Greetings from Dutch Country
83
to “own” a piece of the Amish, while authenticating their own travels and
proving their experiences were real.5
Although the Amish have become one of the most photographed ethnic
groups in the United States, their own faith actually opposes the taking, and
even the possessing, of photographic portraits. One common explanation is that
photographs violate the Biblical admonition against the construction of the
“graven image.”6 But there is a second, more generally accepted reason: in the
late 19th century, when photography was new, the Amish agreed to renounce
photographic portraits because they believed the images glorified outward
appearances and instilled pride and vanity.7 Thus, the fact that non-Amish
people produce, sell, and consume postcards of the Amish is an issue that
remains at once complex and problematic. By examining the history and theory
of the photograph, the tourist, and the postcard, this essay will show that Amish
postcards represent a great deal more than cheap souvenirs. Therefore, when
examining the cultural phenomenon of the Amish postcard, it is necessary to
consider several theoretical perspectives of photography: the photograph’s
historical relationship to travel; its implied objectivity; its inherent aggression;
its democratic character; its propensity to objectify and exoticize the subject;
and its capacity to construct reality.
The photograph and travel
In the broadest sense, travel postcards are the material manifestations of the
intersection between photography and tourism, and since the invention of the
medium, photography has been linked to travel. In 1839, the daguerreotype was
introduced to the Western world, and by the 1850s, there were more than three
million daguerreotypes being produced in the United States alone. Peter
Osborne notes in Traveling Light, “As soon as there was photography, there was
travel photography.”8 Even from the beginning, photographs of far away places
fed the imaginations of “armchair tourists” everywhere, and “Travel” became an
entire genre of photography.
The earliest “photographic” cards (the precursor to the picture postcard)
were not travel-related but rather genuine portrait photographs mounted onto
cardboard called carte-de-visites (visiting cards). These small portraits (usually
measuring 4'A" x 2 V2") were introduced in late 1854 when Parisian
photographer, Andre Disderi, patented a way of taking a number of photographs
on one plate (usually eight), thus greatly reducing production costs. When he
began photographing Parisian celebrities and selling the portraits to the general
public, Disderi created a middle class sensation. Photographers in England and
the United States soon followed suit by making portraits of royalty, politicians,
and stage personalities. A new boom—collecting celebrity ephemera—had
begun. Thanks to the commercial carte-de-visite, anyone could buy, own, give,
send, or sell images of celebrities, giving the public a feeling of intimacy with
the famous sitters. Even some of the photographers themselves became
celebrities, as in the case of the American photographer Matthew Brady, who
gained notoriety for his New York studio and his celebrity cartes. Brady’s most