Tall-Tale Postcards: William H. Martin

I've always gotten a kick outta tall-tale postcards, but only recently found out that one of the pioneering masters was a Kansan by the name of William H. Martin(1865-1940) of Ottawa. There is quite a bit of information floating around on the web about Martin and other tall-tale artists and was able to find several samples of his work. Wow! Some of these really blow me away! I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I do...

The first master of tall-tall photography was William H. “Dad” Martin (1865-1940). At the age of 21, Martin moved to Ottawa, Kansas to learn photography from E.H. Corwin, whose studio Martin eventually purchased a mere eight years later. In 1908, he began crafting tall-tale post cards. His exaggerated images quickly became so popular that, within one a year, Martin’s company was allegedly turning out over 10,000 postcards per day. His impressive, dynamic compositions set the standard for the genre. These postcards were so popular, in fact, that evidence exists to suggest that they were often reproduced without permission by other distributors and peddled as their own. Martin’s interest in tall-tale photography seems to have been short-lived and mostly economically driven, however. In 1912, only four years after he started shooting tall-tale photos, Martin sold his post card company, having amassed a small fortune. Nevertheless, during this short stint Martin popularized a new cultural phenomenon in tall-tale post cards with a talent rarely equaled.

(excerpt from Wisconsin Historical Images)

I'm hoping to catch a Kraken like this one day!

For more information on Tall-Tale photography visit:
Kansas State Historical Society
Wisconsin Historical Images
American Museum of Photography