32 KRISTA A. THOMPSON

The Golden Era of the Postcard in the Anglophone Caribbean: Creating
the Islands' "Tropical Picturesque" Touristic Image

A cultural biography of the social life of the postcard in the Anglophone
Caribbean must begin at the beginning, retracing its origins, its producers and
its (intended) consumers and meanings. "Postal cards" or "view cards" of the
West Indies reached their height of production from 1895-1915, "the golden
era" of postcard collecting in the United States and Western Europe, particularly
Britain (Woody 13). As in other parts of the world, in the Anglophone Caribbean
the postcard arose as a popular visual accompaniment to the tourism industry
(Albers and James, 139). The Colonial Office in London specifically encouraged
local officials in the islands to produce postcard series to stimulate the region's
burgeoning tourist trade. In 1904, they urged: "It is added that a great effort is
being made nowadays to restore prosperity to the West Indies by making
the islands better known as holiday resorts. Quite an attractive series of
pictorial postcards would doubtless tend to the end in view" (DG 15 April
1904). The "attractive" pictorial postcard was thus recruited to play a role in
the restoration of prosperity to the West Indies in the wake of the decline of
the sugar industry.
 Colonial governmental bodies, passenger steamship companies, hoteliers,
and local mercantile elites throughout the West Indies heeded this call,
especially in Jamaica and the Bahamas. Both islands were the first to have
tourist industries in the region. Companies specializing in transportation
such as the United Fruit Company, the Elder Dempster Company (owners of
the Imperial Direct Line), the Hamburg American Line, the Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company and the Cunard Steamship Line, to name just a few, created
postcard lines on Jamaica. In regard to the Bahamas, the Cunard Steamship
Line, the Florida East Railway Line, and Munson Lines published cards. Local
photographers, pharmaceutical companies, and mercantile elites, who owned
businesses in the ports, also produced and distributed their photographs
as pictorial postcards. The American Detroit Publishing Company and British
postcard companies, like the Raphael Tuck and Sons Ltd. and Valentine and
Sons Ltd., also sent representatives to the British West Indies. The postcards
were often printed and sometimes retouched in Europe (Germany was a
central postcard manufacturing center) or in the United States and then
returned to the islands where they were offered for sale.
 Postcard sellers targeted tourists as the intended consumers of these
images, baiting visitors specifically in their ads. They boasted "Picture
Postcards -A big choice of views for visitors- Hope [Gardens], Castleton,
Montego Bay, &c and many of the inhabitants and their pickaninnies" and
deemed their shops the "Headquarters for Tourists [with] The Largest and
Finest Assortment of Illustrated Jamaica Postcards" (DG January 27, 1905;
DG January 2, 1904). In addition, American and British companies and
colonial governments distributed postcards to potential travelers at colonial