Like motivational posters of the late 20th century (or the inspirational memes of today), mottos and quotations were popular themes of postcard illustration in the years after the Great War.

As postcard production shifted from Europe to US factories, some shops specialized in the production of crafted message postcards.

(This postcard seems to be a specialty line within the print office of a university.)

The postcard is illustrated with a ragged verse encouraging full engagement in the tasks before one.

There are benign readings of the postcard verse, such as “always do your best” or “anything worth doing is worth doing well”.

But, If the print sounds uncannily like current workplace mantras such as, “Bring your whole self to work”, you may realize that the encouragement of work-centered culture has not really changed in the past century.

The postcard was published by the University Print Shop of Evanston, Illinois.

A quick internet search shows the earliest reference to the University Print Shop is 1916- a more extensive search may show an earlier date of this University facility.

Although the postcard was not mailed, it seems that someone was inspired by the verse to preserve the message for a century.