Postcard Rooms for Rent

I like to say that I often receive research requests that run the gamut from the ridiculous to the sublime. In the last few years I’ve had many requests for large letter or “Greetings From” postcards to be used as “Save the Date” cards for upcoming weddings. It’s always fun to work with happy people looking forward to a meaningful event. I’ve also supplied images that were used as backgrounds or set dressing for five major motion pictures, the most recent for The Paperboy and Tintin which will be released later this year. Often our files are tapped when an architectural firm is doing a renovation or restoration and wants images of a building through its history. Sometimes the requests are very personal and meaningful to a family’s history. Such is the case with a request I received last week.

I received an email requesting information on the Daniels Apartment Hotel located in Chicago at 4718 Winthrop Avenue. The grandfather of the gentleman who sent the email built the hotel in 1925. Curiously the only image of the hotel in the family’s possession was a Curt Teich postcard. Once the grandson learned that the Teich Archives existed he contacted me for any information I might be able to offer. I pulled the original job file and was delighted to report to my researcher that there was an original 8” X 10” black and white photo of the building in the envelope. The photo had been retouched a bit, leaves added to the otherwise bare trees and a little sidewalk clean up, but not enough to compromise the integrity of the photograph. Needless to say, the grandson of the hotel’s builder was excited and most appreciative that the photograph not only survived, but was available to his family as well. I truly believe that these original materials are what make this collection unique and so incredibly valuable in telling the story of the twentieth century.

Mr. Daniels’ grandson, Michael, and I chatted about the fact that his family didn’t own any visual record of this building except for the original postcard. We discussed how the information on vintage postcards can reveal so much about life in our neighborhoods or big cities in the last century. Often the only record of an otherwise obscure building is on a postcard because that particular building just happened to be next to a drug or hardware store prominently shown on a postcard advertising the latter establishments. In the example of the Daniels Apartment Hotel postcard, not only does it tell us exactly where the hotel is located, but lists the monthly rates and how to reach it by a number of modes of transportation, and we also see an interior view of the lobby and it’s 1925 furnishings.

Truly one of the most satisfying aspects of my job here at the Curt Teich Postcard Archives is having the opportunity to help researchers fit a piece into the puzzle that is their family’s history. The Teich Archives is literally a treasure trove of information about life in the twentieth century, be it about small towns or big cities, where we went, how we got there, what we wore, what we ate, and what we thought was important, and I cannot sing its praises too loud or often enough.