Narratives of the modern era. Picture postcard practices in Sweden 1900–1920.

During the golden age of the picture postcard, 1900–1920, some 200-300 billion postcards were sent in Europe, and in Sweden in 1903 alone, 43 million postcards were sent. These palmy days of the postcard coincided with processes of modernization like industrialization, urbanization and democratization. The aim of the project “Narratives of the modern era” is to study the social meanings afforded by the multi-modal postcard practice in the emerging Swedish modern society 1900–1920. The project advances our understanding of the connection between vernacular literacy practices and modernization, and it offers a profound and historical understand of identification in the social media of today.