Holiday cards are always a favorite in the Archives, both because the card makers tend to put some interesting concepts forward, and sometimes the messages are fun. For this Thanksgiving, we've pulled together a fairly large batch to hopefully help you get in the right spirits, or just because they were fun. Many of these have the art embossed, which is generally way more obvious in the image of the back. We tend not to clean those scans up as much, as it makes the highlights / shadows from the embossing go away, but they can be harder to read as a result.

Most of these are from 1900's/1910's, and the careful eye will note that the address area is often just the person's name, street (many times without the number), and "City" instead of "Cleveland." That worked for a very long time, if mailed from within Cleveland. Eventually, even the postmarks will include text to remind people to start using the full addresses including postal codes to help ensure things didn't get sent back to you.

You may also notice — especially with holiday cards — sometimes they don't have a postmark, but have a full address and message. Likely, these ended up being hand delivered (it's not uncommon to forget to send holiday cards so long that you just bring them with you to deliver in person).

No turkeys were harmed in the making of any of these cards.

NOTE: The FreshWater Cleveland PostCard Archives Team does its best to transcribe the very old (often more than 100 years) script writing, that can often be faded, written in pencil, tiny, etc., and, at times, in other languages. When we cannot determine a word, it is replaced with "[???]." When we make a guess, the word itself will be followed with "[?]."

Wishing You a Peaceful Thanksgiving (1910)Flip OverPostmark: Cleveland, Ohio NOV 22 1910 8:30PM
Card Front: A farm in the background with a turkey standing on a cornucopia in the foreground, and the text "Wishing You a Peaceful Thanksgiving" in the lower left.

Card Back: Printed Copy: Thanksgiving Series No. 7
Written Text: "Best wish. From N.F."

Thanksgiving Greeting (1906)Flip OverPostmark: Cleveland, Ohio NOV 27 1906 12PM
Card Front: A large turkey standing in straw, with the text "Thanksgiving Greeting" in a curly-banner style angled upward from left to right. Someone wrote "Cleveland Ohio 1906" underneath the text (the ink / writing do not look the same as the sender, so potentially the recipient added this).

Card Back: This doesn't have a street address, but includes "The Alhambra" on the lower left, and likely would have meant the Alhambra Apartments that used to be in the Hough neighborhood (it was the largest apartment building, at the time of its construction, which wasn't much earlier than this card was posted).

Thanksgiving (1913)Flip OverPostmark: Cleveland, Ohio NOV 25 1913 9:30AM
Card Front: A post with a sign noting "Thanksgiving" on the top right, and then a confusing image on the lower left of either a very small pilgrim with normal sized turkey and pumpkin, or a normal sized pilgrim with very large turkey and pumpkin.

Card Back: "Greetings to all - your booker[?] was fine. 3 or 4 places didn't have brown stuff. Joe[?] will try in A.M. We will [???] Thurs at Dora's - Joe's collar is 14 3/4. Will write[?] later. Nan."

Note: This style of card actually shows up almost every holiday, so likely came in a box of cards for every holiday. We have a similar posted for this year's Halloween page.

Thanksgiving Greetings (1910)Flip OverPostmark: Cleveland, Ohio NOV 19 1910
Card Front: A turkey, centered and surrounded by a wreath of wheat, and some fruit on the ground. 2 panels on each side showing a farm scene. "Thanksgiving Greetings" centered along the bottom.

Card Back:
Printed Copy: "Thanksgiving" Series Number 916
Written Text: "To James. From Josephine Elizabeth and Frederick Epple. All Well"

Thanksgiving Joys (1912)Flip OverPostmark: Cleveland, Ohio NOV 27 1912 6:30PM
Card Front: 3 concepts, stacked centered, portrait style: a fall farm scene with hay gathered in tented bales, a turkey with a feed bowl, and the message "Thanksgiving Joys" with a spilled bushel of apples.

Card Back: "Dear Sister - Have been laid up for repairs for 2 weeks. I stuck a pitch fork in my knee. I hope every body is well out there. Am up on crutches now, not much news here. Lawrence"

Thanksgiving Joys (1910)Flip OverPostmark: Cleveland, Ohio NOV 21 1910 2PM
Card Front: A backdrop of a farm scene, with a very thin wild turkey perched on a tree branch, a very close bunch of grapes, and the text "Thanksgiving Joys" as a banner behind it all at the top.

Card Back: "Du [???] [???] [???] zu [???] [???] fur Thanksgiving [???] Alma. Ans. soon."

Note: It's German, and very old script style on the back. We got as far as we could, and assume it was something along the lines of "What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Ans. soon", though... in 1910, Thanksgiving would have only been 3 days after this was posted.

Thanksgiving Greetings (1908)Flip OverPostmark: (Unused)
Card Front: A boy and girl in that uncanny 1900's "they look like small adults in the face" art style, separated by circular plaque with a turkey and "Thanksgiving Greetings" arced along the left and top, all against a background of light blue with white stars repeated at an angle. Someone has hand written "Nove, 08. Mildred N." (likely Mildred)

Card Back: Printed Copy: Thanksgiving Series No. 1

Note: The back of this one also has some triangular staining on the back at each corner, potentially from something that was holding it in a display at some point in its life.