Because they were plentiful and ubiquitous, postcards illustrate the changes in culture and the popular enthusiasms of the early 20th century.
In other postcard stories we have seen the rise of the automobile, the fascination with airships, comet fever, and the popularity of the camp meeting.
This is the first postcard I have found that illustrates the expanding interest in stock market investment that occurred throughout the “roaring twenties”.
I did not expect to find this until the late 1920’s when, before the stock market crash of 1929, an estimated 10 percent of households were invested in markets.
https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/news/0705/gallery.bubbles/3.html
Mrs. Blanche Simpson lived in Dixmont, a town in southeast Maine (near Bangor) that had been an early center of the lumber industry.
The population of Dixmont peaked in 1850, but the downtown retains many historic buildings today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixmont,_Maine
In February of 1920, Mrs. Simpson received a birthday greeting from a friend in Dixmont.
The long message is signed “Gertie”– the friend seems to a neighbor and friend of Blanche.
The face of the postcard is a medallion drawing of a hillside cottage, the drawing framed by large daisies.
The verse, however, is the focus of our interest:
“I am sending you some shares of love,
And stocks of birthday cheer,
A bond of love from friend to friend,
And greetings for the year.”
On the reverse, the friend comments at length on the terrible storms that have raged over the past week; the friend’s husband has been plowing roads ceaselessly.
To add to the misery, the friend has been ailing, and reports that most of the neighbors are also sick.
One hopes that Mrs. Simpson enjoyed the birthday greeting as a dividend of the relationship, and that she and the sender enjoyed a warm and comfortable Spring in Maine.
