Illinois Postcards Collection, circa 1906-1988 | Illinois History and Lincoln Collections

This collection includes over 2000 postcards collected by the University of Kentucky that document different sites from across the state of Illinois.

This postcard collection was curated by librarians and archivists at the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center from the 1940s to the 1980s. The collection has a focus on postcards from the early to mid-twentieth century. During a reappraisal of its postcard collection in 2024, the University of Kentucky decided to offer their state postcards as a transfer to relevant institutions, donating the Illinois postcards to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

This collection includes 2157 postcards. The postcards primarily show images from Illinois and have been organized alphabetically by county, with 62 Illinois counties represented in this collection. Over half of the postcards show images from Cook County, with the city of Chicago represented on most of these Cook County postcards. There are also 6 postcards showing images from states other than Illinois and 2 postcards showing images from outside the United States.

This collection was donated to the Library by the University of Kentucky in 2024.