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Photography History History
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Combining ethnographic and archival research, this book examines the lives of colonialperiod postcards and reveals how they become objects of contemporary historical imagination in India.
Picture postcards were circulated around the world in their billions in the early twentieth century and remained, until the advent of social media, unmatched as the primary means of sharing images alongside personal messages. This book, based on original research in Bengaluru, shows that their lives stretch from their initial production and consumption in the early 1900s into the present where they act as visual and material mediators in postcolonial productions of history, locality, and heritage against a backdrop of intense urban change.
The book will be of interest to photographic historians, visual anthropologists, and art historians.
Emily Stevenson is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford.
Photography, History: History, Photography
Series Editors:
Professor Emerita Elizabeth Edwards, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Professor Patricia Hayes, University of Western Cape, South Africa
Professor Jennifer Tucker, Wesleyan University, USA
This feld-defning series explores the inseparable relationship between photography and history. Bringing together perspectives from a broad disciplinary base it investigates what wider histories of, for example, wars, social movements, regionality, or nationhood, look like when photography and its social and cultural force are brought into the centre of analysis.
Public Images
Celebrity, Photojournalism, and the Making of the Tabloid Press
Ryan Linkof
Photography and the Making of Eastern Europe
Conficting Identities, Cultural Heritage (1859–1945)
Ewa Manikowska
Photographing Tutankhamun
Archaeology, Ancient Egypt, and the Archive
Christina Riggs
Photography, Reconstruction and the Cultural History of the Postwar European City
Tom Albeson
Photography, Bearing Witness and the Yugoslav Wars, 1988-2021
Testimonies of Light
Paul Lowe
British Indian Picture Postcards in Bengaluru
Ephemeral Entanglements
Emily Stevenson
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Photography-History-HistoryPhotography/book-series/BLPHOPHHP
British Indian Picture Postcards in Bengaluru
Ephemeral Entanglements
Emily Stevenson
Designed cover image: Cover Photo by Emily Stevenson, 2016
First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
The right of Emily Stevenson to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stevenson, Emily (Emily Rose), author.
Title: British Indian picture postcards in Bengaluru : ephemeral entanglements / Emily Stevenson.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Series: Photography, history: history, photography | Outgrowth of the author’s thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 2018, under the title: Picture postcard Bengaluru : the visual and material past in India’s Silicon Valley. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifers: LCCN 2023032125 (print) | LCCN 2023032126 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367549190 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367553418 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003093107 (ebook)
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032125
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023032126
ISBN: 978-0-367-54919-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-55341-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-09310-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003093107
Typeset in Sabon by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgements xi
Acronyms and Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Ephemeral Entanglements 1
Picture Postcards in the “Golden Age” 3
The Materiality of Picture Postcards 6
Situating Bengaluru 9
Outline of Chapters 13
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 1 25
1 Behind the Lens: Producing Picture Postcards 29
Photography in Bengaluru 32
Entanglements Behind the Lens 35
“That is all that is left from him”: Traces Beyond the Archive 44
Conclusion 47
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 2 55
2 Picture Postcard Bengaluru 58
Picture Postcards and Colonialism 59
Monuments in Miniature 61
In the Streets of Bengaluru 70 Between Image and Text 80
Conclusion 88
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 3 95
3 “Juggling” with the Past and Present: Picture Postcard Collections as Mnemonic Things 98
Collecting in Context 99
Familial Memories and Ephemeral Mobilities 104
Narratives of Urbanization and “Subaltern Chemical Stories” 108
Conclusion 117
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 4
4 Ephemeral Frictions: Picture Postcards and Heritage in “India’s Silicon Valley”
Heritage and Nostalgia in “India’s Silicon Valley” 128
Refections of the Past 133
The Living Archive of “Bygone Bangalore” 137
Navigating Past and Present 141
Conclusion 148
Conclusion: The Thing About Picture Postcards in the “City Without a Past”
Figures
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 1
1 A picture postcard from the Ramchand Box captioned “View in Lal Bagh, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. Addressed to, “G. Moller Esq., Lands End, Bangalore, Whitefeld.” Collection: Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy, Bengaluru.
1.0 The reverse of Figure 1. Message reads, “From your afectionate brother-in-law Sam Wilde.” Collection: Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy, Bengaluru.
1.3 Kodak flm wallet from G.K. Vale & Co., The Bangalore Photo Stores, South Parade, Bangalore, advertising the sale of photographic materials. Circa 1930s.
1.4 G.G. Welling studio on Mahatma Gandhi Road.
1.5 Original studio backdrop in the G.G. Welling studio.
1.6 Front cover of the album used as a “picture postcard sample book” by the G.G. Welling studio in the mid-twentieth century. Courtesy of G.G. Welling, Bengaluru.
1.7 First page of C.H. Doveton’s booklet Picturesque Bangalore. 1900.
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1.8 The original beading in the G.G. Welling studio. 45
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 2
2 A picture postcard from the Ramchand Box, captioned “St Mark’s Church, Bangalore.” Wiele’s Studio, Bangalore. Postmarked, 12 May 1908. Addressed to, “G. Moller Esq., Lands End, Bangalore, Whitefeld.” Collection: Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy, Bengaluru.
56
2.0 The reverse of Figure 2. Message reads, “Will be in Whitefeld tomorrow Tuesday. I am bringing some more Bangalore views with me. Hope you and Bett are quite well. Your afectionate brother-in-law Sam Wilde.” Collection: Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy, Bengaluru. 57
Chapter 2
2.1 A picture postcard captioned “Mysore Government Ofces, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 11. Circa early 1900s.
2.2 A picture postcard captioned “The Museum, Bangalore.” Raphael Tuck & Sons. Published for the English Emporium, Bangalore. Circa early 1900s.
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2.3 A picture postcard captioned “Kirk Church, Bangalore.” Publisher unknown. Circa early 1900s. 64
2.4 A picture postcard captioned “Old St Joseph’s College, Bangalore.” T. Mamundy Pillay & Sons, Bangalore. 65
2.5 The reverse of Figure 2.4. Postmarked 20.01.1918. Addressed to Miss A. Hastmann, 10 Norfolk Crescent, Bath, Somerset, England. Message reads, “Dear Auntie, Just a postcard showing one of the numerous big buildings in Bangalore. If it were not for the natives knocking about one could easily imagine it was England. Hope this fnds you quite well. Love from Jack.”
2.6 A picture postcard captioned “The Glass House, Lal Bagh, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 199. Circa early 1900s.
2.7 A picture postcard captioned “Lal Bagh.” Wiele’s Studio, Bangalore. Circa early 1900s.
2.8 The reverse of Figure 2.7. Message reads: “Darling Llewelyn, Do you remember the Lal Bagh lions and tigers and monkeys? Father wants to take you to the Zoo next summer. Loving kisses from Father.”
2.9 A picture postcard captioned “Lubbay Musjid, Bangalore.” Publisher unknown. Circa early 1900s.
2.10 A picture postcard captioned “Hindu Temple, Ulsoor, Bangalore.”
Doveton’s Studio, 34 Infantry Road, Bangalore. Dated by hand, 14 August 1918.
2.11 The reverse of Figure 2.10. Message reads, “Dear Marion, the temple on the reverse is all carved wood. Idols, men and women and weird animals, there are a lot of indecent pictures on all these things. This temple would stand about 40’0” high, I think. No Britishers are allowed to interfere with them in any way.”
2.12 A picture postcard captioned “Baird Barracks, Bangalore.”
The Picture House, Bangalore. Circa early 1900s.
2.13 A picture postcard captioned “South Parade, Bangalore.”
The Picture House, 3 Brigade Road, Bangalore. Circa early 1900s.
2.14 A picture postcard captioned “South Parade, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 10. Postmarked, 13 June 1907.
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2.15 The reverse of Figure 2.14. Message reads, “I arrived in Bangalore this morning. I am pleased to say I found George almost himself again. I think he should beneft now from the change. Bangalore very bracing. It is a lovely place! I leave tonight again for Madras. I wish I could stay longer. Love Aggie.” 73
2.16 A picture postcard captioned “Commercial Street, Bangalore.” Wiele’s Studio, Bangalore. Circa early 1900s. 74
2.17 A picture postcard captioned “Cavalry Road, Bangalore.” S. Mahadeo & Son, Belgaum. No. 76. Circa early 1900s. 75
2.18 A picture postcard captioned “Street, Bangalore.” The Picture House, Bangalore. Circa early 1900s. 75
2.19 The reverse of Figure 2.18. Message reads, “This is one of the streets in Bangalore. Notice the people in these parts – they look black [angry] at you.” 76
2.20 A picture postcard captioned “Street in the City.” Wiele’s Studio, Bangalore. Postmarked 31 January 1907. Addressed to, John McDonald, 214 Dalkieth Road, Edinburgh, Scotland. 76
2.21 A picture postcard captioned “Street Scene, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 250. Circa early 1900s. 78
2.22 A picture postcard captioned “Native Shops, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 249. Circa early 1900s. 78
2.23 A picture postcard captioned “Muthia Lamma Goddess, Bangalore.” Publisher unknown. Postmarked, 14 May 1908. Addressed to, [?] Howard Esq. 2169 Queen Street East, Toronto, Canada. Message reads, “From M. Rueben, Sheshadri Road, Bangalore G.P.O, India.” 79
2.24 A picture postcard captioned “Native Laundry, Bangalore.” The Picture House, Bangalore. Circa early 1900s. 81
2.25 The reverse of Figure 2.24. Message reads, “Bombay, July 7th. Dear Sis, Have just embarked on board S.S. Elephanta. Alexandria Docks.” 82
2.26 A picture postcard captioned “Bamboo Island, Cubbon Park, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 243. Circa early 1900s. Addressed to, Miss E. Dunlop, “Claredon Hall,” 6A Ulsoor Road, Bangalore. 83
2.27 The reverse of Figure 2.26. Message reads, “Darling Em, I hope you received small packet of P.P.C [picture postcards] I sent you. Here is one. A scene very familiar to you isn’t it? Please write soon. Fondest love and kisses, yours afectionately Kathryne.” 83
2.28 A picture postcard captioned “The Glass House, Lal Bagh, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 199A. Addressed to, Miss Dorothy Rice. 84
2.29 The reverse of Figure 2.28. Message reads, “My dear Dorothy, Mother not very well is staying in bed today; so we are not going to the fower show. Llewelyn is lying on the bed by her side, and she is reading him a story. He is never tired of hearing stories. Tell us what story books you have been reading. Very much love from us all. Ever your loving father. This is the building where the fower show is being held today.” 84
2.30 A picture postcard captioned “Cubbon Park.” Wiele’s Studio, Bangalore. Postmarked, 28 June 1908. Addressed to, John McDonald Esq., 214 Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh, Scotland.
2.31 The reverse of Figure 2.30. Message reads, “Just here for a few days holiday. I am high up in the hills and the climate is like Scotland only we have a hot sun at midday. I trust you are well and your wife and son in good form. I have many good pals here and I am having a good time.”
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2.32 A picture postcard captioned “Fig Tree Avenue, Cubbon Park, Bangalore.” Higginbotham & Co., Madras & Bangalore. No. 195. Postmarked, 02 April 1908. Addressed to, Mrs John McDonald, 214 Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh, Scotland. 87
2.33 The reverse of Figure 2.32. Message reads, “Had great fun here yesterday. Mrs B. had a Bill pasted to her back with April fool printed in large letters. Hope you are all well.”
