title: You've got mail: hospital postcards as a reflection of health care in the early twentieth century.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The author shows that not only can the illustrations on the front of postcards reveal a considerable amount of information about hospitals in the early twentieth century, but that the messages, addresses, captions, postmarks, and stamps on the back of postcards also offer a valuable glimpse into the lives of ordinary citizens and their interactions with the health care system.
  
  
  METHODS
  In addition to a literature review on postcards and their history and use, particularly in the depiction of health care, the author reviews the postcards in her own collection, which includes a variety of hospital postcards from this time period.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Early hospital postcards provide a framework for examining individual elements of postcards and show how postcards can be used as key sources in historical research on health care in the early 1900s.
authors.affiliation: Indiana University School of Informatics, Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis 46202, USA.
authors.forename: Sara Anne
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Hook
mesh_terms: D015709:Correspondence as Topic / Q000266:history; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006749:Hospital Design and Construction / Q000266:history*; D006761:Hospitals / Q000266:history*; D006801:Humans; D010781:Photography / Q000266:history*; D014481:United States