This religious postcard was not mailed, and has no personal story attached to it.
It was published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society – the publishing arm of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Brooklyn, New York was – until the end of the 20th century – the site of a very large publishing operation devoted to the world-wide mission of this group.
In 2016, the building in Brooklyn was sold and converted to commercial office space.
The reverse of the postcard notes a parallel operation in London.
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The Jehovah’s Witnesses arose from the Bible Student Movement founded by Charles Taze Russell in the 19th century.
Russell launched “Zion’s Watchtower Tract Society” in 1881 to organize and print the movement’s literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses
Because the group does not disclose organizational documents, very little is known about the leadership or about the decision-making process of the group.
After the death of Russell in 1916, there were several schisms within the denomination.
The group adheres to theological tenets that are not shared by other Christians and uses a version of the Bible (“The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures”) peculiar to the denomination.
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The face of the postcard is a drawing of Adam and Eve, newly-clothed in basic garments, turned away from the garden paradise that is now guarded by an angel with a fiery sword.
There is something about the simple drawing, and its unusual frame, that suggests it may be reproduced from a series of images narrating a longer story of the Creation.
A little research confirms this suspicion – “The Photo-Drama of Creation” was a four-part, 8-hour presentation written by Charles Taze Russell and produced by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania in 1912-1914.
This undertaking was the first major screenplay to incorporate synchronized sound, moving film, and color slides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Photo-Drama_of_Creation
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The memory of a lost “Golden Age”, or the despoliation of a perfect world, haunts the religious traditions of many cultures.
In the Christian world, the meaning of the “Tree of Knowledge”, the origin of sin and evil, and the expulsion from Eden is the starting point of centuries of theological disputation and meditation.
Perhaps the foremost epic tale in the English language is “Paradise Lost” of John Milton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_man
The Expulsion from Eden has also been depicted in a variety of ways by artists over several centuries:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_from_the_Garden_of_Eden_(disambiguation)
On the reverse, the extensive blurb suggests that the postcard was used for religious instruction.
This may have been in Sunday School or in the evangelistic outreach for which the Jehovah’s Witnesses were well-known.
Someone, whether a member of the church, a recipient of the outreach literature, or an avid collector preserved the postcard in very good condition.
