Postcards from the Chihuahua Border: Revisiting a Pictorial Past, 1900s–1950sJust a trolley ride from El Paso, Ciudad Juárez was a popular destination in the early 1900s. Enticing and exciting, tourists descended on this and other Mexican border towns to browse curio shops, dine and dance, attend bullfights, and perhaps escape Prohibition America. In Postcards from the Chihuahua Border Daniel D. Arreola captures the exhilaration of places in time, taking us back to Mexico’s northern border towns of Cuidad Juárez, Ojinaga, and Palomas in the early twentieth century. Drawing on more than three decades of archival work, Arreola uses postcards and maps to unveil the history of these towns along west Texas’s and New Mexico’s southern borders. Postcards offer a special kind of visual evidence. Arreola’s collection of imagery and commentary about them shows us singular places, enriching our understandings of history and the history of change in Chihuahua. No one postcard tells the entire story. But image after image offers a collected view and insight into changing perceptions. Arreola’s geography of place looks both inward and outward. We see what tourists see, while at the same time gaining insight about what postcard photographers and postcard publishers wanted to be seen and perceived about these border communities. Postcards from the Chihuahua Border is a colorful and dynamic visual history. It invites the reader to time travel, to revisit another era—the first half of the last century—when these border towns were framed and made popular through picture postcards. |
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16 de Septiembre activity adobe advertising Alvillar American appeared Arreola Collection Avenida Juárez became boundary bridge building cabaret Café Calle celebrated Central Centro changed chapter Chihuahua border church Ciudad Juárez Club Collection Columbus Company connecting constructed created crossing curio customs house decades Deming discussed early east El Paso especially establishments Figure Guadalupe historic Horne Hotel interior known land later looking López Mexican border town Mexico Mission monument officials ofthe Ojinaga opened operated original palace Palomas Paso del Norte photo postcard photographers picture plaza popular population positioned postcard photographers Presidio print postcard production Prohibition published railroad residents river scenes shows side space Spanish story street streetcar Texas thousand tourist twentieth century typically United visitors visual