Beauty and the Beast: Human-Animal Relations as Revealed in Real Photo Postcards, 1905-1935
The first third of the 20th century was a time of change in America. Industrialization meant greater wealth and more time in the home. Urbanization led people away from the farms and the wilderness. All of this changed how Americans regarded and interacted with animals. Animals became more common in the home, in the spotlight, in advertisements, and less commonly thought of as food and labor. People’s close relationships with the animals in their lives were captured on the cheap and newly-popular picture postcards.
Illustrated with hundreds of photo postcards, this book examines how early 20th-century Americans regarded animals, whether pets, livestock, entertainers, or symbols. The authors suggest that this book will mainly appeal to scholars of sociology and anthropology, but I found it to be very accessible to a reader outside these areas. The collection of early 20th-century postcards alone make this book worthwhile for the historical novelist, but the accompanying text is fascinating and gives insight into the way historical characters might have interacted with the animals in their lives.
