Classic Tall Tale Postcards on Display in Kalamazoo for Summer

By Jonathan Kleyer

Traditionally, a collection of old postcards displays images that show those admiring it a glimpse back into how various communities or landmarks had looked at the time the postcard was produced.

They may have been kept over the years as a keepsake; a reminder or souvenir of a trip to a national park, a famed city or a tourist attraction, such as the Mackinac Bridge, the St. Louis Arch, or the Empire State Building.

The images printed on others, however, should probably be taken with a grain of salt.

This is the case with the Michigan State University Museum’s collection of postcards dating back to the early 20th century that is currently on display in the Kalamazoo Valley Museum, at 230 North Rose Street in Kalamazoo.

The exhibit, dubbed “Storytelling through the Mail: Tall Tale Postcards,” opened in the Kalamazoo museum on May 14th to give visitors a look at Vintage examples of an unusual—if common—form of visual humor.

It is a popular, if simple, prank: a fisherman holds up a catch that is unbelievably large.

Today, anyone with a camera, a computer and a working knowledge of graphic editing programs, such as “Adobe Photoshop,” could create it.

There was, however, a time when the creation of such images was more difficult to pull off, and when those who saw them had to give the unbelievable images a second look.

The collection, which will be on display in the downtown Kalamazoo museum until September 6th, uses more than 80 postcards with such examples of tall tale imagery from around the country to demonstrate this medium of popular humor.

Accompanying the postcards is a number newspaper cartoons, magazine covers and even taxidermy specimens to help the exhibit explain the story of the tall tale postcard to its viewers.

Most of the postcards in the collection were found by John Turner, a native of Michigan who has since gone to live in Berkely, Calif.

Additional postcards—as well as the other objects included in the exhibit to help explain the backgrounds of the cards—were contributed by William and Yvonne Lockwood, Marsha MacDowell and Kurt Dewhurst, Michele Beltran, Val Berryman, LuAnne Kozma and Kate Edgar.

Tall tales are typically recognized as humorous fictional stories that focus on some exaggerated feature, which happen to be presented as a truthful account of one thing or another.

Tall tales are passed on in all kinds of mediums, be they oral, written or visual forms, such as the postcards, cartoons and other artifacts in the Storytelling through the Mail collection.

No matter how far back one goes, tall tale scenes have typically been created by piecing together regular size images with enlargements or by juxtaposing two images that would not normally go together.

Illustrations drawn by artists were also a common production method, but it is the cards that feature photography that mainly characterizes the genre. This is because people sometimes assume that a camera cannot lie.

Storytelling through the Mail features work from several artists and photographers widely regarded as masters of the genre.

For example, Alfred Stanley Johnson’s work—which had been produced in Wisconsin from 1909 to 1935—is known for creating highly realistic-looking scenes that featured people and farm products of exaggerated proportions.

F.D. Conard turned out nightmarish images of giant grasshoppers, inspired by a 1935 plague of the insects in Kansas.

Richard Miller secured his place in the spotlight around 1965 with a folksy image of a hunter tied to the hood of a car with a deer head behind the wheel. This piece happens to be a rare example of a staged scene rather than a mash-up of juxtaposed images.

In addition to works by these “masters” there are numerous other cards by lesser known or completely unknown photographers and illustrators, all silly, nostalgic and evocative of a century of vacations and messages quickly sent.

To learn more about tall tale postcards, as well as the Storytelling through the Mail collection itself, go online to http://museum.msu.edu/museum/tes/tall-tale.