In 1909 the Western Icelander A. J. Johnson (Andrés Jónsson of Ásbúð) published in Winnipeg a series of postcards dedicated to well-known Icelanders. The cards show photographs of the men concerned, with the blue-and-white flag and a coat of arms with a falcon on a blue ground in the background. The flag and the coat of arms were originally the poet Einar Benediktsson’s ideas for symbols of Icelandic sovereignty. The cards also printed quotations from the people they were dedicated to. The card with a picture of the poet Einar Hjörleifsson, who lived in North America for some years, reads: “We have never accepted that any nation should have endless power over any of our affairs. We will never do so, for the sake of our country, for our own sake and for the sake of our children”.
Postcards reflect the spirit of their times, and in the years when A. J. Johnson’s cards were published the Icelanders’ struggle for independence was at its height. Young people flocked to the youth associations, which took up the motto “Íslandi allt” (All for Iceland), as can be seen in Skinfaxi, the journal of UMFÍ (the Icelandic Youth Association), which can be read at www.timarit.is.
In the age of information technology few people still write letters or postcards to send to family and friends. This was done a great deal in the last century, and postcard publishing flourished, as Ragnhildur Bragadóttir’s BA thesis “Lukkuósk í tilefni af 6. Maj 1900” (Good wishes on the occasion of 6 May 1900) shows.
The oldest card with an Icelandic picture is German, from the period 1880–1900. There are about 3,000 first editions of Icelandic cards from the last century, but publishing fluctuated greatly and depended, among other things, on the number of tourists who came to the country.
The National Department of the National Library keeps a large number of Icelandic postcards, an important part of Icelandic publishing and art history. Publication of the postcard collection will soon begin on a special website of the National Department about postcards, devoted to small prints and ephemera in its keeping.
