Tall-Tale and Exaggeration Postcards

A fruits and vegetables photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. William H. Martin (1865-1940), a Kansas photographer, created this amusing photomontage and published it as a real photo postcard in 1909. This photo postcard was addressed on the other side to Mr. Alfie Watts, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and postmarked in Lima, Ohio, on Nov. 20, 1910. Handwritten message: "Lima, Nov. 20/10. Write soon. Friend James. 116 Circular St. W., Lima, Ohio."

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the monthly theme of pick your favorite theme(s)—why is it (are they) your favorite(s)? (submit a photo on this topic each week in addition to—or instead of—a photo for the weekly topic). William H. Martin (1865-1940), a Kansas photographer who was a master of photomontage , created this real photo postcard in 1908. Postcards like this by Martin and other photographers were especially popular in the early twentieth century and featured gigantic fruits and vegetables, dangerously oversized animals and fish, and amusingly huge products. These humorous trick photos are some of my favorite kinds of vintage photographs. For more examples, see my album of Tall-Tale and Exaggeration Postcards , which includes both photographic and printed cards. This particular postcard bears a postmark of April 7, 1909, and is addressed to "Mrs. Susan W. Dick, Roaring Springs, Penna. Care [of] Ora L. Dick." The message on the other side refers to the photo on the front: "Dear Mother, Hope you are better. I thought I would send you a mess of potatoes. They look good. Thad & Sue."

The caption on the front of this exaggeration postcard is "Feeding Time," but I borrowed "Too Much Pork for Just One Fork" from Southern Culture on the Skids , who used it as a song and album title. This is a photomontage by Kansas photographer William H. Martin (1865-1940). For more examples of Martin's work, see Good Corn Makes Good Hogs and A Mess of Potatoes . This real photo postcard is addressed on the other side to Mr. Richard Storey, Medora, Ill., but there's no stamp or postmark. Handwritten message: "5/15 1910. They raise 'em like this in Indiana. J.O.B."

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of church, chapel, or any other religious building . Caption: "Get Right with God." Painted on the side of the building: "Anderson Campaign Ta[bernacle]." This is a real photo postcard with a photomontage consisting of five giant heads peering over the top of a large wooden building. "Get Right with God" is the admonition at the top, and the sign on the building identifies it as the "Anderson Campaign Tabernacle." I also have a second copy of this card that has the name of a photographer -- "D. W. Faulk, 7 Second Ave., Coatesville, Pa." -- embossed on it. A different version of this real photo postcard that I spotted online is captioned, "Be Sure Your Sins Will Find You Out," with the location given as "Coatesville, Pa." On the back of all three of the photo postcards is a Noko stamp box design (with "NOKO" on all four sides) that indicates a time frame ranging from 1907 to 1929. After some searching, I discovered that "Anderson" refers to George Wood Anderson, a minister who ran some of his first large-scale revival meetings in a tabernacle building in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, in 1914. As reported in the Christian Advocate , December 3, 1914, p. 36: "The Rev. George Wood Anderson, pastor of Elm Park Church, Scranton, Pa., has been conducting for six weeks an evangelistic campaign at Coatesville, Pa., an industrial town of 11,000 people. The service has been carried on in a tabernacle specially constructed. The local paper tabulates results, showing total attendance 140,700, with 2,208 conversions.... Beginning next spring, Dr Anderson will leave the regular pastorate, to devote his life to evangelism, in obedience to an impulse which he has long felt." A later photo of the "George Wood Anderson Evangelistic Party" appeared in the Christian Workers Magazine , May 1916, p. 712, and allowed me to identify some of the giant heads on this photo card. That's George Wood Anderson himself on the left, his wife Nellie Anderson next to him, and Miss Agnes Smith, director of women's work, in the middle. The man on the right is Carl Leonard, business manager, but I haven't been able to determine who the man next to him is. George Wood Anderson went on to build tabernacles in other states to continue his revival campaigns. A recent Facebook posting by the Logan County History Center , for instance, describes his evangelistic services and provides photos of tabernacles in Bellefontaine and Belle Center, Ohio.

A Vintage Photos Theme Park photo for the theme of curbside . This is a real photo exaggeration postcard showing a steamboat with smoke billowing from its smokestack as it navigates through the surging floodwaters on a city street. The water has stranded some pedestrians at the curb, where they were evidently waiting to cross the street. Although the location isn't identified, one clue is the business name stamped in the lower right-hand corner: "The Dodd Rogers Co., Kodaks and Cameras." According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, the Dodd-Rogers Co. operated in Cleveland under that name between 1906 and 1914. Just before the business changed its name to Dodd Co. in 1914, the Great Flood of 1913 inundated Cleveland and affected the rest of Ohio as well as other states (see The 1913 Flood: "Ohio’s Greatest Weather Event" , an article by Sarah White on the Cleveland Historical site). Other exaggeration postcards appeared after the flood. One was captioned The Big Flood in Cleveland , and a second one also used the the same title . Although I haven't matched this photo with a specific street and it doesn't bear a date, I believe that it was created in 1913 as a humorous reaction to the flood in Cleveland. This is an divided-back real photo postcard with an Azo stamp box (four corner triangles pointing up) on the other side, which suggests a time frame—1907 to 1918—that covers the year of the flood. The card is unused with no message, address, or postmark on the other side.