Annie’s Valentine’s Day Postcard from 1904
Would you buy it online for up to $583?
Last year, I wrote that in Annie’s personal effects was a postcard with this charming studio image. Using facial recognition software, I determined that it is highly likely that her two nieces modeled for the valentine.
Today, anyone can pay an online poster company up to $583 for a reproduction of Annie’s 1904 image and place it on a wall. Annie probably received a small bit of money for taking the image, but earned no residual payments. I imagine that the postcard was important to her as she kept it with her personal belongings. She left it behind in 1952 after her death. It must have been quite an accomplishment to have one of her images chosen and printed by the leading international postcard publisher of the time.
Intentionally, I have not identified the website that sells this photograph. I have mixed feelings about Annie’s image being so widely available without her receiving credit for her work. Copyrights expire after 97 years, so the company is free to scan, print and exploit it. Their marketing department did not respond to my offer to identify the photographer and models. However, this is not uncommon, there thousands of her images shared on the internet without attribution. Little by little, our organization is working to change that!
Postcard courtesy Annie Powell Family Collection
The photo for this postcard was taken at 55 S. Whipple St., Lowell, where Annie and John Powell had a photo studio close to her large extended family. Annie Powell was especially close to her niece on the right, Annie Wood, who was a frequent model for the “cute child” genre which was popular among postcard collectors. As far as I can tell, this was Annie Powell’s only sale, although I have written about her extensive sales of municipal scenes to local postcard publishers (see Christmas Past at the Yorick Club and Is This Her Story of a Suicide?). Annie Wood married Harold Devno and when they bought their house in the Lowell Highlands in 1923, they set up a darkroom for her aunt which still exists today. Annie Devno housed her fiercely independent aunt for the last three years of her life.
The postcard manufacturer, E.A. Schwerdtfeger & Co., Berlin with an office in London, is listed on the postcard’s address side. In the early 1900s golden age of postcards, this was among the world's leading publishers and it would have been a high honor that they accepted Annie's image.
Bernie Zelitch is an investigative journalist, historian, and by Annie Powell executive director.
Published in our newsletter 2/12/2025
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