“Inspection of Arms” – Gettysburg, PA (1908)

We met Bessie Douglass in earlier postcard stories – she received and preserved a large number of postcards during her lifetime.

Bessie lived in Anselma, a small community that grew up around a mill in Chester County of southeast Pennsylvania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightfoot_Mill

In July of 1908, Bessie received a postcard from May D.

May mailed the postcard from Gettysburg, the famed town of Civil War remembrance in south-central Pennsylvania.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg,_Pennsylvania

The face of the postcard is a humorous illustration of a serviceman flexing his biceps for an admiring belle.

The US was not at war in 1908, but the man is pictured in front of a cluster of tents intended to suggest a camp.

I have seen many similar postcards on the theme of “Baring Arms” or “Shoulder Arms” in the years during and after the First World War.

In this postcard drawing, the human figures are rendered more skillfully than the background.

The image was copyrighted in 1905 by P. J. Plant of Washington, D.C.

The final withdrawal of troops from Cuba, after the end of the Spanish-American War, did not occur until 1902.

It is possible that this demobilization might have sparked some postcard representations of (and enthusiasm for) soldiers.

On the reverse, May does not add any greeting – so we do not know anything about her relationship to Bessie.

We can assume that Bessie appreciated the postcard as it was preserved in very good condition for more than a century.

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