"International Paper Co. Palmer, NY (n.d.)

Picture postcards emerged in late 19th century as an inexpensive and easy method of sending greetings to friends and loved ones. Postcards that were created from scenes in and around Corinth - particularly those of the Hudson River and Palmer Falls - celebrated both the community's natural and industrial landscapes. Some of the postcards, particularly the black and white versions, were created by local photographers and sold within the community, while color postcards were typically produced elsewhere to become part of a series that featured scenes of the Adirondacks.

The postcards made of the Hudson River Mill over a period of forty years demonstrate that in the late 19th and early 20th century factories were often viewed as public structures that served as symbols of a community's progressive spirit. Some images of the Hudson River Mill were even contained within postcard series on the Adirondack Mountains, perhaps the clearest indication that turn-of-the-twentieth century Americans believed that industrial production and nature were not contradictory.

While various scenes of the entire Hudson River Mill were made into postcards, the towered, red brick office and factory that was built by the Hudson River Pulp and Paper Company in 1888, and the International Paper Company headquarters built in 1905, were the singular structures most often represented.

The IP headquarters building was a source of civic pride, perhaps because its mission-revival architectural style was in sharp contrast to the simple, wood frame residences and businesses that predominated in the community. The construction of the Company headquarters building on Pine Street - which relocated the main entrance to the Hudson River Mill to a more visible public location - was strategically situated where Heath Street ended at Pine Street. The location of the building created a dramatic approach to the Mill for both employees and visitors.

International Paper Company Office (Version 1)	International Paper Company Office (Version 2)

Not all postcard makers, however, shared a common aesthetic perspective in their representations of the building. The visual editing of the Company office that occurred in one version in fact serves to underscore the extent to which postcard makers felt free to manipulate reality. The black and white postcard above shows the building with two people standing in front, and a woodpile, water tower, chimney and sulphite digester stack in the background. In the color view that was taken from a slightly different angle, all hints of the building's industrial context have been masked by the photographer from the original photograph. In the spare image that results, which depicts the building as though it were a public monument, even the tree on the corner of Heath and Pine Streets has been removed.

Postcard photographers imaged the Hudson River, Palmer Falls and the Mill's production facilities together in a manner that succeeded in the visual reconciliation of nature and culture.

Hudson River Mill (ca. 1920)

The Hudson River Mill was often depicted in postcards from the perspective of the much higher north side of the Hudson. This vantage point allowed photographers to use surrounding vegetation to frame the entire production complex. The results often were images that made the Hudson River Mill appear as an organic expression of the natural landscape which was indeed the aesthetic objective of the industrial picturesque. Nature and industry seldom appear in conflict in these postcards. Some postcard makers underscored the inherent incongruity of natural and industrial landscapes with the use of image titles, like the postcard company that included the Hudson River Mill in a postcard series on the Adirondack Mountains, entitling it "Adirondack Mts, International Paper Mill, Corinth, NY."

Hudson River Mill (ca. 1895)

Palmer Falls appeared frequently in postcards. Images of the Falls recorded before the concrete dam was built in 1914 typically capitalized on the natural character of the River that survived just below the crib dam, even while acknowledging the presence of industry by the inclusion of the dam's control gates. Water poured uniformly over the dam in these postcards, but once it hit the rocks below, the River's rocky, cascading bottom sent it on a wild downriver ride.

Log Jam at Palmer Falls (1908)

The narrowing of the Hudson River at the Falls and the design of the crib dam sometimes combined to force Spring-time log drives to become hopelessly jammed on the River's jagged cascades. While river drivers would be dispatched quickly to free the logs, the jam provided an opportunity for local photographers to record the scene and convert the image into a postcard before the logs were cleared.

Palmer Falls After Crib Dam Destroyed by the 1913 Flood

North Main Street During 1913 Flood

One local photographer, who moved quickly to the Falls during the 1913 flood that wiped the crib dam away, was able to record an image of what the Hudson might have looked like a century earlier during the high water months of the year. This rare photograph is perhaps the last image to record the wild nature of the Hudson River at Palmer Falls, before the concrete replacement dam was built in 1914.

Imaging Palmer Falls in postcards after the concrete dam was completed in 1914 became more problematic. The new dam was placed slightly downriver from the site of the crib dam, and its construction raised the level of the River to eighty-seven feet and caused it to pool behind the dam, thus submerging the middle section of the Falls' rocky cascades. Most of the wild character of the River at Palmer Falls that had survived the crib dam was now gone, although a small section of the rocky cascades survived below the tail of the new dam. One remarkable postcard of the entire Mill from around 1920 taken at low water provides a clearview of how the concrete dam was built in relation to the natural falls.

Compensation for the loss of the upper cascades, however, came in the form of a more precipitous, if not a more uniform drop of the River over the dam. While a few postcards celebrated the pure industrial complexity of the new dam and its water control systems, most tended to focus on the great expanse of the new dam. However, even in the postcards that accentuated the industrial character of the dam rather than the volume of water going over it, there was a significant difference in representation.

Concrete Dam and Controls (View#1)	Concrete Dam and Controls (View#2)

The black and white version, most likely taken by one of several community postcard makers, captures the shear industrial complexity of the dam and the Mill. The second version of nearly the same scene, by framing the site with lush fauna and saturating the entire landscape with color, exemplifies the aesthetic of the industrial picturesque. The images renders the Hudson River Mill as if it were an adjunct of the natural landscape.

Wide View of 1914 Concrete Dam (n.d.)

Photographers and postcard companies no doubt believed that the higher concrete dam created a sight that was more visually compelling than the natural Palmer Falls. Photographs of the site taken after 1914 were typically titled "Palmer Falls" even though the man-made dam overwhelmed what remained of the Hudson's natural cascades. In only in a few image titles is the distinction between nature and culture - "falls" and "dam"- ever noted.

The composition of some postcards suggests that at least a few photographers may not have found the industrial encroachment of the Hudson River Mill at Palmer Falls aesthetically pleasing.

Concrete Dam at Palmer Falls#1	Concrete Dam at Palmer Falls#2

While they could not resist the visual spectacle created by the Hudson during the annual spring run-off as it poured thousands of gallons of water over the dam each second, pounding the rocky river bottom and sending clouds of mist into the air, the resulting images tend to rely on a close-focus or other techniques to elide or obscure the industrial character of the site.

Hudson River Mill (ca. 1930)

Hudson River Mill (1965)

The expansion of the Hudson River Mill in the first decades of the 20th century presented challenges to the production of postcards that attempted to show the entire physical plant. Imaging the entire Mill and the Falls as the physical plant expanded downriver was most easily accomplished by recording a photograph from the elevated bank on the opposite side of the River. But as the decades wore on, and vegetation on the steep opposite slope grew unchecked, the view of the expanding Mill became increasingly obscured by trees.

The emergence of aerial photography in the 1920's helped to solve this problem. Aerial views became the preferred viewpoint from which to image the Hudson River Mill, for the creation of both postcards and for photographs commissioned by International Paper for corporate use.  By then the "industrial picturesque" had become the predominant aesthetic mode through which the Mill and Palmer Falls were viewed. River, Falls and Mill had become visually joined.