“Greetings from Cornell!”

Cornell University Postcards. Published by Student Supply Store & Albertype Co., Brooklyn, N.Y.

Over the years, Cornellians and visitors have bought, mailed, and collected picture postcards depicting the campus. Shown here are enlargements of twelve postcards from the early twentieth century, produced by the Albertype Company.

The Albertype Company, founded in 1890 by Adolph and Herman L. Wittemann, operated in Brooklyn from 1890 to 1952, and produced over 25,000 postcards and prints. The company’s agents took photographs all over the country, and they also used images taken by other companies or individuals. They were then reproduced as collotypes, a photomechanical process that used photographic negatives. Color was added to the process in 1876 by Joseph Albert (“albertype”). Many of the cards were printed in black and white, in duotones and in tinted monochromes of various colors, but the Albertype Co. also produced a large number of hand-colored cards like the ones shown here. The Student Supply Store, a part of Student Agencies, created, sold, and advertised the postcards.

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