Edwardian Picture Postcard as a Communications Revolution

Julia Gillen is Professor of Literacy Studies at Lancaster University, UK.

“The Edwardian Picture Postcard as a Communications Revolution: A Literacy Studies Perspective offers thoughtful and inventive insights both of the literacy practices of the past, and how we might think of writing in our current moment. Julia Gillen’s fascinating exploration of the widespread uses of postcards in the Edwardian era provides important perspectives into the ways in which a specific set of cultural and material circumstances created the conditions by which participatory, daily literacy practices became available for much of the population. She illustrates how the social and material influences shaping the circulation of these postcards prefigures many of our later literacy practices, up to our current social-media saturated time. What’s more, Gillen demonstrates how a skillful use of a range of research methods and theory – from posthumanism to social history to corpus linguistics – can reveal a complex, layered understanding of literacy practices, both past and present.” - Bronwyn T. Williams, Professor of English and Endowed Chair in Rhetoric and Composition, University of Louisville, USA.“This is a fascinating and erudite study of Edwardian picture postcards. Professor Gillen sharpens her focus on the messages these cards convey and what they can tell us about those who sent them and those that read them with an approach that is both scholarly and entertaining. The focus – on a collection of 3000 cards - produces some compelling narratives of social history based on an expert use of the analytical techniques available to researchers in the field of literacy studies. Gillen skillfully refracts these insights through an understanding of contemporary social media to highlight the continuities and discontinuities of everyday writing practices and to draw attention to the revolutionary impact that new communication technologies can have. The result is impressive – a readable and instructive account that makes a significant contribution to the cultural history of writing.” - Guy Merchant, Emeritus Professor, Sheffield Hallam University, UK.

• 1. The Edwardian postcard as a revolutionary communications technology 2. The early postcard 3. Researching the Edwardian postcard 4. Materiality and multimodality 5. What were the Edwardians writing about? 6. The lives of three young women through postcards: Annie Parrish, Janet Carmichael and Ruby Ingrey 7. Conclusions