Before travel blogs and Instagram feeds could show you the wider world, postcards were the best way to share images from across the globe. In the West, one of the only ways to see images from European colonies in Africa and Asia was through postcards. Popular subjects included landscapes, native inhabitants and scenes of everyday colonial life. But these postcards were far from an accurate window into colonial society. Instead, they were bound to the biases and tastes of their creators and their audience, and were shaped into telling a particular story.

Orientalism, Imperialism, and the Civilizing Mission

Edward Said’s groundbreaking book Orientalism forced historians to re-examine their understanding of East-West relations. By his use of the word, “orientalism” refers to a depiction of the Orient from an outside, Western perspective. In his view, the Western understanding of the East was not defined by what it was in actuality, but by how it was perceived in relation to the West. Said proposed that Western studies of the East were dominated by imperialist bias as a result of the dominance of Western imperialism in the 19th century. This bias created the popular idea of the East as a wild, untamed place, in stark contrast to the civilized West, that could only be saved by Western influence. To this end, Western depictions of the East went to great lengths to emphasize the contrast between the civilized West and the savage East, and the good that could come from the “civilizing mission.”

Depictions of a Savage Land

So how did postcards play into this relationship? For many, postcards were the only way to see “authentic” depictions of the colonies. In reality, much of what you could find on a postcard from the Orient was carefully curated to play to the biases of their intended audience. There is something of a chicken-and-egg situation here: Westerners wanted to see the strange and mysterious colonies and postcard producers wanted to show it to them. As they did, they reinforced the legitimacy of these stereotypical images in the West. 

Popular subjects for postcard images included colonial development projects, showing off new, Western-built infrastructure like roads, canals and mines, or contrasting images of pre-colonial landscapes and cities, to emphasize their “backwards” nature before the arrival of Western influence. Depictions of historical events, like diplomatic visits between Western envoys and local officials, were also common.

Even more popular was the depiction of natives supposedly going about their daily lives. City and market scenes could show bustling streets and exotic goods. Exotic modes of dress, such as the regalia worn by some high-ranking members of society, were contrasted with Westerners in clothes one could find anywhere in Europe. Though some of these photos were genuine depictions of life, others were arranged by photographers to exaggerate otherness. Nude or semi-nude depictions of native men and women were common, though often the subjects of these photos were instructed to disrobe to create the image of an indecent, uncivilized people. Many women who were photographed in this manner were in reality orphans and prostitutes paid to pose for the photographer to embody the “colonial harem,” the idea that native women were promiscuous. These depictions helped shape the West’s perception of the colonies, and invented the image of a place so backwards that only Western civilization could save it from itself.

For more, visit the African & Middle East Reading Room at the Library of Congress’ website.

Alex Foster-Petrocco

Alex has a BA in History from Carleton and is currently a 2nd-year Professional Writing student at Algonquin.