Elena Irish Zimmerman

Bristol to Knoxville Elena Irish Zimmerman

Bristol to Knoxville: A Postcard Tour takes us on a journey back to a simpler time, 1939, and invites us to tour the towns of East Tennessee by means of the picture postcard. The 1930s were fascinating years in America. It was a time of struggle, and yet of hope; of hardship, and yet of optimism. America fought her way through the Depression to emerge the better for it, and those who came through were determined to live the American dream. In 1939, as in previous decades, the postcard was a supremely popular means of fast and easy communication. Postcard companies sent their photographers all over
America, to cities and crossroads alike. These photographers captured on film scenes that would prove popular commercially, but in doing so, they were unknowingly creating a tremendous archive of historical images that are of great value today for the insights they offer into the way life was lived in the early twentieth century.