By Ben Marks — It’s Valentine’s Day, so naturally our thoughts turn to divorce. That's the odds-even outcome of marriage, if you believe the oft-cited statistic that half of all nuptials in the United States will end up on the rocks. In fact, the overall rate is more like 30 percent, and the frequency of divorce has been dropping since the 1970s, when 37 states amended or repealed their divorce laws, causing only a short-term spike in the practice. "Nevada’s adjacency to California made the state...

Happy Valentine's Day, I Hate You

By Lisa Hix — With all the hand-wringing over anonymous commenters and social-media trolls, you’d think the Internet is to blame for all the woes of humanity. After all, what could people do with their ugly, mean thoughts before they had Yelp, Reddit, or Tumblr to help broadcast them? But as far back as the 1840s until the 1940s, they could send them in a Vinegar Valentine. Yes, that’s right. For almost as long as Valentine’s Day has been an insufferably sappy day celebrating romantic love, it’s also been...

Vintage Romance: Valentine’s Day at Home

By null — We all know the day, that special day for lovers and couples. There is many a man and woman who work hard to make February 14 the most romantic day of the year. But the pressure can be overwhelming—with all the anticipation, planning, and preparations, from making dinner reservations at the perfect restaurant to coming up with the perfect outfit and shoes. For women, this might seem daunting, but for men, it's like having a performance review! How do you top last year? Are you going to pop...

Walker Evans, Preeminent Photographer and Passionate Postcard Collector

By Dave Margulius — In 1994, I had the great pleasure of acquiring the complete archive of Walker Evans for the Metropolitan Museum. The archive is quite vast, including 30,000 black-and-white negatives and about 10,000 color transparencies. It includes collections of his business and personal correspondence, both letters he sent as well as those he received. It also includes his library and his collections. He had works of art by other artists, and a lot of vernacular material, including metal and wood...

When Postcards Were the Social Network

By Maribeth Keane — I worked for 35 years as a reference librarian with the Madison Public Library and I just got interested in Madison’s history through my reference work. My husband and I collect antiques of various sorts, and as we would go to antique stores or antique shows in malls, I began looking through boxes of old postcards. I just started buying Madison postcards to learn about Madison history. I’m not a Madison native. I didn’t move to Madison until 1964, but I say I’ve adopted Madison as my...

Attending the Theatre, Via Postcards

By Marty Weil — Andreas Praefcke (Ravensburg, Germany) collects postcards of old and new theatre buildings worldwide. His complete collection can be seen on his website Carthalia. I spoke to him recently about how he got interested in this unique and interesting postcard collecting theme, how he finds cards, and what some of his favorites are. : How did you become interested in collecting postcards featuring Theater buildings? : Probably my greatest passion is going to the opera wherever and...