Celebrating Thirty Years of East Asian Collections

Korean postcards, Postcard collection, 1893-2010s

Colonial Korean Postcard Collection includes picture/photo postcards of Korea during the colonial period (1910-1945), portraying ancient historical sites, natural landmarks, people in traditional or modern settings, rural Korean villages and modern urban spaces, and Korean customs. This collection was acquired in 2019 as part of the Rubenstein Library's Postcard collection. The included items are missionary postcards, Alévêque Postcard Series, and some other postcards.

Missionary Postcards
Missionary postcards were produced by mission sending agencies and distributed throughout Europe and America with the intent of promoting support for the missions' work and providing information about non-Western peoples and customs. The postcards date primarily from the 1910s-1920s and provide an interesting glimpse into the Christian missionary enterprise and its impact on non-Western societies. Duke’s Colonial Korean Postcard Collection includes postcards documenting missionary works in Korea.

Alévêque Postcard Series
A Frenchman called Charles Alévêque arrived in Seoul around 1898. He was related with many different works in Korea. He has been described as a dealer, who was selling weapons in 1900. He was also a French teacher of French School in Seoul, and he published the first French-Korean dictionary in 1901. He also published 48 postcards with photos of Korean people, culture and custom. In 1899, E. Clemencent, a French postal adviser, suggested to the Korean Empire government that selling photographic postcards of various aspects of Korea could help finance the Korean Empire. Charles Alévêque was commissioned to take photos of Korea and produce photo postcards, which is of great value as the first photo postcard in the history of Korea Post. They were distributed during the Paris 1900 Exposition.

Other Postcards
During the colonial period, postcards of Korea were printed by various Japanese organizations such as government agencies, private printing firms, individual photography studios, and smaller bookstores and firms, portraying ancient historical sites, natural landmarks, people in traditional or modern settings, rural Korean villages and modern urban spaces, and Korean customs.