About the book:

“In rural America at the beginning of the twentieth century, the worldwide postcard craze coincided with the spread of light, cheap photographic equipment. The result was the real-photo postcard, so-called because the cards were printed in darkrooms rather than on litho presses, usually in editions of a hundred or fewer, the work of amateurs and professionals alike.

They were not intended for tourists, but as a medium of communication for the residents of small towns, isolated on the plains and in the hills. The cards document everything about their time and place, from intimate matters to events that qualified as news. They show people from every walk of life and the whole panorama of human activity: eating, sleeping, labor, worship, animal husbandry, amateur theatrics, barn-raising, spirit-rapping, dissolution, riot, disaster, death. Uncountable millions of them were made in the peak years, 1905 to 1912.”

Read more over at the publisher website.

About Luc Sante:

“Luc Sante is a writer and critic. The author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991), Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990–2005 (2007), and several other books, he is also visiting professor of writing and photography at Bard College. His latest effort, Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard, 1905–1930, is out now from Yeti Books.”

Read an interview with Luc Sante over at artforum.com

See also In the Vernacular - Photography of the Everyday

Previously on Skandalon

Previously on Skandalon

From the Disassembled Household Appliances set: “This was my senior thesis project at the hartford art school this past year…I took apart used cooking/cleaning appliances, and arranged their interior parts very systematically on a white sheet of bristol board. My intention was to explore the hidden “brains” of these appliances; allowing us to view these everyday objects from a new perspective.” Prints can be bought at Etsy