Origins

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This is the postcard we will be focusing on. This postcard is captioned "St. George's Church, Guelph". This scanned image of the postcard is from the Guelph Civic Museum.

            This postcard is an image of St. George’s Anglican Church. This church was originally a wooden structure located in the Guelph city center, but has since been renovated and relocated to where it resides in this postcard, along with present day (About Us). St. George’s Anglican Church is now located on the bank of the Speed River at 99 Woolwich Street. Located in front of the church in this postcard is the Heffernan Street Bridge along with the Speed River, as previously mentioned (Palmer & Langley).

            This postcard was produced by W.G. Mac Farlane Publisher, who were based out of Toronto and Buffalo. This card itself was printed in 1910 (Archive Record), and interestingly, on the back of the card it states “Printed in Germany.”

            Dishearteningly, “‘Printed in Germany’ is not rewarding’” (Identification of German Postcard printers). Back then, some countries required an imprint on postcards including their country of origin. Simply stating the country of origin however encompasses an entire nation in which this card could have been produced, making it a difficult task to pinpoint exactly where and from what this card originated from.

            Postcard manufacturers used the ‘Aäc process’ around 1880s (Photochrome prints.). This technique was used to create photochrome prints, a type of color print very popular between 1890 and 1910. The photochrome process was mainly used to print postcards. Photochroms are not photographs but actual prints, produced using 6 to 15 colors and the lithography printing process (Photochrome prints.).

The library is committed to ensuring that members of our user community with disabilities have equal access to our services and resources and that their dignity and independence is always respected. If you encounter a barrier and/or need an alternate format, please fill out our Library Print and Multimedia Alternate-Format Request Form. Contact us if you’d like to provide feedback: lib.a11y@uoguelph.ca