Purpose: The author shows that not only can the illustrations on the front of postcards reveal a considerable amount of information about hospitals in the early twentieth century, but that the messages, addresses, captions, postmarks, and stamps on the back of postcards also offer a valuable glimpse into the lives of ordinary citizens and their interactions with the health care system.
Method: In addition to a literature review on postcards and their history and use, particularly in the depiction of health care, the author reviews the postcards in her own collection, which includes a variety of hospital postcards from this time period.
Conclusions: Early hospital postcards provide a framework for examining individual elements of postcards and show how postcards can be used as key sources in historical research on health care in the early 1900s.