Antique & Vintage Postcards

Boston's magnificent Copley Square landmark — the McKim, Mead & White-designed Public Library of 1895 — glows in hand-applied color tones on this 1915 postcard, its Romanesque Revival arches and terracotta roof presiding over a street alive with early automobiles and horse carts that capture the city in technological transition. Postmarked Boston, Mass., August 16, 1915, and sent to a young woman named P. Conway on Fenn Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the card carries a chatty message lamenting that the writer visited "Sunday" but P. was "out" and asking P. to come downtown — a small, vivid slice of Edwardian social life. Published by Mason Bros. & Co. and bearing a 1-cent Washington stamp (Scott #405 or similar), this divided-back card is a fine representative of the golden age of American postcard correspondence.