Wednesday, June 07, 2023

Good Heaven! Changing understanding of a cartoon postcard

 

I picked up this postcard at a flea market last weekend. These days, you're most likely to see an image like this in a history of medicine collection although when it was made it was just a gag cartoon, and not graphic medicine. So what's going on? The presumably newly-married pair has gone to bed and the man sees all the prosthetics the woman has removed to sleep - a wig, dentures, an artificial leg, and hand. One wonders where his thick glasses were if he didn't notice these before bedtime.

The card's artist signature is cut off on the lower right, but the company is Lotus Pub Co, NY. They seem to have published a bit of everything, but there's a few more cartoon postcards online. There's nothing at all on the back.

If anyone has any further information, please leave it in the comments. I'll probably donate the card to the Library of Congress.

1 comment:

Mike Rhode said...

The postcard is now in the Prints and Photographs collection of the Library of Congress which is looking to have the artist identified.