About the Exhibit
From Baltimore, With Love: Postcards from the Collection of the Baltimore City Historical Society
Historical Note:
The postcards in this exhibit are primarily from the early 20th century, from the early 1900s to the 1940s. The postcards are primarily colorized, which was a popular custom during this time. Color photography was not yet accessible, but photographs would be taken in black and white, colorized by hand, often in very vibrant colors, giving them an almost otherworldly look, and then mass produced for sale. Some of the photographs remain black and white but they seem to have been less popular than the colorized ones. I & M Ottenheimer was a postcard production company founded by two brothers based in Baltimore, but in the early days they imported their colorized photographs from Germany, where the practice of colorizing postcards began. (source) Although the bulk of the postcards were made and produced by Baltimore based companies, there are a few producers in this collection based in Philadelphia, New York, and Germany.
Credits:
Exhibit curated by Maggie Coulbourn, Static Cullum, and Willow Meir, Goucher College interns (2026). We thank them for their work with the digital exhibit, in collaboration with the University of Baltimore and the Baltimore City Historical Society.
Maggie Coulbourn is a sophomore at Goucher College from Austin, Texas, majoring in Political Science and minoring in Spanish (class of 2028). She works in the Goucher College Special Collections and Archives and loves learning local history.
Static Cullum is a senior at Goucher College from Charlotte, North Carolina, majoring in History and minoring in Africana Studies (class of 2026). They worked on the Goucher oral history project, "Celebrating Black Alumnae/i and Their Stories" and as a garden student leader in Community-Based Learning at Goucher.
Willow Meir is a senior at Goucher College from St. Louis, Missouri, majoring in Professional and Cretaive Writing and minoring in Music (class of 2026). She worked in Goucher's Silber Art Gallery and served as co-president of the Goucher Independent Music Club.
Acknowledgements:
We thank Julie Elliott, associate director of the Goucher College Career Education Office, for her role coordinating Goucher’s Micro-Internship program. Special thanks also to James Kraft, president of the Baltimore City Historical Society, for his leadership and support of the project.