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 3
3 A picture postcard captioned “Napier Mole, Karachi.” Postmarked, 26 May 1904. Addressed to, G. P. Moller Esqr., “Land’s End,” Whitefeld. Collection: Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy, Bengaluru.
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3.0 The reverse of Figure 3. Message reads, “I trust you [?] the last P.P.Cs I sent. I have a nice lot of stamps for you and will send in a day or two. I trust self and dear Bet are keeping well. We are all well here. Our fond love and Baby’s sweet kisses. Yours afectionately, May.” Collection: Hemamalini and Ganesh Shivaswamy, Bengaluru. 97
Chapter 3
3.1 Postcards on sale at a stamp and ephemera fair in India.
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3.2 Four picture postcards of Bengaluru from the Martin Henry collection, courtesy of Clare Arni. 104
3.3 Picture postcards from Oez Yasin’s collection. 110
3.4 Picture postcards from Oez Yasin’s collection being shown over a cup of tea. 111
3.5 A picture postcard from Rohit Hangal’s collection being shown to the author. 114
Following the Ramchand Box, Part 4
4 Whitefeld Cemetery. 125
Chapter 4
4.1 Construction taking place in the centre of Bengaluru.
130
4.2 British Indian picture postcard reproductions on display at the RMAC. 134
4.3 M.G. Road refected in a reproduction of a picture postcard of South Parade. 135
4.4 Images of picture postcards included as part of an INTACH panel at Designuru. 143
4.5 A reproduction of a picture postcard image by C.H. Doveton being passed around during a heritage walk.
146
Acknowledgements
There are many people to whom I am indebted and would like to thank for their support in making this book a reality. My frst thanks, however, must go to everyone who participated in and supported this research in Bengaluru through sharing their collections, memories, insights, experiences, and time with me. I am immensely grateful for your generosity, openness, and kindness, and for the wealth of information that you shared so readily about your city, its past, photographic histories, your personal experiences, and your collections of picture postcards. Your passion and knowledge consistently astounded me, and I hope to have done justice to this within the pages of this book. In particular, I would like to thank Mansoor Ali, Franklin Antonat, Clare Arni, Akhil Gupta, Rohit Hangal, C.N. Kumar, Sushil Mehra, Naresh Narasimhan, Kiran Natarajan, Aliyeh Rizvi, Ganesh and Hema Shivaswamy, as well as G.G. Welling and E.G.K & Son.
This book was born out of my doctoral research conducted at SOAS under the supervision of Stephen Hughes. I am continuously grateful for Stephen’s guidance, feedback, and encouragement before, during, and beyond my PhD. Various parts of this research have been presented at conferences, workshops, and seminars in India, the UK, the US, and The Netherlands, as well as online. These provided opportunities for constructive feedback and dialogue, in particular the Bangalore Research Network NAGARA Workshop, the Bangalore International Centre (BIC), and the Postcard Journeys workshop series. I am also indebted to all those with whom I have had wider conversations on anthropology, photography, picture postcards, and Bengaluru that have shaped my thinking, and to those who have provided me with invaluable comments on presentations and drafts over the past multiple years, including Elizabeth Edwards, Hemangini Gupta, Clare Harris, Aimee Joyce, Christopher Morton, Edward Simpson, Smriti Srinivas, Helen Underhill, A.R. Venkatachalapathy, Christopher Wright, and the late Marcus Banks. In addition, thank you to the anonymous reviewers of this book for your close, thoughtful comments and insights which helped me refne my thinking.
I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to several institutions and communities in Bengaluru, including the Bangalore – Photos from a Bygone Age Facebook group, the Bangalore Research Network, the Ganesh Shivaswamy Foundation, the Kannada Prasaara Parishat, the Karnataka State Archives, and the Museum of Art and Photography. In addition, I am grateful for the friendship of those I met in Bengaluru including that of Ruth Dhamone, Shikha Nambiar, Shivani Shah, Balaji TV, and Ute Wiemar, as well as that of fellow researchers Rebecca Bowers, Camille Frazier, Zac Miller, Kanthi Krishnamurthy, Avehi Menon, and Scott Sorell. I am also indebted to the Alternative Law Forum in Bengaluru and The Madras Institute of
Acknowledgements
Development Studies in Chennai with whom I was afliated during my feldwork. In the UK, thank you to the staf at the British Library, and the Postal Museum Archives. This research was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (Grant number 1348570), the Christopher Davis Award, the John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund, and the Leverhulme Trust (Early Career Research Fellowship). I am extremely grateful for this fnancial support throughout the research and writing process.
To my family, in particular my mum, thank you for your support, positivity, and generosity, and for helping me fnd picture postcards, sometimes in the most unlikely of places. I could not have done any of this without each of you. I must also include my nonhuman family members whose relentless happiness, afection, and need for walks helped keep me grounded through the challenges of research and writing. Lastly, to my husband Floris – thank you for always listening, for bringing a smile to my face every day, for your unwavering understanding and encouragement, and for all the many, many hours of proof-reading you did without complaint!
Acronyms and Abbreviations
ASI Archaeological Survey of India.
BBMP Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike.
BDA Bangalore Development Authority.
BMRCL Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited.
BPBA Bangalore – Photos from a Bygone Age Facebook Group.
BUAC Bangalore Urban Arts Commission.
CCD Café Coffee Day.
C & M Station Civil and Military Station.
EIC East India Company.
GPO General Post Offce.
INTACH Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.
IISc Indian Institute of Science.
MG Road Mahatma Gandhi Road.
PPC Picture Postcard.
RMAC Rangoli Metro Art Centre.
RPPC Real Photo Postcard.
Taylor&Francis Group
http://taylorandfrancis.com
Introduction
Ephemeral Entanglements
It was back in 2011 that I frst visited the Bloomsbury Ephemera Fair to look for early twentieth-century picture postcards of India. Upon entering a large room in a central London hotel, I was met with thousands and thousands of these small items of ephemera displayed in boxes on fold-out tables that were arranged in rows. People, mostly men and the vast majority far older than I was, stooped over the boxes, sometimes pulling out a foldable stool, and ficked through the photographic postcards with a well-practiced dexterity. Some boxes were labelled with a price, “All postcards in this box £1,” but most postcards were priced individually, typically between one and ten pounds. I walked through the tables and occasionally looked in a box, searching for the names of Indian cities and regions that were written or typed on plastic dividers to try and help avid collectors focus their search by place or theme. As I did so I felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of ephemera on display. But the array of postcards that greeted me as I stepped through the non-descript hotel lobby doors and into the fair were but a tiny fraction of the picture postcards that circulated globally in the early twentieth century. It may be hard to believe now, when many of us rarely use the postal system and instead rely on myriad forms of social and digital media, but in the frst decades of the 1900s picture postcards were produced, consumed, and sent around the world in staggering numbers, and India was no exception.
Refecting the astonishing rise in the popularity of the picture postcard, a London correspondent wrote an article entitled “The Picture Postcard Mania” in The Times of India in 1903 in which he stated, “Will the picture postcard mania prove a Post Ofce Frankenstein? The inquiries which I have made go to prove that it will. I was told that forty-eight millions [sic] of these cards were posted during the year which ended last March and that as far as could be judged this number will be increased during the present postal year. […] Our trade is only about a third of that which is now driving the German and American authorities into despair.”1 Just one year later it was reported in the same paper that:
Sir Arthur Fanshawe’s copious record of the working of the Post Ofce last year shows how the picture postcard custom is growing in India. We have not reached the stage realised in Germany, where it is quite common to fnd the traveller rushing of to post his cards before seeking to satisfy the cravings of hunger or remove the stains of travel, but there has been a great improvement in the quality of the picture postcards available, and when the cold weather visitor is upon us the supply scarcely keeps pace with the demand. Last year there was an increase of 42 and a
half millions in the total number of postal articles handled, and by far the greatest increase occurred in postcards.2
By the early 1900s, the popularity of picture postcards in India was therefore rapidly increasing, contributing to the scale of this global phenomenon during the frst decades of the twentieth century. Although it is impossible to accurately determine the exact number of picture postcards produced and consumed globally in the early twentieth century, it has been estimated that “seven billion cards passed through the world’s postal ofces in 1905” alone and that between 200 and 300 billion postcards were produced and sold globally during the so-called “Golden Age” of picture postcards in the early 1900s.3 It is likely that the actual fgure is even higher given the number of picture postcards which were never sent through the postal system. According to Julia Gillen and Nigel Hall’s analysis of the British Postmaster General ’s annual reports, close to six billion postcards were sent through the UK postal system alone between 1901 and 1910. This equates to every individual in the UK at the time sending an average of 200 picture postcards per year, giving an indication of the signifcant scale of picture postcard use at the time.4 Moreover, with multiple postal deliveries per day in some places, the picture postcard was not only used for the kind of touristic greetings we now associate them with but was often used for rapid, everyday communication5 and “meant much more, and very diferent things, than it does today.”6 By providing an innovative combination of image and text that could be used to communicate afordably and quickly, picture postcards were taken up across the world in the early twentieth century and, as Stephen Hughes and I have discussed, became “the most widely circulated and afordable mass-produced form of photography.”7 Indeed, Gillen argues that “there was nothing comparable to the Edwardian picture postcard in the period between 1910 and the dawn of electronic social media. And no similarly accessible and attractive form of fast written communication was possible until the development of digital platforms.”8 As a newspaper article stated in 1907, “as for the cult of the picture postcard, so long as people love pictorial art, it is bound to endure, and for this reason, that it is the cheapest and most handy means of acquiring or distributing art.”9 Vast numbers of photographic picture postcards of cities, cantonments, towns, the countryside, and people were produced by photography studios and publishing companies across India, which were well-established by the early twentieth century and keen to take advantage of the economic opportunities presented by the popularity of this new medium. Moreover, as the largest British colony there was a considerable market for picture postcards, which were predominantly marketed to and consumed by Europeans at the time.10
Back in 2011 at the ephemera fair, I therefore encountered just some of the picture postcards that were produced of and in India during the colonial period and which, over the course of the past century, have moved location and changed ownership, often more than once. I was at the ephemera fair on that day to fnd picture postcards for my research at the time concerning colonial representations of women and spaces of domesticity.11 However, as I walked through the large room, weaving between the rows of tables and searching through boxes, I found myself intrigued by the journeys these both deeply political and personal pieces of ephemera had made from their initial production and consumption in early twentieth-century colonial India to a collector’s fair in the UK a century later. I became increasingly fascinated by picture postcards as things that carry not only images but messages, as things that move, and as things that disappear only to reappear, sometimes in unlikely places. But most of all, having been produced
in astonishing numbers in the early twentieth century, they fascinated me as part of an immense, scattered, and unofcial material “debris” from the colonial past that remains complexly entangled in the present.
As I ficked through the picture postcards at the fair, I began considering how they are engaged with in the postcolonial present of the Indian places they represent in a captioned four- by six-inch frame; what critiques, discourses, memories, historical narratives, and contemporary experiences do these picture postcards elicit and entangle with in India which I was not hearing in the lobby of a central London hotel? Having started with this question, this book is founded on the recognition that photographic picture postcards, as ephemeral things, are not only comprised of complex material entanglements involving paper, chemicals, ink, pencil, paint, and dust, but that throughout their social lives they have become part of larger entanglements that are multiple and shifting –from colonial discourses and power relations to familial relations and contemporary experiences of urban change. Based on 15 months of ethnographic research and interviews between 2015 and 2016, as well as further archival research in both India and the UK, this book provides the frst examination of the social lives of British Indian picture postcards from their production and consumption in the context of colonialism into the present. By tracing these ephemeral entanglements it becomes clear that picture postcards have always been enmeshed in multiple discourses, practices, spaces, and social relations. Moreover, far from being consigned to the past, picture postcards have become intimately engaged in the production of historical imagination in the present. In Bengaluru, a city that has experienced intense and rapid urban transformation into the “IT capital of India,” picture postcards are circulated, reproduced, and collected in ways which not only complicate, critique, and exceed the colonial context, but which provide new understandings of the navigation of locality, heritage, memory, and the relationship between past, present, and future.
