12 Vintage Postcards of Massachusetts Beaches to Get You Ready for Summer

Wish you were here.

By Kyle Scott Clauss· 5/24/2016, 10:21 a.m.

For the history nerd or otherwise inquisitive mind, Digital Commonwealth can be a bottomless rabbit hole to gleefully plummet down. A non-profit collaborative of more than 130 member libraries, museums, and historical societies, it offers an easy-to-search, expansive collection of digitized documents, photographs, manuscripts—and, as we found, more than few postcards.

Thanks to the Boston Public Library, Digital Commonwealth’s archives include the Tichnor Brothers Collection, comprised of 25,000 office proofs of postcards depicting technicolor locales all across the United States, published by the Boston-based printer. You can spot them right away: the bright, almost surreal colors, the linen grain, and sometimes, a hokey inscription, like “$5 Reward if you can find Me in this Crowd.”

To get you ready for summer, here’s a dozen vintage postcards, printed by Tichnor Brothers and others, of Massachusetts’ beaches, resorts, and lighthouses.