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Mary Thornbush On Postcards
Used to Track Environmental History
| POSTCARDS PRESENT AN opportunity to trace environmental change of various types of plants in diverse landscapes through time. As an approach of repeat photography (rephotography), postcards can portray places (from certain perspectives) throughout their recorded history. Although the record is limited by the availability of postcards, where historical photographs are abundant this approach can be used to capture landscape change. |
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The book Pictures in Colour of Oxford contains postcard images of the colleges belonging to the University of Oxford, UK. Oxford colleges—including All Souls, Balliol, Brasenose, Corpus Christi, Exeter, Jesus, Lincoln, Magdalen, Mansfield, Merton, New, Oriel, Pembroke, Queen's, St. John's, Trinity, Wadham, and Worcester—appear clad in varying amounts of ivy or creeper growth. The book (likely published around 1907) succeeds in portraying the overall greenness of Oxford colleges in the early twentieth century.1 |
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A later published study used postcards to show environmental change based on case studies at Glacier and Yellowstone national parks, in the United States. The published paper presented problems of using picture postcards to ascertain environmental change. Even though such issues as, for example, record integrity, are valid concerns, it is worth using this available source of information as an extension of what can be found in photoarchives.2 |
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A case study is presented here that is derived from thirty-six postcards purchased at Jeremy's on Cowley Road, Oxford, UK. The posted dates provided a basis for establishing rough chronologies of the progression of change in climbing plants (ivy or creepers). Oxford offers a unique opportunity for this research because of its numerous photo archives housed in the colleges and their derived postcards printed in the early twentieth century. |
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IVY AND CREEPERS AT OXFORD COLLEGES | |
| BEGINNING WITH THE less well-represented of the colleges (with just one postcard), All Souls College had a minimal amount of climbing plants visible in its main quadrangle. These plants were constrained and allowed to grow at low- to mid-levels above ground level. At Christ Church, ivy and creepers were kept away from the front facade and allowed to grow on the sides of its main building, facing onto St. Aldate's Street and on buildings located toward its meadow. Corpus Christi can be seen with minimal amounts of climbing plants on its walls growing no higher than ground-floor level. This growth was evidently maintained, as it neatly framed windows and doorways. An undated postcard, however, portrays a very different situation—where a deciduous creeper (possibly Virginia creeper, which was grown at various other colleges, such as Trinity, Exeter, and Lincoln) of a bright reddish coloration can be seen growing at a higher level on the same facade. Merton College had high-growing ivy or creepers, as for example, at "Mob Quad." A climbing plant can be seen growing up to the first floor with a blanket cover that is, here also, growing away from windows and doorways. At Trinity College there is no evidence of ivy or creepers growing on buildings near the President's House in the front quadrangle in 1912, although a considerable growth can be seen later in 1923 on the chapel from the Balliol College garden. At St. John's College from its garden front, with a similar perspective, there was a greater ivy or creeper growth on the building facade in 1909 compared with 1905. Some of the plant growth almost spread onto windows by 1909.3 |
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