Deep South Specialties, Incorporated Postcard Collection PI/2008.0001

In 1952, Henry Wyatt Clowe, owner and operator of a packaging equipment and material business in Jackson, heard of a new printing method that produced shiny photographic images on postcards. Seeing a new business opportunity, he hired a photographer to produce images of familiar Gulf Coast scenes and other Mississippi and Alabama landmarks. For the next thirty-three years, Clowe printed the postcards under the name Deep South Specialties, Incorporated, and sold them in dime stores and motel lobbies across Mississippi. In 1982, Clowe estimated that he had sold millions of postcards during the previous three decades.

It is not clear when Deep South Specialties, Incorporated, ceased production. The last inventory is dated 1983, and the company was not listed in the Jackson City Directory after 1985. Henry Wyatt Clowe did continue to run his packaging equipment business until his retirement in 2004. He passed away on October 26, 2006.