20 NEBRASKAland
●
MARCH 2015
A
mericans have
always loved
their lore, finding
fascination in tall
tales such as Paul Bunyan
and Babe, his blue ox. There
was also Pecos Bill, who
used a rattlesnake as a lasso
to pull a tornado out of the
sky, riding that twister until
he'd petered it out. In that
spirit of western humor, the
exaggeration postcard was
born.
The cards were
introductions into
some of the earliest
photoshopping. This was
just before, through, and
after World War I. An
age before Twitter and
e-mails. Postcards were a
way of conveying simple
messages cheaply and
without the need to write
much. The "tall tale"
postcards, most popular
in small towns and rural
communities, also carried
with them a sense of
regional pride, bragging
rights and comedy when
the reality of the times was
often far different.
Though some
manipulated negatives,
photographers usually
created the cards by
altering the images. Two
pictures were taken, a wide
shot and a close up. The
subject – a vegetable or
grasshopper, for instance
– was shot close up, cut
out and glued over a wide
shot of a wagon or train
car. Then the photographer
simply took a third shot of
the combined two.
While the cards are alike
in the use of exaggeration,
Tall Tale
Postcards
By Margaret Lukas
The back reads "Nebraska The Cornhusker State." This card, although possibly older,
was printed with a bar code on the back so is still being used today.
