Cooper Postcard Collection PI/1992.0001
On November 13, 1991, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History acquired approximately 4600 color and black-and-white postcards from Forrest Lamar Cooper, a former Senior Customer Service Agent with Delta Air Lines. The theme of the collection is Mississippiana, and Cooper especially focused on scenes of small towns, mineral springs, agricultural and forestry activities, and railroads. The cards span the years 1892 to the 1940s and depict people and places from seventy-seven of Mississippi's eighty-two counties, and even three other states (Illinois, Massachusetts, and Tennessee). The cards were scanned in the roughly geographical order into which Cooper arranged them.
Read MoreOn November 13, 1991, the Mississippi Department of Archives and History acquired approximately 4600 color and black-and-white postcards from Forrest Lamar Cooper, a former Senior Customer Service Agent with Delta Air Lines. The theme of the collection is Mississippiana, and Cooper especially focused on scenes of small towns, mineral springs, agricultural and forestry activities, and railroads. The cards span the years 1892 to the 1940s and depict people and places from seventy-seven of Mississippi's eighty-two counties, and even three other states (Illinois, Massachusetts, and Tennessee). The cards were scanned in the roughly geographical order into which Cooper arranged them.
Image Arrangement and Numbering
Cooper arranged the cards—views of 216 locations—geographically in forty-two vinyl albums, which were subsequently numbered by the Graphic Records curator. A few cards were misfiled but were maintained in Cooper's original order. The cards were later individually numbered and transferred to twenty-one acid- and lignin-free album boxes for better conservation, still in Cooper's original order.
Technical Details
Original Scans: The original scans of the Forrest Lamar Cooper Postcard Collection were begun April 2007 and completed August 2009, according to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History Board of Trustees' approved imaging procedures, following ANSI/AIIM recommended practice. The images were scanned as uncompressed, 24-bit RGB TIFF files at 600 pixels per inch. The collection contains some identical cards. MDAH did not scan the duplicates.
Conversion: For Web display, the original scans of the Forrest Lamar Cooper Postcard Collection were saved as JPEG tile sets.
Rights Management
The postcards in the Forrest Lamar Cooper Postcard Collection are in the public domain and therefore free of copyright or other use restrictions. MDAH asks that each image used in a presentation, display, or publication be accompanied by the following credit statement:
Credit: Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Copy Availability
High-resolution TIFFs of the images may be purchased from MDAH. The MDAH Public Order procedure and fee schedule apply. Consult the Photoreproduction and Digital Imaging policy or contact MDAH Reference Staff for order options as well as information on how to obtain and complete the necessary Public Order forms: 601-576-6876 or refdesk@mdah.ms.gov.