A perennial difficulty with postcards, from the day these started including pictures until today, is that finding a card which would be perfect for Cousin Tabitha is never enough. If the card is really perfect to send Tabitha from your vacation spot it’s good enough to keep, too. One answer to this is to go ahead and buy two of the same card, one for yourself and one to send. The postcard companies had nothing against that, BUT to appeal to people with more efficient tendencies, they would publish little accordion pleated portfolios of a bunch of cards, so you could buy a card for Tabitha (did YOU bring her address?) and also buy a small cartoon book of what the company had to offer. These selections come from a 1948 portfolio from Curt Teich and Company, which features an unusual image on the outer cover: we don’t often see women chasing men on a postcard (I think he’s about to let them win) nor do we often see men with hairy chests. Please remember the word “chests”; this comes in later in the story, and I don’t want you substituting other words.
The portfolio collects some eighteen images, plus two more on the outer covers, dealing with fun at the beach, with a heavy emphasis on romantic fun. Part of the appeal of a vacation is meeting new people and seeing new sights, possibly both at the same time. This card is a reprint from somewhere in the 1930s, when men wore these coverall suits and this artist, whose name I have not learned, could do homage to Walter Wellman’s postcard couples.
See, the 1940s saw a shift away from the female figures Walter Wellman and this really talented follower of his liked to draw.
Both artists liked to point out that the male half of the equation does not always emerge as the alpha predator.
This, now, addresses another sort of predator on the beach, and is by artist Ray Walters, of whom you will see a lot in this folder and, indeed, in any collection of Curt Teich comic postcards. This is not really his best work. I don’t understand why anybody would dive into the water with a cigar and…. What was that? Oh, you think so. I see, and that “bang bang” has more than the two meanings I saw? You could be right, but in that case…well, that cigar is still going to go out and get soggy once he hits the water.
It is true that a number of the women shown by either artist can be found at a disadvantage. This was NOT, however, the norm for beach postcard tradition.
Ray Walters particularly seems to have preferred the young woman on vacation who was n control of her destiny and interested in meeting people on her own terms.
And doing very well at that, thank you very much.
Of course, this caused comment from onlookers, but she didn’t care. (And if you are interested in how little she might care, and how MUCH cheek she could show–you do know ‘showing cheek’ meant to be impudent, right?—come back on Friday.)
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