Join us for the first guest lecture associated with the exhibition, “Greetings from Hudson County,” on Sunday, March 3 at 4 pm. Archivist and avid postcard collector, Cynthia Harris, whose official job is Manager of the New Jersey Room (Archives) at Jersey City Free Public Library, will speak about the origins of postcards in the late 1800s, and the absolute craze for postcards in the first two decades of the 1900s.

At first, she says, people weren’t allowed to write on the back side where the address appeared. Until 1898, only the government was allowed to use the term “Postal Card,” which were inexpensive to mail for a penny. Postage for privately printed cards was double that, two cents. In 1901, the government relaxed the rules and all postcards were eligible for the penny postage, and their popularity took off. In 1907, the government allowed for a divided back, with the address on one side and a message on the other. This led to the Golden Age of Postcards.

Ms. Harris, a third-generation Hudson County resident, started collecting postcards in the 1980s and has amassed over 3,000 historic Jersey City and Hudson County postcards by now. She based a book, Changing Jersey City, A History in Photographs, in part on her collection, along with modern photographs by Leon Yost. She’s worked for Jersey City for her entire career, first as an elementary school teacher, then after earning a library science degree, for the Jersey City Free Public Library. She enjoys helping people trace their family genealogies through the Library’s archives.