Picture Postcards in the “Golden Age”
Whilst the early twentieth century is recognized as the height of picture postcard popularity, often referred to as the “Golden Age” as noted above, the medium’s development dates back to the latter part of the nineteenth century. In 1869, Austria issued the frst postcard, or korrespondenzkarte, a plain card on one side of which was space for a message and on the other the address.12 Prior to this, “postal regulations in Europe and America stated that only sealed correspondence could be sent through the postal service” and when the idea of a postcard was frst raised at the Austro–German Postal Conference in 1865 it was met with serious concerns about a lack of privacy.13 However, despite these initial reservations from some, the postcard was a quick success with close to three million being sold within the frst three months.14 Throughout the 1870s the majority of other European countries also introduced the postcard and its format began a process of rapid alteration as anxieties about privacy were outweighed by the attraction of its efciency and low cost.15 It is unknown exactly when the frst images were added to postcards since it was only “gradually [that] small pictures were added to the plain postcards, this usually being done without ofcial sanction.”16 According to Omar Khan, however, the frst postcards with lithographic images of the subcontinent were likely produced in 1893 for the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in the form of advertisements for the sewing machine company Singer,17 whilst, as noted by Christopher Pinney, it was not until 1899 that phototype picture postcards were frst available.18 It was with this
addition of images that the popularity of the medium dramatically increased, with an astounding variety of photographic picture postcards produced in diferent styles and layouts: some black and white, others coloured by hand, some with or without borders around the image, some with a caption underneath or directly on the image, and some with no caption at all. By the early 1900s, the picture postcard had therefore become a global phenomenon through the innovative combination of mass-reproduced image and personal text that could be sent around the world quickly and cheaply.19
In the early days of picture postcards, postal regulations meant that only the address was allowed to be written on the reverse of the postcard. As a result, senders either wrote no message at all or they had to squeeze one onto the front of the picture postcard in the white space around the image or directly on top of it. However, in 1902 the frst picture postcards with a divided back were issued which allowed for both address and message to be included.20 Despite these changes, the medium remained suited to shorter, more informal, and non-private messages which were often written spontaneously and included shorthand abbreviations or attempts to make it harder for the postman, or indeed anyone else who might see the postcard on its journey to its intended recipient, to read the message, for example by writing in spirals or crosshatch. Regardless of these limitations of space and early concerns regarding privacy, picture postcards were not only used for practical communication but, as seen in Chapter 2, as a means of creating and reinforcing social relations across time and space, and producing claims to locality.
With the popularity of the picture postcard, “the world rapidly became encircled by a network of exchanges that bombarded reciprocally illustrated messages at reduced tarifs.”21 As noted above, picture postcards of India were overwhelmingly consumed by Europeans in the early twentieth century and within this context of colonialism, in which colonies and metropoles were “critically linked by a trafc in objects that was sensorially fgured,”22 they “played a crucial role in validating a sense of place by capturing frst-hand impressions, authenticating experiences of ‘being there,’ and then conveying these ‘impressions’ to friends and family back home […] soon [becoming] the most ubiquitous and widely distributed images of colonial life.”23 Signifcantly, the work of British Indian picture postcards was also tied up with wider colonial visual cultures as well as valorizations of photography as a form of “truthful” representation that stretched back to the 1850s. At the inaugural meeting of the Bombay Photographic Society in 1854, for example, one member stated that “India, I need hardly point out … ofers a vast feld to the Photographer …[which] should incite us to the practice of an Art, of which the beauty and utility are only surpassed by its truthfulness.”24 It was, however, only after the events of 1857–1858 which saw “widespread violent resistance by the colonized” and ultimately lead to direct crown rule,25 that photography’s alignment with “truth” began to be called upon for ofcial purposes as part of a new colonial imperative to document India and its people in order to better understand, and thus control them.26 This was arguably epitomized by the photographic project initiated by the frst Viceroy of India, Charles John Canning, and his wife, which ultimately led to the publication of The People of India in eight volumes between 1868 and 1875. In 1861 Canning had encouraged both civilians and army ofcials across India to collect “photographic likenesses of characteristic specimens of the more remarkable tribes of India” and provide him with copies. These photographs needed to be large enough, his instructions specifed, to allow them to “exhibit the chief physical peculiarities and distinctive costumes of each race.”27 As discussed by Pinney, the experience of the events of 1857–1858 are clear within the volume in which earlier “preoccupations with origins, purity and the prospect of decay […]
were swept away by a concern with political loyalty (or its lack)” and in which people are represented not as individuals but types.28 Overall, projects such as this “connected the technology of photography to a bureaucratic epistemology in order to establish a vast photographic archive that was deemed necessary for the proper governance of the colony and its people.”29 Positioned in front of blank walls or white screens, the people we see in these images look directly ahead or are side-on in a rigid portrait composition and some would have been asked to dress in certain ways and given “props” that were deemed representative of their caste or tribe’s traits.30 As has been widely demonstrated, whilst the indexicality of photography was assumed to confer objectivity the reality was marked by careful staging and was intimately enmeshed in colonial discourses and political agendas.31 Indeed, understanding the photograph as a “chemical trace” of what was placed in front of it does not preclude questions about choices surrounding what was photographed, why, and by whom.32
Whilst picture postcards of India would not arrive for several decades after the publication of The People of India and can be distinguished from ofcial, ethnographic forms of photography, not least in terms of their production histories and forms of consumption, they are nonetheless enmeshed within this longer history of photographic practice in colonial India in which India and Indians were represented typologically according to colonial discourses and stereotypes. Countless picture postcards were produced across India of diverse subject matters from colonial monuments and city streets to picturesque rural scenes, from religious sites to political events, and from personal portraits of Europeans to anonymous depictions of Indians as generic “types,” often according to colonial preoccupations with and understandings of caste, occupation, and religion. The many postcards of places and buildings similarly reinforced colonial discourses of the modernity, power, and permanence of the colonial state, and the “backward,” “exotic” nature of India. Despite having been understudied for many decades, “commonly [being] viewed as trivial scraps of oldfashioned colonial nostalgia,”33 there has been a growing body of literature since the 1980s that critically examines the signifcant role that these small items of ephemera played in the construction, representation, and dissemination of colonial stereotypes and discourses,34 as well as several studies that examine the medium in terms of communications technology and ideas of modernity.35 Picture postcards from this period must therefore be examined in relation to their colonial context of production and consumption, and can be considered an archetypal form of colonial representation in many ways.
Throughout this book, however, it becomes clear that the complex production histories and ongoing social lives of picture postcards complicate any reductive understanding of these visual and material things. As discussed in Chapter 1, their production involved both Indian and European photographers, business owners, and apprentices, and was shaped by the complex entanglement of local socio-spatial relations as well as colonial power structures and wider political events. Moreover, the vast quantity of picture postcards produced of India in the early twentieth century did not simply disappear. Nor did the majority enter formal museums or library collections – something that is not surprising given that as mass-reproduced ephemera they have not carried the same value as other classes of photography and material culture.36 Consequently, a staggering quantity continue to exist in the present, moving between private and public spaces and in the process acquiring new materialities, social relations, and meanings. As examined in Chapters 3 and 4, picture postcards of Bengaluru continue to be engaged, collected, circulated, displayed, and remediated as residents grapple with the relationship between past, present, and future, the politics of heritage, and classed experiences of locality in a
city that has undergone transformative urbanization in recent decades. Through tracing these ongoing, ephemeral social lives it is possible to develop new understandings of both this medium and the complexities of the production of historical imagination in a city whose identity is often subsumed within popular narratives of its rise into the “IT capital of India” since the 1980s.
Amongst the people I came to know in Bengaluru, and whose insights, stories, memories, and experiences are threaded through the following chapters, picture postcards are critiqued for their implication in colonial power dynamics and representational practices whilst also mobilized amidst sentiments of nostalgia and critique of the present-day, utilized as personal and collective mnemonics, and engaged in the production and negotiation of local heritage. Maya Jasanof has stated that in both “public and private collections in Britain and its former colonies things continue to present tangible evidence of the circuits of exchange that linked Europe and empire.”37 What the social lives of picture postcards in Bengaluru reveal is that, as material and mobile things produced through local photographic encounters, they continue to carve out new “circuits” and relations as they are exchanged, reproduced, lost, and digitized.
The Materiality of Picture Postcards
Literature on the use of photography in contexts of colonialism38 has critically demonstrated the ways in which the medium was utilized as a tool of surveillance and categorization, and perpetuated colonial stereotypes of colonized people.39 Anthropological approaches, however, have also moved beyond a focus on image content alone, challenged assumptions that colonial photography can be approached as “an unoccluded mirror of colonial attitude,” and highlighted the agency of local and indigenous communities in colonial photographic encounters.40 Already in 1997 David MacDougall stated that anthropologists were “beginning to pay attention to a range of cultural forms that [had] received only patchy anthropological attention before,” such as historical photographs and postcards.41 Within this context, anthropologists have increasingly proposed that images can be read, rearticulated, and engaged with in ways which extend beyond the producer’s intensions, whilst also arguing that the frame of the active colonial agent photographing the passive colonized subject is too simplistic an understanding of complex photographic encounters and the forms of agency these involved.42 As Christopher Wright argues, the issue with more “carceral,” Foucauldian approaches to colonial photography is that they assume that photographs “refect, in an uncomplicated way, the concerns and political dispositions of those who made the images.”43 Not only has the work of various anthropologists closely examined vernacular photographic practices that unsettle Eurocentric assumptions of both photography and vision itself, bringing to the fore diferent photographies, 44 but they have also highlighted forms of indigenous and local photographic agency in contexts of colonialism.45 Pinney’s body of work on India has been particularly infuential in this regard, demonstrating how photography has become “entangled in different systems” since its introduction in the 1840s.46 Within this, his work has examined what he terms “corpothetic” engagements with visual images in India47 whilst also foregrounding the disruptive potential and contingency of photography.48 More broadly, in complicating “Foucault-inspired” readings, work such as this has paid close “attention to the various practices of social and sensory engagement with photography that are being actively entered into by communities who were themselves the focus of anthropology in the past.”49 As Marcus Banks and Richard Vokes state, “subjects have exploited the
polyvalent properties of photographic representation not merely to insert themselves into history but to create new histories.”50 In the case of British Indian picture postcards, not only do their original production histories unsettle clear-cut Foucauldian readings, but in the present they become actively involved in the production of local historical imagination and enmeshed with personal experiences and memories.
