Politically incorrect can be very collectible. It may not be nice…it may not be pretty…it may sting and hurt, but it is a part of our history. It happened, it was produced, and it is collectible for those reasons. The stereotypes of yesterday may differ from those of today and in twenty-five years time we will look back (hopefully) on our society of today and giggle embarrassingly at the stereotypes that are dominant today.
   At one time or another all groups have been discriminated against. We see much of what would never be acceptable to us today shown on the postcards and ephemera of yesterday. Some are acceptable even today, but shouldn’t be. There are those produced to belittle or humiliate a group -- and there are those that are a group making fun of themselves. And there are those that fall in between.
   Discrimination is like the hydra, it has many heads. Sometimes the stereotype has a hint of truth in it and is even picked up and adopted by the group that is being made fun of. Scots humor is one of those which was produced to be sold to Scots, tourists, and people of Scottish ancestry. Kilt jokes are as old as some of the men depicted wearing them, and the postcard industry in Scotland has made them an icon. Unfortunately, even in Scotland, not too many men wear kilts or even own one.
   Let us consider just some of the stereotypes that are always cropping up in postcards and ephemera. All Englishmen wear monocles, keep a stiff upper lip, speak like this: "Oh, I say, old chap, chin up and all that rot, must not let the servants (sniff sniff) see you in a dither." They also all lisp or stutter, think God was an Englishman, and that the sun never sets on them.
   The Scots all have bony knees, hairy legs, eat a lot of oatmeal and haggis, drink too much whiskey, and are incredibly cheap. The Irish are thick, drink a lot, fight a lot, and are simian in looks. All Armenians have big noses, are dark skinned, greasy, reek of garlic, sell oriental rugs, and are called starving Armenians Spinsters are all skinny, ugly, persnickety, frustrated, and fussy. German men have beer bellies, are drunkards, smell of sauerkraut and stale turnips, have large red noses. The Chinese are hard working menials, with no brains and wear pigtails. Blacks and Africans have thick lips, eat people and watermelons, and are eaten by alligators. All American Indians are "Noble Savages" or go around scalping people.
   All Fat people are jolly and happy and you can say just about anything you want to them -- and insult them all you will -- but they will just laugh it off.
   All French are great lovers, talk through their noses, and drink too much wine and smell of strong cheese.
   All, like the word cult, is a very dangerous word. I could go on and on with every ethnic group that has come to this country, every religious group, and then go on to physical traits and afflictions. The anti Jewish material that Henry Ford printed in Dearborn, Michigan is a perfect example. It will be a pleasant surprise for all my Jewish friends to know that they are all wealthy and powerful.
   If these comments sound hateful and nasty, or just plain dumb or ignorant it is because often they are, and often people don’t think about what something means. The Polish jokes, the use of expressions like "Jewing them down", "She is a Witch." "They are Gypsies," have all been around for a while now, but do not need to be perpetuated. I’m sure blonde women are bored to tears with the dumb blond jokes and now we are starting to hear the backlash in dumb blond men jokes.
   This is but the tip of the iceberg, and I am certainly not condoning any of this, however we cannot turn our backs on the wealth of printed matter over the past 150 years and hide it. It is history, and by studying the mistakes of the past we might not err in the future. Also, the graphics of some of this material is incredible and worth collecting for the art itself. It should be displayed and studied and yes, collected.
   There are many who feel if something is in print, it is sacrosanct. If it isn’t on the internet it doesn’t exist or it never happened. Unfortunately, people often accept things blindly. "I read it in the newspaper", "I saw it on TV", "It was in a book", "If you want to know something, go online."
   Well I have read that the first Nazis were the American Indians because they used a Swastika. The fact that the American Indians used a good luck symbol that was later usurped, reversed, and perverted by Hitler and his boys has nothing to do with the American Indians. I have read that Stonehenge is 300 years old. The fact is, someone left out a zero and though a zero is nothing in itself, when added to 300 it becomes 3000 (How’s that for fuzzy math?).
   I heard on the radio that a program was being sponsored by the "Ottoman Empire". I emailed the station manager and asked had I missed something or was he referring to the fact that parts of Turkey belonged to other countries and Cyprus was being illegally occupied? Pan Turkic dreams may be very much alive, but the Ottoman Empire is thankfully, no more. Sadly New Hampshire Public Radio did not answer us back and I will probably never know where the Ottoman Empire of today is. The old adage of don’t believe all that you hear, or see in print should doubly go for the internet. There is some great material online, but there is also stuff written by people who are immune to facts and manipulate things as they would like them to be, rather than what they are.
   We are not going to concentrate on the hate-monger mentality bur take a quick look at how people have been depicted on cards over the years. The fat lady in a bathing suit or partially in her bathing suit, her tiny henpecked husband, the bossy woman who is wearing the pants in her family because she doesn’t kowtow to his every whim, are just a few of the many.
  The Suffragette was depicted as big boned, hard, unwomanly and more like a Longshoreman than someone’s mother, daughter, or wife -- or just a woman who just didn’t want to get married. Heavens knows that a poor woman who had to work for a living was not treated well. Widows were either "Merry", well off, or looking for another husband -- or at the very least, a sugar daddy. What of the poor woman with children whose husband was dead, sickly, or worse still, a drunkard? She certainly couldn’t get all dolled up and go looking for someone to take her out for outrageously expensive entertainment.
   One can make a collection of any of these groups and do a dissertation on them. I think the boarding house lady, or the woman who in order to make ends meet had to take in lodgers, is a wonderful example. Boarding house ladies were usually Irish or German and tough on their not so bright, and overly demanding borders. In 1909, Bamforth & Co. (series 1596) did one of the best ones I have ever seen in this category. "You want’s a clean towel, does yer? Well, I likes that; You ain’t particular you ain’t. Some twenty odd cyclists (were the cyclists odd, or just in numbers?) used that towel afore you came 'ere and none of them complained about it. And you ain’t 'alf as dirty as they was."
   Slap stick? Vaudeville? Old time radio humor? Reading the original scripts of Doc Rockwell I am sure that just about everyone today, especially women, would be at his door trying to kill him for his remarks. And yet, Molly Goldberg and Minerva Pius (Mrs. Neussbaum from Allen’s Alley) are two very beloved characters of Jewish humor.
   Elevating and accentuating a trait or two can be more endearing than hateful, and certainly the content of what they are saying and doing has quite a bit to do with it, unlike today’s sitcoms which are often are more demeaning than Amos and Andy ever thought of being.
   In a society where we are trying to drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator, rather than enlighten everyone and take them one step beyond into civilization and culture, it is interesting to contemplate these matters. The reader should be warned that you can purchase some politically incorrect materials for a pittance like the British seaside humor, while other items are very high such as Black Americana and Jewish. Don’t be afraid of these collectibles. Buy them, sell them, learn from them, and accept them for what they were. Studying the past gives us a better vision of the present and the future.