Keith Sculle, co-author of Picturing Illinois: Twentieth-Century Postcard Art from Chicago to Cairo (University of Illinois Press, October 2012), concludes our Postcard of the Day feature with his favorite from the book.

Postcards stimulate reference to the past in ways more powerful than words.  This idyllic view of a shaded residential street in Danville’s upscale past is true to the scene but it also evokes an idealized home place, one of quiet, one blending nature with stately architecture.  This particular view also references—for those wishing to delve further—the neighborhood where Illinois’ once powerful Speaker of the House lived, Uncle Joe Cannon. Fact, memory, and feeling are all embedded in my favorite postcard from Picturing Illinois.  

Figure 142, North Vermilion Street, Danville, ca. 1910. C. T. [Curt Teich] American Art (#R-20740).

Taken from Picturing Illinois: Twentieth-Century Postcard Art from Chicago to Cairo (University of Illinois Press, October 2012).  Previous postcards here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, and here.