Central to many of these more recent anthropological approaches to photography has been a recognition of the materiality of photographs, in particular as a result of the work of Elizabeth Edwards and, in relation to India specifcally, Pinney.51 Not only do photographs move and physically change, but multiple meanings are produced and worked-out through the photograph’s materiality.52 Of particular relevance to the social lives of picture postcards in Bengaluru is Edwards’ claim that it is through their “material performances of a range of historiographical desires” that photographs negotiate “relations among past, present, and future.”53 In speaking of picture postcards as sites of historical imagination in Bengaluru, I therefore draw on Edwards’ use of the term in order to point to the importance of picture postcards’ materiality as well as the refexive and imaginative qualities of people’s relationship to the past.54 Moreover, what work on material culture more broadly demonstrates is that images, like other things, always operate “as bundles of sensory properties which respond to specifc sets of relationships and environments.”55 In this sense, the visual is also the visceral56 and the photograph is not only an image that can be “apprehended visually”57, something that is especially true of the picture postcard with its inherent mobility and complex materiality. The production of picture postcards in the early twentieth century entailed numerous materials and embodied practices, whilst their materiality was altered through multi-sensory forms of consumption which produced new meanings, and reinforced or created social relationships across time and space. In the present, their shifting materiality, from their marks of age to their forms of display, reproduction, and digitization, continues to demand sensitivity to multiple sensory registers and wider embodied experiences of Bengaluru. A concern with things more broadly and their multiple, complex relations with people is nothing new to anthropology. As Janet Hoskins states, “anthropologists since Mauss and Malinowski have asserted that the lines between persons and things are culturally variable.”58 However, it was in the 1980s that the, subsequently much explored, idea that things can have their own social life was developed through the edited volume The Social Life of Things 59 In the introduction, Arjun Appadurai sets out the primary aim of the text to ofer a “new perspective on the circulation of commodities in social life,” founded upon the argument that the economic value of commodities is in fact rooted in exchange. Taking this as its premise, the volume places things themselves at the centre of analysis, as opposed to considering them incidental to “forms and functions of exchange.”60 Igor Kopytof’s essay pushes this further by proposing that we should ask biographical questions of things just as we do of people, such as; “where does the thing come from and who made it?,” “what has been its career so far and what do people consider to be an ideal career for such things?,” and “how does the thing’s use change with its age and what happens to it when it reaches the end of its usefulness?”61 Ultimately, the book argues that by tracing the social life of things it is possible to recognize that their value is not “inherent” but is produced through the diferent “regimes” which they move in and out of: “we have to follow things in themselves, for their meanings are inscribed in their forms, their uses, their trajectories.”62 It is therefore only through tracing the whole life of an object that we can understand the way in which meanings are produced and change. Whilst Appadurai and Kopytof focus on biographies in relation to exchange,
however, others have since pointed out that it is not only through exchange or physical alteration that objects can “acquire new meanings,” and that in contexts of colonialism it is possible that “a sharp break may occur in a biography” which signifcantly changes meaning.63 Relatedly, a key critique of the biographical approach is that it presupposes linearity and singularity when things do not always produce linear narrative64 and “the life of things is in reality many lives, winding through each other.”65 The limitations of the biographical model are particularly apparent with regards to photographs given their reproducibility which resists any form of singularity.66 During my time engaging with picture postcards of and in Bengaluru, the non-linearity and multiplicity of their social lives became abundantly evident as their entanglements, meanings, and materialities seemed to shift between times and spaces.
Crucially, it is in relation to colonialism, photography, and materiality that much of the dialogue between the disciplines of history and anthropology has developed.67 Some 20 years after Bernard Cohn’s critique of the division between “Anthropology Land” and “History Land,”68 Saloni Mathur stated that much scholarship has been produced that undermines this prior division. She went further, in fact, and stated that “an infuential body of work published in the 1980s and 1990s, located at the juncture between history and anthropology has helped to redefne social scientifc approaches to South Asia.”69 Of particular relevance here is Mathur’s discussion of scholarship on the intimate relationship between power and knowledge within the colonial archive. Scholarship that looks closely at this archive, she states, questions “historical knowledge, the structures of power in which knowledge is produced and the silences or erasures that ensue in the face of a self-conscious project of historical retrieval.”70 Indeed, as is widely acknowledged, the archive ofers selected and edited perspectives, and when we attend to processes of discovering, dusting down, engaging, and constructing archives it becomes especially clear that “the relationship between the materiality of history and the stories of history [is] remarkably unstable and fractious.”71 In order to assess the complex, shifting entanglements of things such as picture postcards, it is therefore necessary to critically attend to their past and present, and the ways in which these interact with one another.72
Whilst anthropological literature on the materiality of photographs and photographic archives has, however, often discussed photographs as objects and drawn attention to their existence “in time and space,”73 I propose that picture postcards should be thought of as things. Unlike an object which “arrests our attention,”74 I draw on Tim Ingold’s use of the term “thing” to point to the incomplete nature of the picture postcard as a medium inherently designed to be modifed and “brought to life” in diferent ways through its consumption.75 As Ingold states, too frequently “in the world of solid objects envisaged by material culture theorists, […] the fux of materials is stifed and stilled.”76 Approaching picture postcards as things alerts us to their constitution through entanglements of materials – paper, photographic chemicals, saliva on the back of the stamp, ink or lead from the pen or pencil, dust from their surroundings – and the ways in which their “patterns of values and relationships”77 are re-constituted over the course of their social lives in important ways. Throughout this book, I therefore refer to picture postcards as things and speak of their ephemeral entanglements to indicate the complex processes and materialities of their production and consumption, as well as their ongoing social lives which shift, move, and resist singularity. This approach, rather than focusing on moments of commoditization that assume fxity, or attempting to construct a linear, singular biography allows the multiple meanings, relationships, material forms, and contexts in the lives of picture postcards to come into view.
It quickly became apparent to me whilst in Bengaluru that British Indian picture postcards are complexly entangled with classed and situated experiences, practices, and discourses of locality, heritage, historical imagination, and urban transformation. As Rosemary Joyce and Susan Gillespie state, “locating people and things in motion and at rest directs our attention to space.”78 Wandering through the city streets and speaking with residents in the early stages of my research, I recall a sense of disjuncture between representations of the city as the “Silicon Valley of India” and the complexities of urban life behind this image. During my research, I explored numerous private collections of picture postcards, spoke with their collectors, held informal focus-groups in which collections were shared and discussed, visited long-standing photography studios, collected oral histories, and followed picture postcards into numerous spaces, both physical and digital. In addition, I conducted archival research in the Karnataka State Archives and the British Library, and examined picture postcards in my own growing collection. Given the mobility and fux of picture postcards as things, researching their social lives in Bengaluru required navigation of material, spatial, temporal, social, and discursive entanglements. Throughout this book, I have endeavoured to foreground movement and navigation, and their attendant frictions, since I frequently encountered material and discursive fragments that only slowly, and often partially, came together. Given that picture postcards are things inherently designed to travel and scatter, following their multiple routes was an important way of understanding their ephemeral entanglements over time in a city with a complex colonial history and a rapidly changing present.
Situating Bengaluru
Bengaluru, the capital of Karnataka in central South India, is one of the largest and fastest growing cities in India. Whilst the urban agglomeration of Bengaluru had a population of approximately 400,000 in 1941, by 2001 this has reached close to 5.7 million.79 Throughout its history the city has experienced multiple moments of growth, including during the 1940s and 50s when it became a centre of public sector industries.80 However, as noted by Camille Frazier, its dramatic urbanization in more recent decades is “generally […] believed by residents to be the result of the information technology boom that began in the early 1990s.”81 As Vicky Walters explains, in the mid-1990s the Karnataka Urban Infrastructure and Development Finance Corporation “launched two projects aimed specifcally at positioning Bengaluru as India’s shining information technology hub and an image of the sub-continent’s emerging urban modernity and globalizing corporate economy.”82 Within this context, the frst decade of the twenty-frst century saw the city experience an urban growth rate of 46.68 percent.83 Recent estimates predict that by 2031 the city will have more than 20 million residents, indicating that its rapid growth is nowhere near reducing.84
Much of the urban development that has taken place in Bengaluru over the past few decades has also been unplanned and extremely rapid, or “explosive” as I was often told by long-term residents. Lamentations about the city municipality, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (henceforth BBMP) have become commonplace amongst residents, as have jokes about trafc jams, outcries about worsening pollution, and concerns about changes to the local ecology. The city has also made it into international news as a result of its rapid and uneven growth. In 2012, for example, The Guardian ran a photo-essay that was captioned “the rapid growth of the technology industry in the city known as ‘India’s Silicon Valley’ has barely touched the lives of the two million people who live in
poverty.”85 Similarly, in local newspapers it is not uncommon to fnd statements juxtaposing hopes and plans for Bengaluru’s future with its complex realities in the present. An article in The Hindu from 2017, for example, states that, “even as the government of Karnataka has unveiled full-page advertisements celebrating Bengaluru’s designation at the Davos World Economy Forum as the World’s Most Dynamic City, the residents of the city recognize it as a barely functional metropolis staring at an impending water crisis of a scale and intensity not seen before.”86 The same article goes on to ask, given that the city grew from 226 square kilometres in 1995 to approximately 710 square kilometres in 2007, “can such explosive growth be sustained without a sound planning process?”87
As a result of the growth and fnancialization of the city, many heritage buildings have also been demolished, green cover has been reduced, pollution levels have risen, and trafc congestion has worsened. In addition to this, water supply has increasingly become an issue with boreholes being dug deeper and much of the city’s historic lake and tank system now either drained or severely polluted. As such, whilst determinedly aiming for the status of “world-class” city, Bengaluru is a place of multiple and competing identities that exist against the backdrop of “notions of risk and threat of decay […] associated with the ‘global city.’”88 As Jyothsna Latha Belliappa notes, “its many parks, lakes and wide tree-lined avenues are slowly disappearing; yet where they are still visible, one catches glimpses of the Pensioners’ Paradise of the 1960s and the Garden City of the 1970s and 1980s. […] The pubs, speciality restaurants, shopping malls, multiplexes, high-rise apartments, and IT parks signal its metamorphosis into ‘India’s Silicon Valley’ in the twenty-frst century. This is a Bangalore that the poor can only glimpse, a Bangalore that bewilders and dismays the city’s older residents.”89 Despite being widely conceived of in recent decades as a “modern” Indian city par excellence, a “cosmopolitan” city of opportunity “at the forefront of a particular constitution of Indian modernity and middle-class ideals of progress,”90 behind this perception therefore lay more complex realities for the city’s diferent communities.
Whilst there is a growing body of anthropological literature that critically examines diverse experiences of Bengaluru, including but not limited to those directly linked to the IT industry,91 wider public understandings amongst those unfamiliar with the city and in the international media are often still founded on limited characterizations of “India’s Silicon Valley.” It was in fact this perception of the city that, I believe, led more than one person to tell me that I would be better of conducting my research in Delhi, Kolkata, or Mumbai where there is “more” history, and more visual and material heritage. Such ideas about the city, however, elide its long history that dates back to the sixteenth century when, under the rule of Kempegowda, it developed into “a fortifed settlement linked to a network of temples and tanks [which] later attract[ed] many merchants and artisans who took up residence there.”92 Moreover, many long-term middle- and upper-class residents are frustrated by representations of Bengaluru as a “city without a past” which are felt to occlude its longer histories and alternate identities.93 Despite popular narratives of Bengaluru as purely a “modern” IT city, there are therefore active conversations, practices, and publics in Bengaluru concerned with the city’s past and deeply infected by sentiments of nostalgia. As discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, it is against the backdrop of rapid urbanization, ecological and infrastructural challenges, and demographic change that picture postcards become entangled in and illuminate classed negotiations and productions of belonging, heritage, and nostalgia in the city. As is now widely acknowledged, nostalgia is a complex sentiment, and practice that speaks as much to experiences in the present and imaginations of future as it does to the past.94 In Bengaluru, these emplaced
temporalities of nostalgia and belonging are intimately linked through the social lives of picture postcards and the ways in which these are narrated, even down to the ways in which fuctuations in their monetary value are mapped by collectors against moments of migration and fnancialization in the city’s postcolonial history.
