Category: Story of America Cards

This is the 19th Amendment. It was passed in on August 18, 1920, giving women the right to vote as full citizens of the republic.

The final passage of the Amendment was the result of much political jockeying between the National American Women’s Sufferage Association, activists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns who had split from NAWSA over support for WWI and President Woodrow Wilson, up to his ears in the great war and eyeing re-election that fall.

An excellent dramatic retelling of the process is the film Iron Jawed Angels, which is available on DVD.

This week’s Story of America Card: "Early American Restaurants".

Restaurants were largely a creation of post-Civil War America, spurned by the growth of slaughterhouses and shipyards and well as mass-immigrant and former labor to Northern cities.

America’s oldest restaurant, however predates this period by a full 4 decades. The Union Oyster House in Boston, has been open continuously since 1826 and has had exactly 3 owners in 182 years.

So this is John Hancock. You probably know him as an early founding father, the first governor of the state of Massachusetts and the first (and largest) signer of the Declaration of Independence.

What you might not know is that the image above of John Hancock is from a Story of America Card, sets of picture cards sold from 1979-1980 in packets of 24 via commercials on television. A total 2,256 cards in 94 decks were released in a short period, each featuring a different person, icon, trend or event in the American experience. The cards have been out of print since.

On August 4, 1980, 3 days before my 7th birthday, I received my first deck of Story of America Cards in mail. An avid card collector of all kinds back then, I had asked for them as a birthday present six weeks earlier and remember getting home from day camp, sitting on the front steps in the balmy Michigan sun and singing to no one in particular "My Story of America Cards Cay-aaame!"

I hadn’t thought of Story of America Cards until a curious google search last month showed me that a largely complete set was available for a very reasonable price. I’m now the proud owner of that set and upon some consideration and a lot of fondling, I now believe these cards were the beginning of my love affair with all things American.

What that search also reveals is almost no public record of the cards, a bit of background, no Wikipedia page no directory of their total holdings. While many of them are dated and a bit politically incorrect (the section of cards on race relations is called "The Black Man"), as a child I found them an invaluable teaching aid and a fun, easy way to learn a lot about this country without feeling like I’d swallowed a handful of brussel sprouts.

So here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to scan my entire collection a little at a time and upload them all to a Flickr Photoset. Each card will include a description and links to the card’s subject. I’ll also be posting about them here every now and them when I upload more.

Tag and note them at will. They’ve brought me such wisdom and joy in just a short time. I can’t wait to share them with you.