This card is from the third "Souvenir Postal" series: the halftone engraving used to print the view of the John Hay birthplace is the same block (and even the same border rules) used for the Hay birthlplace card in the second series but the back of the card is different. Rather than "Souvenir Postal Card" it says just "Post Card," and the caption on the front is different. Where the prior version of the card says merely "Secretary John Hay's Birthplace, Salem, Ind." this one says, in a different typeface, "Birthplace of John Hay, Statesman, Author, and Journalist." The difference may help date the publication of the different versions of the card. The first offers no explanation of what Hay was secretary of, and sounds as if it was probably published while he was actually holding the office of Secretrary of State, which he did from 1898 to 1905. This would fit with a publication date of the first version of the series while Hay was still alive in the first half of 1905. The more eulogistic identification of Hay as "Statesman, Author, and Journalist" would fit with the publication of this version of the card after his death on July 1, 1905. (This dating is complicated somewhat by the inclusion of the Carnegie Library card in the second set -- the library building was finished in mid-1905.) The cards I have in the three versions of the series support this dating -- or at least don't contradict it: the two postmarked cards in the first set are both dated in 1906, the one postmark on a card in the second set is Sept. 15, 1907, and the one card I have in the third set is unmailed. I'll say the first set was published in 1905, the second a year or so later, and the third in 1907 until something comes along to make me think otherwise. (While there isn't another card in the collection with the same "Post Card" back in the same typeface, I have seen another -- the view of the Carnegie Library in the "Penny Postcards of Indiana" collection maintained on www.rootsweb.com by Joy Fisher, who attests to the back design of the card, even though it isn't shown on her site.) This version of the John Hay Birthplace card is unused and undated. (3/27/02) Home | The 1900s | Next card