America’s Romance with Water Power

In the early 1800s, Americans used bandboxes to store clothing, accessories, and other small items. Bandboxes were handy containers in the home or when traveling by stage, boat, or rail. Manufacturers covered these inexpensive pasteboard or wooden boxes with colorful papers. This bandbox's paper depicts an idyllic scene with a towered home and mill.

In the last third of the nineteenth century, an unprecedented variety of consumer goods and services flooded the American market. Advertisers, armed with new methods of color printing, bombarded potential customers with trade cards. Americans enjoyed and often saved the vibrant little advertisements found in product packages or distributed by local merchants. Many survive as historical records of commercialism in the United States.

The custom of sending messages of affection on February 14 dates back to Roman times, when mid-February was a time to meet and court prospective mates. The earliest American valentines were labors of love, handmade by the sender. The spread of commercially produced valentines in the second half of the nineteenth century made sending and receiving Valentine's Day cards a more lighthearted activity.

Henry Ford purchased the Wayside Inn, the setting for the poems in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn, in 1923. Over six years, Ford spent more than $2 million restoring the inn and several adjacent buildings, including this gristmill. In retrospect, the project was something of a dry run for Ford's Greenfield Village complex a few years later.

Mailing colorful, commercially designed greeting cards had become an American tradition by the 1920s and 1930s. Friends and neighbors commonly exchanged cards that wished one another a merry Christmas or happy New Year during the winter holidays. Publishers sometimes decorated these cards with nostalgic images of mills, churches, or covered bridges steeped in snow.

What's better than receiving a postcard from a vacationing friend? How about a souvenir viewbook with multiple images that fold neatly into a postcard-sized packet? This viewbook contains eighteen images and information about Boulder Dam. Tourists traveled to see this engineering marvel beginning in the 1930s soon after its completion. The dam was later rechristened Hoover Dam.

Mailing colorful, commercially designed greeting cards had become an American tradition by the 1920s and 1930s. Friends and neighbors commonly exchanged cards that wished one another a merry Christmas or happy New Year during the winter holidays. Publishers sometimes decorated these cards with nostalgic images of mills, churches, or covered bridges steeped in snow.

Tourists purchase simple, inexpensive souvenirs as proof of their travels. These mementos transport vacationers back to the places they visited and the things they did. In the mid-20th century, felt pennants were trendy. This pennant depicts scenic views visitors may have seen on their trip to Bagnell Dam in the Missouri Ozarks.

In 1938, a year after a devastating flood, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a government agency, began construction on a dam near Gilbertsville, Kentucky. The dam across the lower Tennessee River provides flood control, power generation, and economic development to the region. The dam is the longest in the TVA system. It created Kentucky Lake, one of the largest man-made lakes in the United States.

Tourists purchase simple, inexpensive souvenirs as proof of their travels. These mementos transport vacationers back to the places they visited and the things they did. In the mid-20th century, felt pennants were trendy. This pennant depicts a variety of scenic views visitors may have seen on their trip to Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington State.

The Bureau of Reclamation created this brochure touting the benefits of constructing the Hungry Horse Dam on the South Fork Flathead River in northwest Montana. According to the Bureau, the dam would produce low-cost power, stimulate the area's economy, provide farm irrigation, and control potential floodwaters. Construction started in 1948, and the dam was completed five years later in 1953.

Tourist attractions offered souvenir seekers something new beginning in the 1950s: inexpensive plastic snow globes. These evolved from fancier versions through innovations in plastics and manufacturing technology, and they quickly became connected with travel. Snow globes were fun to collect, easy to transport, and served as both proof of the journey and a lasting representation of vacation memories.

Already known for greeting cards, Hallmark introduced a line of Christmas ornaments in 1973. The company's annual release of an increasing array of ornaments revolutionized Christmas decorating, appealing to customers' interest in marking memories and milestones as well as expressing one's personality and unique tastes.