The social lives of picture postcards in Bengaluru and their entanglement with nostalgia, historical imagination, heritage, and locality in the present cannot, however, be understood in isolation from the city’s colonial history that they were initially produced and consumed in, the legacies of which continue to reverberate in the present. In the eighteenth century, Bengaluru was part of the kingdom of Mysore ruled by Haider Ali (1722–1782) and subsequently his son Tipu Sultan (1753–1799),95 who both presented signifcant resistance to the British East India Company’s (henceforth EIC) eforts to expand their control across India through the Anglo-Mysore wars. Whilst the British captured Bengaluru in 1791 it was subsequently given back to Tipu Sultan as part of an agreement to end the Third Anglo-Mysore War (1790–1792) and it was not until 1799, during the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, that the British defeated Tipu Sultan at the infamous battle at Srirangapatna (called Seringapatam by the British). With the defeat of Tipu Sultan the EIC controlled the majority of India south of the Vindhya Range.96 As Maya Jasanof notes, “the capture of Seringapatam marked a turning point in the history of the East India Company” as well as “in how imperial victory was represented.”97 In the wake of this pivotal battle, the kingdom of Mysore was designated a princely state,98 and Lieutenant John Blakiston of the Madras Engineers was set the task of laying out a British military cantonment near Bengaluru where the “salubrious” climate would be more conducive to the health of (especially European) troops.99 A cantonment under direct rule of the British was subsequently established by 1809 near the village of Halasuru several miles to the north-east of Bengaluru.100 Blakiston’s plans marked the beginning of the development of distinct physical and imaginative places, the most pervasive and overarching of which was that between the British cantonment and the original city in the state of Mysore (henceforth referred to as the “City,” capitalized) which was comprised of the kote (fort) and pete (settlement-market).101
Whilst the environs of the cantonment were at the time described by European travellers as a “naked country” with large, open horizons dotted with farms, the assigned tract of land designated for the cantonment quickly developed into a distinct area marked by what were described as “smiling bungalows” of Europeans and Anglo-Indians.102 Although cantonments in India were initially thought of by the British as “a zone of military discipline,”103 in 1765, several years after his victory at the Battle of Plassey over the Nawab of Bengal and decades before the cantonment was established, Lord Robert Clive articulated a discourse of British permanence in the Indian subcontinent when he wrote that cantonments should be constituted of “strong, durable and convenient” buildings for Europeans in view of the likely growing power of the company.104 Throughout the nineteenth century, the number of cantonments in India dramatically increased from 18 in 1811 to 175 in 1860, designed according to a particular “geography of domestication” that exceeded military discipline.105 Refecting this wider attitude, separate municipal boards for the cantonment and original City were established in 1862 and the cantonment was ofcially designated the Bangalore Civil and Military Station in 1868 (henceforth referred to as the Bangalore C & M Station, or C & M Station). The C & M Station grew quickly as private dwellings were established and merchants, bankers, and service industry workers, especially from Madras Presidency, were attracted by the opportunities for trade, employment, and higher earnings aforded by the military presence.
As a result, English and Tamil came to dominate the linguistic landscape of the Bangalore C & M Station, whilst the regional language of Kannada was far more prevalent in the original City.106
Furthermore, the economies of the City and the C & M Station also developed distinct diferences. The City, having grown in importance under the rule of Haider Ali, had a strong manufacturing economy centred on cotton and silk. Conversely, in the C & M Station there was little manufacturing and colonial zoning regulations strictly divided places of home and work.107 The presence of troops and their entourage meant that the C & M Station developed a primarily service-based economy and over time this had a detrimental efect upon the City as it “was increasingly turned into an inland entrepot for British goods and its manufacturing capabilities were eclipsed.”108 The swift growth of the C & M Station and the shifting of power relations in its favour are indicated by the fact that by 1891 the population of the City was approximately 80,000 whilst the C & M Station’s had grown to approximately 100,000.109 Moreover, the divide between City and cantonment was not only economic, political, and demographic, but also physical. For example, Cubbon Park110 (now ofcially Sri Chamarajendra Park but still widely referred to as Cubbon Park), which had been laid out by Major Richard Sankey in 1864 and which epitomized European ideals of open parkland, efectively served as physical boundary between the two areas.111
By the early twentieth century, the C & M Station had therefore expanded to serve as a distinct enclave in which both civilians and military personnel lived and in which a wide array of services and recreational activities were provided.112 The shift from military to more domestic preoccupations is epitomized by the fact that in 1888 the kote (fort) in the City was handed over to the Mysore authorities in exchange for further grounds to be added to the C & M Station’s assigned tract of land.113 However, as explored in Chapter 2, the C & M Station’s strong military identity remained engraved in its spatiality.114 Moreover, as discussed by Janaki Nair, the layout, use, and experience of these streets evinced British preoccupations with developing a kind of “spatial corrective” to what was regarded by the British as the chaotic, irregular, disorderly, and unsanitary nature of the “native town” in which the streets served as “extensions of the home” often comprised of “what was left after the houses had been built.” The majority of C & M Station streets, by contrast, were “broad, straight tree-lined avenues” with large compounds and gardens along them.115
As The Asylum Press Almanack, Directory of Madras and Southern India stated in 1919, “Bangalore has long enjoyed a reputation for salubrity and a climate suitable for Europeans. Many hale, hearty people of an older generation have settled there: children thrive there.”116 Bengaluru, as indicated by this quotation, had by this time established a reputation as the “Garden City” due to its climate, the large “English-style” gardens of its bungalows and its two large parks: Cubbon Park discussed above and the botanical garden Lal Bagh located to the southwest of the C & M Station, which dates to the eighteenth century. Moreover, without a river fowing through it, Bengaluru had long relied on a system of tanks and lakes, adopting the name kalanyananagara (“city of lakes”),117 and over the course of the nineteenth century the British had embarked on a process of “greening the cantonment” through the expansion of irrigation systems, the building of new tanks, the cultivation of private sepoy and ofcer gardens, and the planting of trees such that in “1885, maps depicted a landscape that was far greener than the city of 1791.”118 Yet, as Harini Nagendra importantly notes, these eforts were in fact inspired by the city’s long-standing history of embedding nature into the “daily lives and
livelihoods” of inhabitants.119 Whilst there was therefore an ongoing process of greening, there were also, however, contestations over the reduction of commons during the colonial period. The well-known Sampangi Lake, for example, which existed in a somewhat liminal space between the City and C & M Station, was ultimately drained and transformed into a recreational space despite its importance as a water source and the petitions of local horticulturists.120 Whilst Bengaluru’s green status has therefore shifted over time, it nonetheless remains an important aspect of the city’s identity for many residents in the present,121 and in conversations was often related to the images seen on picture postcards.
The relationship between City and C & M Station was therefore complex, shifting, and marked by forms of division and distinction which, as will be explored in the frst two chapters, had important consequences for the production and consumption of picture postcards. Moreover, it was not until 1949, after Indian Independence, that the City and the C & M Station municipal boards were united and, as Nair states, “the integration of these two distinct linguistic, political, and economic cultures, and their spatial identities remains an unfulflled task to the present day. In many ways Bangalore continues as a ‘divided city,’ and brings to life some old divisions between its eastern and western parts.”122 Not only are distinctions between City and C & M Station regularly invoked in residents’ everyday discussions of past and present, but broad demographic, linguistic, and architectural diferences infect the discourses and practices of nostalgia, heritage, and historical imagination which coalesce around picture postcards.
Refective of one aspect of this is the city’s “etymological limbo” between its now ofcial, Kannada name “Bengaluru” and the Anglicized, Tamil-infuenced name “Bangalore,” which cannot be disentangled from linguistic politics.123 It was only in 2014 that the city was ofcially renamed “Bengaluru,” however “Bangalore” has remained in common usage.124 As one newspaper article stated in 2017, even the Karnataka Government seems to be “confused” about which name to use with “virtually all government departments in their ofcial communication continu[ing] to refer to the 12 cities, including Bengaluru, and the relevant districts by their old names.”125 For clarity, I will primarily use the city’s ofcial name, Bengaluru, throughout this book. When quoting people, however, I will use their choice of name for the city, which was most often Bangalore. The reasons for this choice were varied, for example one individual told me that their choice about which variation to use is less about a conscious decision than it is about which language they happen to be speaking and in what context, using Bengaluru when speaking Kannada and Bangalore when speaking English. Another individual explained that they identify as Bangalorean not Kannadiga, and therefore choose to use the term Bangalore. Whilst individuals therefore have diverse, particular reasons for their choice of name, the term Bangalore remains in common use, especially amongst older middleclass residents with a close association to what was the C & M Station, as well as those who do not speak Kannada as their mother tongue. Even the name of the city and how it is deployed by residents on an everyday basis is therefore enmeshed with a larger politics and history of migration, language, identity, and locality.
Outline of Chapters
The following chapters trace multiple moments in the social lives of picture postcards, from production, to consumption, to collection, and reproduction. Whilst this overarching structure may initially appear to follow a chronology, each chapter attempts
to destabilize assumptions of linearity and singularity by revealing the ephemeral entanglements of picture postcards as things “trailing [their] history behind [them] as the past presses up against the present.”126 Running parallel to each chapter is an unfolding four-part narrative of one particular picture postcard collection in Bengaluru belonging to Ganesh and Hemamalini.127 Drawn from my feldnotes over the course of my time in Bengaluru, this story of the “Ramchand Box,” as Ganesh and I came to call the collection, can be read as a short, standalone, ethnographic story of a box of picture postcards. Alternatively, each section can be read by way of an introduction to the following chapter. As such, I invite the reader to move freely between the diferent narrative and temporal registers of this book. This dual structure is not only intended to make clear the ways in which a single collection of picture postcards is part of complex, ephemeral entanglements that weave into historical imagination, but also to provide a more accessible thread through the diferent concerns and ideas explored in more depth in each chapter.
Chapter 1 traces the socio-spatial entanglements of photographers and studios that took place “behind the lens” of picture postcard production in early twentieth-century Bengaluru. Drawing on archival research as well as oral histories and material remnants, this chapter focuses on the stories of fve studios and in doing so brings to the fore the complex local terrain of picture postcard production that involved both Indian and European photographers, assistants, and business owners.
In Chapter 2, I analyze the images and messages of picture postcards of Bengaluru in the context of their initial consumption. As more than two-dimensional images, the chapter shows that picture postcards have never been limited to singular, stable meanings or uses. Deeply implicated in reinforcing and disseminating colonial discourses, stereotypes, and spatial divisions, postcard images also contain within them traces of the photographed subjects’ agency and the moment of photographic encounter, whilst their messages and materiality speak to their role in utilitarian communication, maintaining social relations, and producing claims to locality.
Having examined the production and consumption of picture postcards in the early twentieth century, Chapter 3 demonstrates that their social lives continue into the present as collector’s items. Drawing on interviews and conversations with multiple collectors in Bengaluru, I argue that these collections should be understood as mnemonic things and show how they have assumed new signifcances that exceed those of the colonial context. For collectors in Bengaluru, their picture postcard collections elicit multiple remembrances and discourses that speak to colonial critique as well as personal histories, and sentiments of nostalgia amidst experiences of rapid urbanization. In this way, picture postcard collections resist linear, classifcatory understandings of collections or collecting practices and instead reveal complex temporal, social, and spatial entanglements.
