This week we’re talking about real photo postcards. In 1903, Kodak released a camera that allowed people to print postcards from photographs they took themselves. Portable, easy to use, and relatively inexpensive, the postcard camera democratized—and deformalized—visual communication in many of the same ways that social media would 100 years later. Unlike mass-produced postcards, which tend to show standardized views of major landmarks, these small-batch souvenirs offer a personal, idiosyncratic look at what ordinary people cared about: vernacular architecture, college sports teams, candid family portraits, and much more. Join us for a look at some fun and fascinating messages from the past on this picture-perfect new #brattlecast.
Brattlecast #86 - The Boy Soldier
The ROTC was phased out of many high schools and colleges during the Vietnam War, but is making a comeback today, for better or worse. We’ll take a look at the history of this controversial organization by way of a book that predates it: The Boy Soldier, a textbook of infantry tactics for school children, first published in 1863 and available now at the Brattle Book Shop. Plus, we’ll take a look behind the scenes, at this process of determining a price for an extremely rare book like this one, which can be harder to research than other sought after but relatively more common works.