This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

Hastings Historical Society 407 Broadway Hastings-On-Hudson NY 10706
Postcard history (compiled by Fatima Mahdi of the Hastings Historical Society) Z j
•	Pre-1898 postcards: no line down center of back, may have lines across center of card for addressee (only govt, allowed to use the word "postcard”)
o Earliest postcards came out ca. 1848 o Private postcards first printed ca. 1860-1873 o Governmental (official post office) postcards first printed in 1873 o Picture postcards began ca. 1870
o 1888: Eastman Kodak produces the first camera for amateurs with 100 shots, which one could returned to Kodak, who then sent the photographs back to the photographer
•	1898: private printers first granted permission to print and sell cards that bore the inscription "Private Mailing Card" (PMC). Some PMCs were reprints of earlier cards. Postcards of this era have undivided backs.
o In 1898 postage required for mailing a postcard was reduced from 2 cents to 1 cent.
•	Dec 1901: Use of the word “Post Card” was first granted by the government to private printers to use on the back of their cards.
•	1902 and after: Real Photo postcards (RPs, postcards on film stock: i.e. pictures) began to filter in use.
o 1902: The Eastman Kodak Company introduced the first postcard
photographic paper, called gaslight paper. The paper's emulsion was very fast and allowed the amateur photographer to print at night using artificial light or exposure to a gas jet. The introduction of this type of paper, still used for contact sheets, produced a boom in the making of real photo postcards. Kodak trademarks for gaslight papers were Velox and Azo. Other companies soon followed Eastman: the Canadian Kodak Company manufactured Oko paper and Ansco manufactured the Cyko and Noko papers. These early real photo images were mainly advertising pieces, o 1903: Eastman-Kodak issued an affordable "Folding Pocket Kodak" camera. This allowed the mass public to take black & white photographs and have them printed directly onto paper with postcard backs. These cameras shared two neat features: their negatives were postcard size (the major reason why so many of these images are so clear) and they had a small thin door on the rear of their bodies that, when lifted, enabled the photographer to write an identifmg caption or comment on the negative itself with an attached metal scribe.