Scope and Contents:
This collection contains more than a thousand "penny postals" (U.S. business postcards), sent or received by C. F. Hall of Dundee, McHenry County, Ill., who also did business as C. F. Hall & Co. in Richmond, Kane County, Ill. Hall was a grocer and dry goods merchant. The cards document the wide range of products that were bought and sold in small-town northern Illinois stores. Hall depended upon companies in many places, not just Chicago, and he also placed orders directly with a stream of traveling salesmen.
Although "postals" were an ephemeral mode of communication, the preservation of such a large number of postcards to and from a single correspondent makes possible a detailed analysis of commercial transactions during the accelerated settlement of two northern Illinois counties in the late nineteenth century.
Subjects (links to similar collections)
Submit request (Aeon)
