MID-AMERICA + THE PLAINS. Accordion Postcard Set Folder, Souvenir, c. 1940s.
This set comes across as very proud of the contemporary style, aesthetic, and modern sense that the city of St. Louis had achieved by the late 1930s - early 1940s; but not without a look back at past civic achievements. The “New” Municipal Auditorium (very much in the heavy neoclassic style of the day), the “Jewel Box” building, Park Place, and the enormous “Arena,” the second-largest indoor arena in America when completed in 1929 (in use into the 1990s) all make the case for a city on the move, while the early-century World’s Fair style of the Missouri Botanical Garden, along with Union Station, the stately campus of Washington University, and others serve up the city’s historic bonafides. It is interesting to encounter a St. Louis souvenir created prior to the Gateway Arch, but this vibrant set does not suffer in the least without … Postcard accordion folders became ubiquitous in step with the popularity of motorized tourist travel. The first postcard folders trace to the early 20th-century. But it was in the late 1930s when these fold-out mailers gained brilliant color. From the 1940s through the 1960s, and by way of far-flung post offices the nation over, a flood of these postcard folders found their way to friends and family from tourists taking in the wildly diverse sites and attractions across North America. The sharp commercial-art style illustration indicative of mid-century America, with covers printed on a tough linen paper, makes the souvenir sets of especially the late 1930s-1950s pop over half a century later—full-color photographs having arrived to these postcard folders by the 1960s … [Condition: The outer cover tabs have come apart, but their function served this set well: the 18 card fold-out within is still in pristine shape. There was even a stand-alone postcard of the “Old Court House” slipped in by a past owner, the description noting it as the location where the “famous” (“infamous” a better adjective) Dred Scott trial took place.]
Condition: Used Good. Local / Regional Areas. Dimensions: 6.25" wide x 4.25" high