Picture postcards do not only, however, continue their social lives in private collections. Chapter 4 follows picture postcards as they move out of collections and into diverse physical and digital spaces of the city. Through multiple remediations, picture postcards enliven and are re-enlivened in relation to classed experiences of rapid urbanization and the production of historical imagination. In this context, the movement of picture postcards, and the relationship between past, present, and future involves complex “frictions.” As a city which does not have an implemented, comprehensive heritage policy, the circulation, reproduction, and display of picture postcards reveals the complex ways in which heritage, locality, and historical imagination are produced and navigated through ephemeral entanglements.
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boys asked for a Mannen dagh in which to repay the girls’ stinging lashes. I hazard a “wide solution,” as Sir Thomas Browne says, that this custom is a commemorative survival of an event in the life of Saint Valentine, one of the two traditions which are all we know of his life, that about the year 270 he was “first beaten with heavy clubs and then beheaded.”
The English brought a political holiday to New York. In the code of laws given to the province in 1665, and known as “The Duke’s Laws,” each minister throughout the province was ordered to preach a sermon on November 5, to commemorate the English deliverance from Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot in 1605.
From an early entry in the “New York Gazette” of November 7, 1737, we learn how it was celebrated that year, and find that illuminations, as in England, formed part of the day’s remembrance. Bonfires, fantastic processions, and “burning a Guy” formed, in fact, the chief English modes of celebration.
“Saturday last, being the fifth of November, it was observed here in Memory of that horrid and Treasonable Popish GunPowder Plot to blow up and destroy King, Lords and Commons, and the Gentlemen of his Majesty’s Council; the Assembly and Corporation and other the principal Gentlemen and Merchants of this City waited upon his Honor the Lieutenant-Governor at Fort George, where the Royal Healths were drunk, as usual, under the discharge of the Cannon, and at the Night the city was illuminated.”
All through the English provinces bonfires were burned, effigies were carried in procession, mummers and masqueraders thronged the streets and invaded the houses singing Pope Day rhymes, and volleys of guns were fired. In some New England towns the boys still have bonfires on November 5th.
In the year 1765 the growing feeling with regard to the Stamp Act chancing to come to a climax in the late autumn, produced in New York a very riotous observance of Pope’s Day. The demonstrations really began on November 1st, which was termed “The Last Day of Liberty.” In the evening a mob gathered, “designing to execute some
foolish ceremony of burying Liberty,” but it dispersed with noise and a few broken windows. The next night a formidable mob gathered, “carrying candles and torches in their hands, and now and then firing a pistol at the Effigy which was carried in a Chair.” Then the effigy was set in the Governor’s chariot, which was taken out of the Fort. They made a gallows and hung on it an effigy of the Governor and one of the Devil, and carried it to the Fort, over which insult soldiers and officers were wonderfully patient. Finally, gallows, chariot and effigies were all burnt in the Bowling Green. The mob then ransacked Major James’s house, eating, drinking, destroying, till £1500 of damage was done. The next day it was announced that the delivery and destruction of the stamps would be demanded. In the evening the mob started out again, with candles and a barber’s block dressed in rags. The rioters finally dispersed at the entreaties of many good citizens,—among them Robert R. Livingstone, who wrote the letter from which this account is taken. In 1774, November 5th was still a legal holiday.
There still exists in New York a feeble and divided survival of the processions and bonfires of Guy Fawkes Day. The police-prohibited bonfires of barrels on election night, and the bedraggled parade of begging boys on Thanksgiving Day are our reminders to-day of this old English holiday.
There was one old-time holiday beloved of New Yorkers whose name is now almost forgotten,—Pinkster Day. This name was derived from the Dutch word for Pentecost, and must have been used at a very early date; for in a Dutch book of sermons, written by Adrian Fischer, and printed in 1667, the title of one sermon reads: Het Eersts Tractact; Van de Uystortnge des Yeyligen Geests over de Apostelen op ben Pinckster Dagh,—a sermon upon the story of the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Apostles on Pinkster Day.
The Jewish feast of Pentecost was observed on the fiftieth day after the celebration of the Passover, and is the same as the Christian holy-day Whitsunday, which is connected with its Jewish predecessor historically (as is so beautifully told in the second chapter of Acts), and intrinsically through its religious signification. The week following Whitsunday has been observed with great honor
and rejoicing in many lands, but in none more curiously, more riotously, than in old New York, and to some extent in Pennsylvania and Maryland; and, more strangely still, that observance was chiefly by an alien, a heathen race,—the negroes. It was one of our few distinctively American folk-customs, and its story has been told by many writers of that day, and should not now be forgotten. Nowhere was it a more glorious festival than at Albany, among the sheltered, the cherished slave population in that town and its vicinity. The celebration was held on Capitol Hill, then universally known as Pinkster Hill. Munsell gives this account of the day:—
“Pinkster was a great day, a gala day, or rather week, for they used to keep it up a week among the darkies. The dances were the original Congo dances as danced in their native Africa. They had a chief,—Old King Charley. The old settlers said Charley was a prince in his own country, and was supposed to have been one hundred and twenty-five years old at the time of his death. On these festivals old Charley was dressed in a strange and fantastical costume; he was nearly barelegged, wore a red military coat trimmed profusely with variegated ribbons, and a small black hat with a pompon stuck on one side. The dances and antics of the darkies must have afforded great amusement for the ancient burghers. As a general thing, the music consisted of a sort of drum, or instrument constructed out of a box with sheepskin heads, upon which old Charley did most of the beating, accompanied by singing some queer African air Charley generally led off the dance, when the Sambos and Phillises, juvenile and antiquated, would put in the double-shuffle heel-and-toe break-down. These festivals seldom failed to attract large crowds from the city, as well as from the rural districts.”
Dr. Eights, of Albany, wrote still further reminiscences of the day. He said that, strangely enough, though all the booths and sports opened on Monday, white curiosity-seekers were, on that first day, the chief visitors to Pinkster Hill. On Tuesday the blacks all appeared, and the consumption of gingerbread, cider, and applejack began. Adam Blake, a truly elegant creature, the body-servant of the
old patroon Van Rensselaer, was master of the ceremonies. Charley, the King, was a “Guinea man” from Angola,—and I have noted the fact that nearly all African-born negroes who became leaders in this country, or men of marked note in any way, have been Guinea men. He wore portions of the costume of a British general, and had the power of an autocrat,—his will was law. Dr. Eights says the Pinkster musical instruments were eel-pots covered with dressed sheepskin, on which the negroes pounded with their bare hands, as do all savage nations on their tom-toms. Their song had an African refrain, “Hi-a-bomba-bomba-bomba.” Other authorities state that the dance was called the “Toto Dance,” and partook so largely of savage license that at last the white visitors shunned being present during its performance.
These Pinkster holidays became such bacchanalian revels in other ways that in 1811 the Common Council of Albany prohibited the erection of booths and all dancing, gaming, and drinking at that time; and when the negroes could not dance nor drink, it was but a sorry holiday, and quickly fell into desuetude.
Executions were held on Pinkster Hill, and other public punishments took place there.
In the realm of fiction we find evidence of the glories of Pinkster Day in New York. Cooper, in his “Satanstoe,” tells of its observance in New York City. He calls it the saturnalia of the blacks, and says that they met on what we now know as City Hall Park, and that the negroes came for thirty or forty miles around to join in the festivities.
On Long Island Pinkster Day was widely observed. The blacks went, on the week previous to the celebration, to Brooklyn and New York to sell sassafras and swingling-tow, to earn their scanty spending-money for Pinkster. They were everywhere freely given their time for rioting, and domestic labor was performed by the masters and mistresses; but they had to provide their own spendingmoney for gingerbread and rum. They gathered around the old market in Brooklyn near the ferry, dancing for eels, blowing fishhorns, eating and drinking. The following morning the judge’s office was full of sorry blacks, hauled up for “disorderly conduct.”
On Long Island the Dutch residents also made the day a festival, “going to pinkster fields for pinkster frolics,” exchanging visits, and drinking schnapps, and eating “soft-wafels” together. About twelve years ago, while driving through Flatlands and New Lots one beautiful day in May, I met a group of young men driving from door to door of the farm-houses, in wagons gayly dressed with branches of dogwood blossoms, and entering each house for a short visit. I asked whether a wedding or a festival were being held in the town, and was answered that it was an old Dutch custom to make visits that week. I tried to learn whence this observance came, but no one knew its reason for being, or what holiday was observed. Poor Pinkster! still vaguely honored as a shadow, a ghost of the past, but with your very name forgotten, even among the children of those who gave to you in this land a name and happy celebration!
Various wild flowers were known as Pinkster flowers. The beautiful azalea that once bloomed—indeed does still bloom—so plentifully throughout New York in May, was universally known as “pinkster flower” or “pinkster bloom,” and along the banks of the Hudson till our own day was called “pinkster blummachee.” The traveller Kalm noted it in 1740, and called it by that name. Mrs. Vanderbilt calls it “pinkster bloomitze.” I was somewhat surprised to hear a Rhode Island farmer, in the summer of 1893, ask me whether he should not pick me “some pinkster blossoms,” pointing at the same time to the beautiful swamp pink that flushed with rosy glow the tangles of vines and bushes on the edge of the Narragansett woods. It is interesting to know that by many authorities the name “pink,” of our common garden flower, is held to be derived from the Dutch Pinkster, German Pfingsten, and owes its name, not to its pink color, but to the season of its blooming. In other localities in New York and New Jersey the blue flag or iris was known as “pinkster bloom.”
Throughout New England the black residents, free and in bondage, held high holiday one day in May, or in some localities during the first week in June; but the day of revelry was everywhere called “Nigger ’Lection.” In Puritandom the observance of Whitsunday was believed to have “superstition writ on its forehead;” but Election Day was a popular and properly Puritanical May holiday;
therefore the negro holiday took a similar name, and the “Black Governor” was elected on the week following the election of the white Governor, usually on Saturday.
There was some celebration of days of thanksgiving in New Netherland as in Holland; they were known by a peculiar double name, fast-prayer and thank-day. These days did not develop among the Dutch in the new world into the position of importance they held among English colonists. In 1644 the first public Thanksgiving Day whose record has come down to us was proclaimed in gratitude for the safe return of the Dutch warriors after a battle with the Connecticut Indians on Strickland’s Plains near Stamford. A second Thanksgiving service was announced for the 6th of September, 1645, whereon God was to be “specially thanked, praised, and blessed for suffering” the long-wished-for peace with the Indians. This service was held on Wednesday, which was usually the chosen day of the week. In 1654, at a Thanksgiving ordered on account of the peace established between England and the Netherlands, services were to be held in the morning; the citizens were to be permitted “to indulge in all moderate festivities and rejoicings as the event recommends and their Situation Shall permit.” That these festivities were not always decorous is shown by the fining and punishment of some young lads for drunkenness on one Thanksgiving Day.
Various were the causes of the commemorative services: peace between Spain and the Fatherland; the prosperity of the province, its peace, increased people, and trade; a harvest of self-sown grain (the fields having been deserted for fear of Indians). In 1664 Domine Brown, of Wyltwyck, asked for an established annual Thanksgiving; but there are no records to show that this desire was carried out, though from 1690 to 1710 they were held almost every year.
