and received via air balloons and the weight of the envelopes became an issue. In 1872, a law validated the use of the postcard as a permissible means of postal communication. This was not yet the case in some other countries and the French cards contained a warning.

Until 1875, the postcard remained a monopoly of the postal administration. After this date, national or private cards were published with a free side which could contain pictures.

While artistic pictures of Paris monuments and impressive boulevards were among the bestsellers, others were bought and sent: the pictures of Paris without makeup. The one below, titled Rue Mouffetard on a Sunday Morning offers the sight of working-class Parisians enjoying the fresh air that had been denied to them during the weekdays. Sunday in Paris was not,  as the Anglo-Saxons tourists expected, spent in church and prayers. The people of Paris were out for fun.

 

These are not elegant Parisians taking air in open carriages on the Champs Elyseés as you would expect on a postcard from Paris

 

Someone had found this picture of a lounging middle-class couple of enough interest to purchase it and stick a stamp on it

 

Curios sold too: At 55-inch width, this was the smallest house in Paris

 

Shops with character were liked as well

 

A rag lady was mailed by someone interested in the small entrepreneurs of Paris

 

But it was no surprise to anyone that seductive ladies figured on les cartes postales de Paris

 

Even the top courtesans of the Belle Epoque found themselves in the mailbag. Here is the dancer Otéro whose breasts inspired the cupolas of the famous Hotel Negresco in Nice

 

The postman himself had his purchasers. It seems that everything, even the most ordinary, was of interest to our ancestors

 

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