Larger Than Life
A unique style of photography, “tall-tale” postcards became a signature artistic effort by local Waupun photographer A. Stanley Johnson, Jr. in the early twentieth century. Many photos, including several portraits of Loomans family members, are ornamented with Mr. Johnson’s beautiful branded calligraphy.
The Origin of Tall-Tale Postcards
A. Stanley Johnson, Jr. followed his father into the namesake family photography business by 1884, opening a studio on Madison Street in Waupun. Here he captured the excitement of a rapidly evolving American way of life. Images of Loomans family members including lumber entrepreneur Derrick Lomans and farmer Albert Loomans, among others, were likely taken by Mr. Johnson in this studio, as the branded watermark on the bottom of these images indicates.
What is unique about this photographer’s work is his pursuit of postcard photography. In the first two decades of the 1900s, Mr. Johnson began developing freak postcards under the set name “How We Do Things In...,” a common caption for his postcards that gradually gained widespread fame across the United States.
The novelty of the postcards was his method of (quite literally) cutting and gluing an image of a large piece of produce or the like to the top of an ordinary photo, creating the illusion of abundance and worth.
On an artistic level, the photographs became known as “tall-tale” postcards and required not just the skill of integrating two images into a single photograph, but also the imagination to create entire compositions that evoke emotion and underscore the power of great branding. Mr. Johnson is often credited with stretching the method to an artistic form, spawning the growth of his business and the development of a medium that emerged a as way to advertise life in small town agricultural America.
Below: A Selection of Tall-Tale Postcards by A. Stanley Johnson, Jr., 1909 to 1915 | Courtesy the Wisconsin Historical Society
The “How We Do Things In...” series was especially effective because it portrayed the idealistic prosperity of work on the farm and could be used practically anywhere because the images themselves contained little geographic identification (in other words, the location following the “in” could be interchanged to suit the community).
Tall-tale postcards underscored and promoted a myth of agricultural abundance specifically in the American Midwest, one which conflicted strongly with the reality of the farm business.
Mr. Johnson’s efforts likely succeeded in attracting new residents to the rolling farmlands of America’s agricultural corridor. The photographer’s portfolio also documented some of the most fascinating views of life in Waupun and the surrounding area more than a century ago. Albeit unproven, it seems possible that a Loomans family ancestor may even have been featured in Mr. Johnson’s tall-tale postcards that floated through communities across the country.
At the very least, given the images obtained with the studio’s brand written across the bottom and the relative size of Waupun in the early twentieth century, Loomans forbearers likely knew Mr. Johnson and his family, including Henry and Hannah Loomans who were close to the couple’s same age.
If nothing else Mr. Johnson’s photos represent the nostalgia of rural America: the gritty and determined attitudes of the people who lived there and the persistence of the rural utopian myth so beautifully captured by Johnson’s work.
A special thank you to the Wisconsin Historical Society for their detailed documentation and research on Mr. Johnson and his work in the tall-tale postcard market. Additional information about both topics can be found at the links below.