Antique & Vintage Postcards

A dapper figure strides past the corner of Park Square in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, as early automobiles line the curb and the Hotel Wendell rises six proud stories behind him — this vivid Newvochrome-printed card from around 1907–1910 freezes a Berkshire city at the exact moment the automobile age was displacing the horse-drawn era. The Hotel Wendell, opened in 1892 on North Street at Park Square, was Pittsfield's premier hostelry for decades, catering to Gilded Age visitors to the Berkshires; the Civil War Soldiers Monument — a bronze infantryman atop a tall granite column — stands sentinel to the right, dedicated in 1872. Published by the Springfield News Company and printed in Germany (Leipzig/Dresden/Berlin) under the Newvochrome brand, the card's rich chromolithographic color captures the warm brick and stone palette of downtown Pittsfield with the hand-finished quality that made German-printed American cards the gold standard of the pre-WWI era. A store sign for "Cooper & May" is legible at left, a delightful commercial detail for local historians.