CHAPTER XI
AMUSEMENTS AND SPORTS
Daniel Denton, one of the original settlers of Jamaica, Long Island, wrote “A briefe Description of New York” in 1670. When he speaks of the “fruits natural to the island” of Long Island, he ends his account thus:—
“Such abundance of strawberries is in June that the fields and woods are dyed red; which the country people perceiving, instantly arm themselves with bottles of wine, cream, and sugar, and instead of a coat of Mail every one takes a Female upon his Horse behind him, and so rushing violently into the fields, never leave till they have disrobed them of their red colors and turned them into the old habit.”
“Rushing violently into the fields” seems to have been the normal condition of all the colonists as soon as the tardy American “spring came slowly up the way.” On every hand they turned eagerly to open-air outings. Houses chafed them; gipsy-like were they in their love of fresh air and the country wilds.
In New York were the bouweries close at hand; and Nutten Island (now Governor’s Island), “by ye making of a garden and planting severall walks of fruit trees in it,” made a pretty outing-spot. Mrs. Grant wrote at length of the Albany youth and their love of out-ofdoor excursions:—
“In spring, eight or ten of the young people of one company, or related to each other, young men and maidens, would set out together in a canoe on a kind of rural excursion, of which amusement was the object. Yet so fixed were their habits of industry that they never failed to carry their work-baskets with them, not as a form, but as an ingredient necessarily mixed with their pleasures. They had no attendants, and steered a
devious course of four, five, or perhaps more miles, till they arrived at some of the beautiful islands with which this fine river abounded, or at some sequestered spot on its banks, where delicious wild fruits, or particular conveniences for fishing, afforded some attraction. There they generally arrived by nine or ten o’clock, having set out in the cool and early hour of sunrise.... A basket with tea, sugar, and the other usual provisions for breakfast, with the apparatus for cooking it; a little rum and fruit for making cool weak punch, the usual beverage in the middle of the day, and now and then some cold pastry, was the sole provision; for the great affair was to depend on the sole exertions of the boys in procuring fish, wild ducks, &c., for their dinner. They were all, like Indians, ready and dexterous with the axe, gun, &c. Whenever they arrived at their destination, they sought out a dry and beautiful spot opposite to the river, and in an instant with their axes cleared so much superfluous shade or shrubbery as left a semicircular opening, above which they bent and twined the boughs, so as to form a pleasant bower, while the girls gathered dried branches, to which one of the youths soon set fire with gunpowder, and the breakfast, a very regular and cheerful one, occupied an hour or two. The young men then set out to fish, or perhaps to shoot birds, and the maidens sat busily down to their work. After the sultry hours had been thus employed, the boys brought their tribute from the river or the wood, and found a rural meal prepared by their fair companions, among whom were generally their sisters and the chosen of their hearts. After dinner they all set out together to gather wild strawberries, or whatever other fruit was in season; for it was accounted a reflection to come home empty-handed. When wearied of this amusement, they either drank tea in their bower, or, returning, landed at some friend’s on the way, to partake of that refreshment.”
Suburban taverns were much resorted to at a little later date by all town-folk, and “ladies and gentlemen were entertained in the genteelest manner.” New Yorkers specially liked the fish-dinners furnished at an inn perched on Brooklyn Heights; and twice a week
they could drive to a turtle-feast at a beloved retreat on the East River, always taking much care to return over the Kissing Bridge, where, says with approval a reverend gentleman, a traveller of anteRevolutionary days, “it is part of the etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself under your protection.” More idyllic still was the rowing across the river to Brooklyn, to the noble tulip-tree near the ferry, with its great spreading shadowy branches, so cool in summer suns, and glorious with tropical blooms, and hospitable with a vast shining hollow trunk which would hold six or eight happy summer revellers within the sheltering walls. Would I could sing The TulipTree as Cowper did The Sofa; with its happy summer groups, its beauty, its pathetic end, and the simple joys it sheltered,—as extinct as the species to which the tree itself belongs!
Occasional glimpses of pretty country hospitality in country homes are afforded through old-time letters. One of the Rutherfurd letters reads:—
“We were very elegantly entertained at the Clarks’, and everything of their own production. By way of amusement after dinner we all went into the garden to pick roses. We gathered a large basket full, and prepared them for distilling. As I had never seen Rose-water made, Mrs. Clark got her still and set it going, and made several bottles while we were there. They were extremely civil, and begged us whenever we rode that way in the evening to stop and take a syllabub with them.”
This certainly presents a very dainty scene; the sweet June rosegarden, the delicate housewifery, the drinking of syllabubs make it seem more French than plain New York Dutch in tone and color.
The Dutch were no haters of games as were the Puritans; games were known and played even in the time of the first settlers. Steven Janse had a tick-tack bort at Fort Orange. Tick-tack was a complicated kind of backgammon, played with both men and pegs. “The Compleat Gamester” says tick-tack is so called from touch and take, for if you touch a man you must play him though to your loss. “Tick-tacking” was prohibited during time of divine service in New
Amsterdam in 1656. Another Dutch tapster had a trock-table, which Florio says was “a kind of game used in England with casting little bowles at a boord with thirteen holes in it.” A trock-table was a table much like a pool table, on which an ivory ball was struck under a wire wicket by a cue. Trock was also played on the grass,—a seventeenth-century modification of croquet. Of bowling we hear plenty of talk; it was universally played, from clergy down to negro slaves, and a famous street in New York, the Bowling Green, perpetuates its popularity. The English brought card-playing and gaming, to which the Dutch never abandoned themselves.
By the middle of the eighteenth century we find more amusements and a gayer life. The first regularly banded company of comedians which played in New York strayed thence from Philadelphia in March, 1750, where they had been bound over to good behavior, and where their departure had given much joy to a disgusted Quaker community. It was called Murray and Kean’s company, and sprung up in Philadelphia like a toadstool in a night, from whence or how no one knows. The comedians announced their “sitting down” in New York for the season. They opened with King Richard III., “written by Shakespeare and improved by Colley Cibber.” They also played “The Beau in the Sudds,” “The Spanish Fryer,” “The Orphan,” “The Beau’s Stratagem,” “The Constant Couple,” “The Lying Valet,” “The Twin Rivals,” “Colin and Phœbe,” “Love for Love,” “The Stagecoach,” “The Recruiting Officer,” “Cato,” “Amphitryon,” “Sir Harry Wildair,” “George Barnwell,” “Bold Stroke for a Wife,” “Beggar’s Opera,” “The Mock Doctor,” “The Devil to Pay,” “The Fair Penitent,” “The Virgin Unmasked,” “Miss in her Teens,” and a variety of pantomimes and farces. This was really a very good series of bills, but the actors were a sorry lot. One was a redemptioner, Mrs. Davis, and she had a benefit to help to buy her freedom; another desired a benefit, as he was “just out of prison.” They were in town ten months, and seem to have been on very friendly terms with the public, borrowing single copies of plays to study from, having constant benefits, ending with one for Mr. Kean, in which one Mrs. Taylor was “out so much in her part” that she had to be apologized for afterwards in the newspapers. She had a benefit shortly after, at which, naturally and properly, there “wasn’t much company.” Miss George at her benefit had bad
weather and other disappointments, and tried it over again. At last Mr. Kean, “by the advice of several Gentlemen having resolv’d to quit the stage and follow his Employment of writing and hopes for Encouragement,” sold his half of “his cloaths” and the stage effects for a benefit, at which if the house had been full to overflowing the whole receipts would not have been more than two hundred and fifty dollars. John Tremain also “declined the stage” and went to cabinetmaking,—“plain and scallopt tea-tables, etc.,”—which was very sensible, since tea was more desired than the drama. A new company sprung up, but “mett with small encouragement,” though the company “assured the Publick they are Perfect and hope to Perform to Satisfaction.” Perhaps the expression “the Part of Lavinia will be Attempted by Mrs. Tremain” was a wise one. All this was at a time when a good theatrical company could easily have been obtained in England, where the art of the actor was at a high standard.
We gain a notion of some rather trying manners at these theatres. The English custom of gentlemen’s crowding on the stage increased to such an extent, and proved so deleterious to any good representation of the play, that the manager advertised in “Gaines’ Mercury,” in 1762, that no spectators would be permitted to stand or sit on the stage during the performance. And also a reproof was printed to “the person so very rude as to throw Eggs from the Gallery upon the stage, to the injury of Cloaths.”
For some years a Mr. Bonnin, a New York fishmonger, entertained his fellow-citizens and those of neighboring towns with various scientific exhibits, lectures, camera obscuras, “prospects” and “perspectives,” curious animals, “Philosophical-Optical machines” and wax-works, and manifold other performances, which he ingeniously altered and renamed. He was a splendid advertiser. The newspapers of the times contain many of his attempts to catch the public attention. I give two as an example:—
“We hear that Mr. Bonnin is so crouded with company to view his Perspectives, that he can scarce get even so much time as to eat, drink or say his Prayers, from the time he gets out of bed till He repairs to it again: and it is the Opinion of
some able Physicians that if he makes rich, it must be at the Expense of the Health of his Body, and of some Learned Divines it must be at the Expense of the Welfare of His Soul.”
“The common topics of discourse here since the coming of Mr. Bonnin are entirely changed. Instead of the common chat nothing is scarce mentioned now but the most entertaining parts of Europe which are represented so lively in Mr. Bonnin’s curious Prospects.”
Mr. Bonnin is now but a shadow of the past, vanished like his puppets into nowhere; in his own far “perspective” of a century and a half, he seems to me amusing; at any rate, he was all that New Yorkers had many times to amuse them; and I think he must have been a jolly lecturer, when he was such a jolly advertiser.
Also in evidence before the public was one Pachebell, a musician. The following is one of his advertisements in the year 1734:—
“On Wednesday the 21st of January instant there will be a Consort of music, vocal and instrumental for the benefit of Mr. Pachebell, the harpsicord parts performed by himself. The songs, violins and German flutes by private hands. The Consort will begin precisely at six o’clock in the house of Robert Todd vintner. Tickets to be had at the Coffee House at 4 shillings.”
Amateurs often performed for his benefit, and even portions of oratorios were “attempted.” His “consorts” were said to be ravishing, and inspired the listeners to rhapsodic poesy, which is more than can be said of many concerts nowadays. Those who know the “thin metallic thrills” of a harpsichord—an instrument with no resonance, mellowness, or singing quality—can reflect upon the susceptibility of our ancestors, who could melt into sentiment and rhyme over those wiry vibrations.
The favorite winter amusement in New York, as in Philadelphia, was riding in sleighs, a fashion which the Dutch brought from Holland. The English colonists in New England were slower to adopt
sleighs for carriages, and never in early days found sleighing a sport. The bitter New England weather did not attract sleighers.
Madam Knights, a Boston visitor to New York, wrote in 1704:—
“Their diversion in winter is riding in sleighs about three miles out of town, where they have houses of entertainment at a place called the Bowery; and some go to friends’ houses, who handsomely treat them. I believe we mett fifty or sixty sleighs one day; they fly with great swiftness, and some are so furious that they turn out for none except a loaded cart.”
An English parson, one Burnaby, visiting New York in 1759, wrote of their delightful sleighing-parties; and Mrs. Anne Grant thus adds her testimony of similar pleasures in Albany:—
“In winter the river, frozen to a great depth, formed the principal road through the country, and was the scene of all those amusements of skating and sledge races, common to the north of Europe. They used in great parties to visit their friends at a distance, and having an excellent and hardy breed of horses, flew from place to place over the snow or ice in these sledges with incredible rapidity, stopping a little while at every house they came to, and always well received whether acquainted with the owners or not. The night never impeded these travellers, for the atmosphere was so pure and serene, and the snow so reflected the moon and star-light, that the nights exceeded the days in beauty.”
