George D. Brightbill, Associate Archivist of Temple University’s Urban Archives from 1990 to 1999, assembled a collection of postcards to serve as the foundation for a history of postcard publishing in Philadelphia. When Mr. Brightbill retired from Temple in 1999, he donated his collection of thousands of postcards and related materials to the Library Company of Philadelphia, along with his own carefully compiled finding aid.
This inventory describes approximately 5400 postcards documenting Philadelphia buildings, events and street scenes from circa 1900 to 1940. The site also includes a small sampling of digitized images.
Curated by Linda Wisniewski, 2000.
