Illustrated Postcard

The Emergence of the Illustrated Postcard in the Age of Elite Photography

In the 19th century, photography represented a complex and expensive technology, accessible exclusively to the privileged social classes. As Susan Sontag documents in On Photography (1977), 19th‑century photography required specialized technical skills and costly equipment, establishing itself at first as a distinctive practice of the aristocracy and the emerging bourgeoisie.

Within this socio‑technological context, photographic prints gradually evolved from elite curiosities into mass communication tools. The illustrated postcard emerged as a revolutionary format: a rectangular piece of card that combined the visual immediacy of the photographic image with the communicative function of the written message. According to research by Orvar Löfgren (2001), the first photographic postcard dates back to 1889, created for the Paris Universal Exhibition, significantly immortalizing the Eiffel Tower — the architectural symbol of the event and a paradigm of industrial modernity.

The Standardized Iconography 

The second half of the 20th century marked a pivotal transformation: tourism became democratized, evolving from an elite privilege into a global mass phenomenon. As John Urry analyzes in The Tourist Gaze (1990), this massification led to the standardization of the tourist experience and, consequently, of its visual representation.

The advent of the Fordist era and the democratization of tourism practices led to the affirmation of a codified iconography, encapsulated in the formula of the “4S”: Sea, Sand, Sun and Sex. This iconographic standardization reflects what Dean MacCannell (1976) defines as staged authenticity: local authenticity was gradually replaced by homogenized representations designed to meet global tourist expectations.

Postcards from this period reflect the emergence of heliotropism as a dominant paradigm. Both seaside and mountain destinations adopted a visual language centered on the omnipresence of the sun, the unifying element of a standardized tourist imagination. This iconographic homogenization mirrors broader processes of cultural globalization, analyzed by Roland Robertson (1992) through the concept of glocalization.

Postmodern Diversification and the Digital Revolution

The 1990s marked a significant turning point: the growing fragmentation of tourist markets encouraged the rise of so‑called “niche tourism.” As Poon (1993) documents in Tourism, Technology and Competitive Strategies, this diversification responded to the needs of increasingly specialized market segments seeking authentic and personalized experiences.

The true revolution, however, came with the explosion of digital networks, particularly the Internet. The advent of digital technologies radically redefined the paradigms of tourism communication. The traditional postcard, while retaining a symbolic presence in the holiday imagination, was forced to contend with new forms of communication: SMS, MMS, e‑cards, blogs, and posts reshaped the ways in which travel experiences were shared.

As Sheller and Urry (2006) note in their concept of the mobile turn, tourism communication became instant, interactive, and multimedia, transcending the spatio‑temporal limits of the traditional postcard. Digitalization did not eliminate the communicative function of the postcard but profoundly transformed its modes and meanings, embedding it within a more complex and articulated media ecosystem.

Sources

MacCannell, D. (1976). The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. University of California Press.
Poon, A. (1993). Tourism, Technology and Competitive Strategies. CAB International.
Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. Sage Publications.
Sheller, M., & Urry, J. (2006). The new mobilities paradigm. Environment and Planning A, 38(2), 207-226.
Sontag, S. (1977). On Photography. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Urry, J. (1990). The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. Sage Publications.