Antique & Vintage Postcards

Sunlight seems almost to warm the pale granite facade of Alameda's Carnegie-funded Public Library in this hand-tinted pre-linen gem — Corinthian columns flank a grand portico, stained-glass fan windows glow amber and green, and a lone early automobile sits parked at the curb, placing us squarely in Edwardian California. Alameda's library was built in 1902 with a $30,000 Andrew Carnegie grant, one of more than 2,500 Carnegie libraries worldwide, and this card by the celebrated San Francisco publisher Edward H. Mitchell captures it at peak civic pride. The back is divided per the 1907 U.S. postal regulation change, printed "Domestic One Cent / Foreign Two Cents," and is entirely unused — an exceptionally clean example of Mitchell's color lithography.