William Livingstone, when he was twenty-one years old, wrote in 1744 of a “waffle-frolic,” which was an amusement then in vogue:—
“We had the wafel-frolic at Miss Walton’s talked of before your departure. The feast as usual was preceded by cards, and the company so numerous that they filled two tables; after a few games, a magnificent supper appeared in grand order and decorum, but for my own part I was not a little grieved that so luxurious a feast should come under the name of a wafel-frolic, because if this be the case I must expect but a few wafel-frolics for the future; the frolic was closed up with
ten sunburnt virgins lately come from Columbus’s Newfoundland, besides a play of my own invention which I have not room enough to describe at present. How’ever, kissing constitutes a great part of its entertainment.”
Kissing seemed to constitute a great part of the entertainment at evening parties everywhere at that time.
As soon as the English obtained control of New York, they established English sports and pastimes, among them fox-hunting. Long Island afforded good sport. During the autumn three days’ hunting was permitted at Flatbush; in other towns the chase was stolen fun. A woman-satirist, with a spirited pen, had her fling in rhyme at fox-hunting. Here are a few of her lines:—
“A fox is killed by twenty men, That fox perhaps had killed a hen. A gallant art no doubt is here, All wicked foxes ought to fear, When twenty dogs and twenty men Can kill a fox that killed a hen.”
Fox-hunting was never very congenial, apparently, to those of Dutch descent and Dutch characteristics; nor was cock-fighting, the prevalence of which I have noted in the preceding chapter. Occasionally we hear of the cruel sport of bull-baiting, though not till the latter half of the eighteenth century. In 1763 the keeper of the DeLancey Arms on the Bowery Lane gave a bull-baiting. Brooklyn was specially favored in that respect during the Revolution, when the British officers took charge of and enjoyed the barbarism, and Landlord Loosely of the King’s Head Tavern helped in the arrangements and advertising. Good active bulls and strong dogs were in much demand. The newspapers of the times contain many advertisements of the sport. One in poor rhyme begins:—
“This notice gives to all who covet
Baiting the bull and dearly love it.” etc.
I frequently recall, as I pass through a quiet street near my home, that in the year 1774 a bull-baiting was held there every afternoon for many months, and I resolutely demolish that hollow idol—the good old times—and rejoice in humane to-day
As early as 1665 Governor Nicholls announced that a horse-race would take place at Hempstead, “not so much for the divertissement of youth as for encouraging the bettering of the breed of horses which through great neglect has been impaired.” In 1669 Governor Lovelace gave orders that a race should be run in May each year, and that subscriptions should be sent to Captain Salisbury, “of all such as are disposed to run for a crown in silver or the value thereof in wheat.” This first course was a naturally level plain called Salisbury Plains, and was so named after this very Captain Silvester Salisbury, Commander of Royal Troops in the province, and an enthusiastic sportsman. Its location was near the present Hyde Park station of Long Island.
Daniel Denton, one of the early settlers of Jamaica, Long Island, wrote in 1670 thus:—
“Towards the middle of Long Island lieth a plain sixteen miles long and four broad, upon which plain grows very fine grass that makes exceeding good hay; where you shall find neither stick nor stone to hinder the horse-heels, or endanger them in their races, and once a year the best horses in the island are brought hither to try their Swiftness and the swiftest rewarded with a silver Cup, two being Annually procured for the Purpose.”
The “fine grass” was what was known as secretary grass, and, curiously enough, this great plain was abandoned to this growth of secretary grass for more than a century after the settlement and cultivation of surrounding farms; this was through a notion that the soil was too porous to be worth ploughing. Even a clergyman sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts testified to the beauty of Salisbury Plain, calling it “an even
delightsome plain, most sweet and pleasant.” Delightsome it certainly proved to lovers of horse-racing.
On February 24, 1721, a race was held on this plain which attracted much attention. The winning horse was owned by Samuel Bayard. The race was given by “the inhabitants of Queens County on Nassau Island.” The name of the course had by this time been changed to Newmarket. In 1764 a new course was laid out; and in 1804 the racing moved to a field east of the Old Court House, and in 1821 it was transferred to the Union Course on the western border of Jamaica. The story of this course is familiar to sportsmen.
Frequent newspaper notices call attention to the races held at this Hempstead Newmarket. From the “New York Postboy” of June 4, 1750, I quote:—
“On Friday last there was a great horse race on Hempstead Plains which engaged the attention of so many of the city of New York that upwards of seventy chairs and chaises were carried over Brooklyn Ferry the day before, besides a far greater number of horses. The number of horses on the plains exceeded, it is thought, one thousand.”
In 1764 we find the Macaroni Club offering prizes of £100 and £50. At those races Mr. James De Lancey’s bay horse Lath won. On September 28, 1769, the same horse Lath won a £100 race in Philadelphia.
In October, 1770, Jacob Hiltzheimer, a well-known lover and breeder of horses in Philadelphia, went to the races on Hempstead Plains, and lodged at a “public house” in Jamaica, with various other gentlemen,—lovers of races. Two purses of £50 were given, but Mr. Hiltzheimer’s chestnut horse Regulus did not win.
A London racing-book of 1776 says of this Hempstead course:—
“These plains were celebrated for their races throughout all the Colonies and even in England. They were held twice a year for a silver cup, to which the gentry of New England and New York resorted.”
Another famous race-course of colonial days was the one-mile course around Beaver Pond in Jamaica. This was laid out before the year 1757, for on June 13 of that year a subscription plate was won by Lewis Morris, Jr., with his horse American Childers. Another course was at Newtown in 1758, and another at New Lots in 1778.
I find frequent allusions in the colonial press to the Beaver Pond course. The “New York Mercury” of 1763 tells of a “Free Masons’ Purse”—for best two in three heats, each heat three times round Beaver Pond—free-masons were to be “inspectors” of this race.
At the time of the possession of Brooklyn and western Long Island by the British during the Revolutionary War, there constantly went on a succession of sporting events of all kinds under the direction of the English officers and a notorious tavern-keeper Loosely, already named, who seemed to devote every energy to the amusement of the English invaders. An advertisement in “Rivington’s Gazette” November 4, 1780, reads thus:—
“By Permission Three Days’ Sport on Ascot Heath formerly Flatlands Plain on Monday. 1. The Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Purse of £60 free for any horse except Mr. Wortman’s and Mr. Allen’s Dulcimore who won the plate at Beaver Pond last season. 2. A Saddle, bridle, and whip, worth £15 for ponies not exceeding 13¹⁄₂ hands. Tuesday. 1. Ladies’
Subscription Purse of £50. 2. To be run for by women, a Holland smock and Chintz Gown full-trimmed; to run the two in three quarter-miles; first to have the smock and gown of four guineas value; second, a guinea; third half a guinea. Wednesday. Country Subscription Purse of £50. No person will erect a booth or sell liquor without subscribing 2 guineas to expenses of races. Gentlemen fond of fox-hunting will meet at Loosely’s Kings Head Tavern at day break during the races. God Save the King played every hour.”
It will be seen by this advertisement that the rough and rollicking ways of English holidays were introduced in this woman’s-race. The women who ran those quarter-miles must have been some campfollowers, for I am sure no honest Long Island country-girls would
have taken part. At other races on this freshly named “Ascot Heath” hurling-matches and bull-baitings and lotteries added their zest, and on April 27, 1782, there was a three hundred guineas sweep-stakes race. These races were held at short intervals until October, 1783, when English sports and English cruelties no longer held sway on Long Island.
At these races, given under martial rule, some rather crooked proceedings were taken to recruit the field and keep up the interest; and good horses for many miles around were watched carefully by their owners; and when a gentleman attending the races viewed with surprised and indignant recognition his own horse which had been stolen from him, he promptly applied for restitution to Mr. Cornell, of Brooklyn, who had entered the horse; and when the race was finished, the horse was returned to its rightful owner.
Other localities developed race-courses. “At Captain Tim Cornell’s Poles, on Hempstead Plains,” Eclipse and Sturdy Beggar ran for “Fifty Joes” on March 14, 1781. In 1783 Eclipse and Young Slow and Easy ran for a purse of two hundred guineas. At Far Rockaway, in 1786, Jacob Hicks, “from a wish to gratify sportsmen,” laid out a mile course and offered prizes where no “trussing, jostling, or foul play were countenanced; if detected, the rider will be pronounced distanced.”
On Manhattan Island were several other race-courses. In 1742, a race was run on the Church Farm, just a stone’s throw north-west of where the Astor House now stands. I have seen many notices of races on this Church Farm which was the valuable Trinity Church property. In October, 1726, a Subscription Plate of twenty pounds was run for “on the Course at New York.” The horses were entered with Francis Child on Fresh Water Hill. Entrance fee was half a pistole. Admission to the public, sixpence each. In the 1750 October runs, Mr. Lewis Morris, Jr.’s horse won on the Church Farm course. The chief racing stables in the province of New York were those of Mr. Morris and of Mr. James De Lancey. The former won a reputation with American Childers; the latter with his imported horse Lath. The De Lancey stables were the most costly ones in the north; their colors were seen on every course for ten years previous to the
Revolution, and they were patrons of all English sports. A famous horse of James De Lancey’s was True Briton. It is told of this horse that Oliver De Lancey would jump him back and forth from a standstill over a five-barred gate. There was a course at Greenwich Village on the estate of Sir Peter Warren, and one at Harlem, another at Newburgh.
Many advertisements of other races with names of horses and owners might be added to this list; but I think I have given a sufficient number to disprove the vague assertions of Frank Forester and other writers of the history of the horse in America, that little attention was paid to horse-raising in the northern provinces, and that there were a few races on Long Island previous to the Revolution, but it is not known whether taking place regularly, or for given prizes. There was no racing-calendar in America till 1829, but there are other ways of learning of races.
CHAPTER XII
CRIMES
AND PUNISHMENTS
The court records of any period in our American history are an unfailing source of profit and delight to the historian. In the town or state whose colonial records still exist there can ever be drawn a picture not only of the crimes and punishments, but of the manners, occupations, and ways of our ancestors and a knowledge can be gained of the social ethics, the morality, the modes of thought, the intelligence of dead-and-gone citizens. We learn that they had daily hopes and plans and interests and harassments just such as our own, as well as vices and wickedness.
In spite of Chancellor Kent’s assertion of their dulness and lack of interest, the court records of Dutch colonial times are not to me dull reading; quaint humor and curious terms abound; the criminal records always are interesting; even the old reken-boeks (the account-books) are of value. These first sources give an unbiassed and well-outlined picture, sometimes a surprising and almost irreconcilable one; for instance, I had always a fixed notion that the early women-colonists of Dutch birth were wholly a quiet, reserved, even timid group; not talkative and never aggressive. It was therefore a great thrust at my established ideas to discover, when poring over an old “Road Book” at the Hall of Records in Brooklyn, containing some entries of an early Court of Sessions, an account of the trial of two dames of Bushwyck, Mistress Jonica Schampf and Widow Rachel Luquer, for assaulting the captain of the Train-Band, Captain Peter Praa, on training-day in October, 1690, while he was at the head of his company. These two vixens most despitefully used him; they beat him, pulled his hair, assaulted and wounded him, and committed “other Ivill Inormities, so that his life was despaired of.” And there was no evidence to show that any of his soldiers, or any of the spectators present, interfered to save either Peter’s life or his
