The Valentine Card …… that just keeps giving …… votes for women ….. a postcard artist .... and a place in Indiana

Now here is a picture postcard which offers up so much history. 

On one level it mixes that annual event of Valentine’s Day with the campaign to win the franchise for women in the USA.  

My Wikipedia tells me that “Women's legal right to vote was established in the United States over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920”.* 

Starting in the 1840s it rumbled through the rest of the 19th century picking up pace at the beginning of the next*.

And like the British counterparts, the American campaigners were inventive in getting the message over, so what better way than to use the medium of a picture postcard and Valentine’s Day.

I don’t have a date for the card, but I think we can narrow it down to sometime between 1898 and 1915.

And this is because the artist was an Ellen Clapsaddle who was an American commercial artist whose “illustrations were often used in advertising and on porcelain goods, calendars, paper fans, trade and greeting cards.

Her greatest success was in the development of her artwork into single-faced cards that could be kept as souvenirs or mailed as postcards, and she specialized in designing illustrations specifically for that purpose. 

Artistic designs had become highly prized particularly during the peak of production of the 'golden age of souvenir/postcards' (1898–1915) for their great marketing possibilities. Clapsaddle is credited with over 3000 designs in the souvenir/post card field”.**

What also fascinates me is the reverse of the card, with its message and address.  

At first glance there is nothing remarkable in the greeting written by Frances Ridout to her aunt Louise wishing “good health on this day”.

But I am intrigued by the destination which is lists her aunt’s name and just the town Greensburg, Indiana …… no house number, or street name.

Greensburg was laid out in 1822, and its post office opened the following year.  If I go looking, I am sure I will find its population during the 19th century, but I guess it must have been small given that today it only amounts to just over 11,000. 

So perhaps Frances’s aunt was well known to the postal authorities, or maybe mail deliveries were yet to be introduced, and in their absence the residents of Greensburg were expected to call in at the Post Ofice.

On this I am sure Mr. Posty Harrop will be able to offer up and explanation, leaving me to say for those who want to follow up on Women's suffrage in the United States and Ellen Clapsaddle it's all out there.

Location; USA

Picture; My Valentine, undated, from the collection of David Harrop

Location; the United States of America

*Women's suffrage in the United States, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_the_United_States

**Ellen Clapsaddle, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Clapsaddle