Treasures from the Collections: Denmark in Postcards
ANNUAL PASS ONLY – Discover Royal Danish Library’s extensive collection of historic postcards depicting Danish towns, villages and landscapes from the twentieth century.
Research Librarian Mette Colding Dahl explores the golden age of the postcard, its significance for local history, and Royal Danish Library’s collection of 312,000 digitised historic postcards.
There was a time when postcards were sold on virtually every street corner in Denmark’s larger cities. In smaller towns, there was often at least one retailer selling postcards featuring local landmarks such as the church, the school, street scenes and other recognisable sights. Postcards were not just holiday greetings; they were an essential part of everyday communication. At a time when not everyone had access to a telephone, but when post was delivered several times a day in the larger towns and cities, the postcard rapidly became popular. From the first commercial productions in the late 1880s, the number of postcards sent to destinations within Denmark and abroad grew to more than 41.8 million in 1919/1920.
Royal Danish Library holds an extensive collection of historic postcards depicting Danish towns, villages and landscapes from the 20th century. More than 312,000 of these have now been digitised, and at the time of writing, more than 251,000 are available online through Royal Danish Library’s Digital Collections. Mette Colding Dahl, Research Librarian in the Special Collections department at Royal Danish Library, will discuss the history of the postcard, the origins of the collection, and the work involved in digitising and assigning metadata to many thousands of postcards. Join us to discover the stories hidden within the collection and learn how postcards can contribute to new insights into local history.
