Diane Shepard Livres

From the 1890s through the 1920s, the postcard was an extraordinarily popular means of communication, and many of the postcards produced during this "golden age" can today be considered works of art. Postcard photographers traveled the length and breadth of the nation snapping photographs of busy street scenes, documenting local landmarks, and assembling crowds of local children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in stores across the country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America's history. This fascinating new history of Lynn, Massachusetts, showcases more than two hundred of the best vintage postcards available. Drawn largely from the extensive archives of the Lynn Historical Society, the images in this informative volume take the reader on a tour of Lynn's beaches and parks, streets and squares, churches and schools, even into the sky for some intriguing bird's eye views, giving a glimpse of everything an earlier generation loved about Lynn.

The Victorian Era was a period of rapid industrialization and technological advancement for Lynn. A rise in manufactured goods, increased commercialism, and the building of a large labor force transformed the city at an unprecedented rate. Taken mainly from a newly acquired collection of glass-plate negatives, Lynn in the Victorian Era provides a unique snapshot of the city, frozen at one moment in time. The images in this collection were taken as Lynn celebrated its 250th anniversary in 1879. It was a time when Lynn was just entering into the period of its greatest economic prosperity and physical growth. Immigrants were flocking to the city, drawn by the shoe factories that soon took their place at the very forefront of the industry. Lynn in the Victorian Era holds images of a city that is unquestioningly embracing its industrial future. It is a view of the city at once oddly foreign and hauntingly familiar. It is also a very fleeting picture; many of the scenes depicted in these remarkable photographs fell to the first Great Lynn Fire in 1889.