History of Sonoma County told through postcards

Popularized in the late 1800s, postcards were the perfect way to cheaply and easily share what day-to-day life was like in Sonoma County. Check out some favorite postcards from the past.|
JANET BALICKI
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Beginning in the late 1800s, postcards became a popular means of inexpensively communicating everything from short birthday greetings to sharing a favorite trip to advertising an event.

They began with drawn images, but by 1902, options expanded to “real photo” cards as Kodak began offering pre-printed cards that allowed negatives to develop directly on one side.

The Sonoma County Library has a large collection of both drawn and “real-photo” postcards in its Sonoma Heritage collection. Mostly from the 1890s through the 1930s, the postcards depict businesses, local events, prominent citizens and some images of the devastation of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Explore some of our favorites here. Visit pressdemocrat.com and http://heritage.sonomalibrary.org for more.

Popularized in the late 1800s, postcards were a perfect way to cheaply and easily share what day-to-day life was like in Sonoma County. Check out some favorites

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