Women's Correspondence
Whilst the men were away fighting a number of my great, great aunt's friends, who were all young women between 18 and 25 years of age, corresponded with one another by postcard, many of which show contemporary cartoons. They sent them for birthdays and to cheer one another up as well as to discuss every day life. The messages they wrote on the postcards were very basic and said very little, but I understand they developed a code to share messages, for example about news they had from soldiers overseas, or about other matters they did not want either the postman or the censor to see. The code involved the specific placement of the stamp on the postcard in relation to the box provided for it. Unfortunately I do not know what their code meant, but the stamps on their cards can be seen in a range of carefully placed positions, and I understand that they were using a combination of the number of notches on the stamp above or below the box and the angle at which the stamp was placed to communicate a certain message.
World War 1 Cartoon postcards sent between women on the home front
Rear of postcard showing carefully placed 'coded' stamp.
CONTRIBUTOR
Sally McIntosh
DATE
/
LANGUAGE
eng
ITEMS
1
INSTITUTION
Europeana 1914-1918
PROGRESS
METADATA
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