Kids these days will consider most of this article gibberish. But before the internet, postcards played an important role in the history of communication in the US, and in the history of lacrosse playing cards.
According to the New York State Library website, the earliest picture postcards in the United States were souvenir issues from the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The cards were so popular that publishers across the country began producing similar cards. When the U.S. Congress reduced the cards’ postage rate from two cents to a penny, their use exploded.
When Congress approved split-side postcards for use in 1906, the floodgates truly opened up. The split-side postcard is essentially the card we are familiar with today, featuring an image on front and the back having areas for one’s personal note and the recipient’’s address.
This card from 1906 shows a female figure representing Stevens Lacrosse.
In fact, the decade from 1905-1915 is considered the “Golden Age of the Postcard,” when hundreds of millions of postcards carried messages all over the world. As one might imagine, the images on these cards were limited only by one’s creativity and the printing technology of the age. They featured subjects ranging from flowers and important people to nature scenes, animals and even lacrosse.
As with trading cards of the same era, early postcards depicted lacrosse in a variety of ways. Real-photo postcards (RPPCs) feature team, action or posed images, and might show the game as a governed sport or in one of a variety of Indigenous styles. Artistic renderings were also popular and were sometimes used on postcards that advertised a product, game or other subject. Men’s and women’s lacrosse were both popular subjects.
Private publishing services turned photographic images into postcards with relative ease, resulting in a wide variety of lacrosse-themed postcards from the late 1890s through the 1930s. While the variety is wonderful for collectors, the casualness with which these were produced means that little documentation exists to illustrate what was issued over the years. The result is a treasure hunt where collectors often have no idea what may be uncovered in their searches.
TEAM CARDS
Lacrosse teams and/or clubs were often shown on postcards. As with trading cards, many of these early team pieces are particularly desirable because of hockey pioneers who also played lacrosse. Edouard “Newsy” Lalonde, J.B. “Bouse” Hutton and Charlie Querrie can all be found on vintage lacrosse postcards.
The team that appears to have taken the greatest advantage of postcards is the legendary New Westminster Salmonbellies from British Columbia, Canada. Known today as the storied box lacrosse franchise housed in Queen’s Park Arena, the ‘Bellies began as a field lacrosse club that had great success around the turn of the 20th Century. More on them later.
This card from the Capital Lacrosse Club shows the ways in which teams were incorporated into postcards. This team were the Minto Cup Champions for the year 1906.
INDIGENOUS IMAGERY
Similar to other subjects, variations of the Indigenous versions of lacrosse are portrayed in real photo and artistic rendering forms. While the RPPCs offer rare glimpses into sacred parts of Indigenous culture, the illustrated images present out-dated stereotypes of indigenous life.
This one from 1906 shows a ball game from the Choctaw tribe in what is now South McAlester, Oklahoma.
In addition to the wonderful imagery on the card fronts, the backs can be equally fascinating as written messages and postmarks can offer small glimpses into history and reveal additional information about what is portrayed on the front.
For example, one postcard I have in my collection features a team photo of the 1908 New Westminster Salmonbellies. The postmark from the New Westminster post office dates the card to December 9, 1908. The message on the back reads:
Dear Auntie, Arrived home ok and found everybody well. This is a postcard of our team. Tom is on this card in the second row. Hoping that you are all well. Geo.
“Tom” refers to Tom Rennie, a Salmonbellies player from 1903-1915. His brother, George Rennie, was also on the team, won an Olympic gold medal for Canada in the 1908 Olympics and was inducted into the Canadian Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1966. I also suspect he was the one who sent this card.
Another card pictures the star-studded 1911 Vancouver Lacrosse Club that defeated the Salmonbellies and Toronto Tecumsehs for the Minto Cup. Scotty Williamson, Esq., a former lacrosse player himself, received this particular card with the following message on the reverse:
Van(couver) June 10/11 14000 people saw the game today. Teams are about even but I think Van has a shade the best of it. With kind regards, J.O. Turney
But the postcards weren’t always celabratory. One card which featured an Indigenous team in Weleetka, Oklahoma in May 1909 said the following.
Gee I was scared this morning. There was a race war broke out. But was quieted. Jim
A search of newspaper archives reveals that “Jim” was referring to an ugly and sadly all-too-common situation from our nation’s history and serves as an example why history is often unpleasant and needs to be learned from but in many cases never repeated.
The popularity of postcards for their intended use has decreased significantly in recent decades. Smartphones with camera and texting functions have basically reduced postcards to inexpensive souvenirs displayed on revolving racks at tourist destinations, though different forms of advertising postcards are still in use.
Occasionally professional teams will issue a series of postcards. The Denver Outlaws of the now defunct Major League Lacrosse (MLL) released such cards in 2013 and 2014 that featured individual players and offered schedule and ticketing information. But sadly, the production of lacrosse-themed postcards has… well, mostly gone the way of the MLL itself.
Fortunately for collectors, postcards seem to be saved by younger generations when they sift through their ancestors’ belongings. Occasionally these items will later be offered for sale, and fans of North America’s oldest sport can add them to their budding collections.