Tall-Tale Postcards

I absolutely love these Tall-Tale Postcards created by photographer Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr. in the early 20th century. The feel of these early comped photographs is amazing, they're like weird rural versions of surrealist montages, but with a better sense of humour. From the Wisconsin Historical Society: Photographer Alfred Stanley Johnson, Jr. specialized in the tall-tale postcard, extolling Wisconsin's agricultural abundance through images of oversized produce and animals. Staging his friends and family to pantomime story lines, Johnson added enlarged fruits, vegetables and animals to fit the background and included titles that attributed bountiful crops to local communities. Johnson's tall-tale postcards affirmed the American myth of abundance — a myth often at odds with reality.
FROM WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, FOUND VIA THE EVER EXCELLENT RETRONAUT.