Toronto Photo Gallery - Wish You Were Here Exhibition
Toronto Reference Library
From February to June 2025, the Toronto Reference Library hosted an exhibition of about 100 vintage postcards selected from their collection of over 26,500. These include landmarks and street scenes from a bygone era.Postcards were a cheap and quick way to send a letter without an envelope, becoming a novelty item that could be collected. Cards with photos of tourist attractions began appearing in the 1840s, with John P. Charlton patening the postcard in the US in 1861. The golden age of postcards in North America took place between 1905 and 1915.
Alexandra Robina Spears was a postmistress in Deer Park in the early 20th century. She published neighbourhood images as postcards, giving us a view of what this remote area looked like at the time.
Some of the rarer specimens were produced in a way we don't typically see today, such as these hand embroidered postcards.
In 1904, a massive fire destroyed much of the city that the Fire Chief estimated costed over $10 million in damage.
Innovations led to different materials used to make postcards. These leather examples didn't last long though as they damaged their sorting machines, leading to the postal service banning them outright. From around 1900, leather postcards were decorated by pyrography using sharp tools heated by fire to burn onto the deerskin.
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