Residential street with turreted house, Waltham, MA, circa 1905

About this postcard

A sepia photograph looks down an unpaved residential street lined with large frame houses. A turreted house stands on a grassy rise at the left, and a large tree fills the right side of the frame. The wide setbacks and substantial houses suggest a comfortable small-town neighborhood of the early 1900s. The card carried a short note from G.E.L., who hoped that Harbert and Violet would "come up and make a visit after haying." The invitation points to late summer, once the hay was in, and it was sent to a household in Waltham, Massachusetts. Arranging a visit by postcard was ordinary practice at a time when a card could be written in the morning and delivered across town or across the state within a day.