Cotton Cart
Cotton was the product that helped put 19th century Mumbai on the road to becoming one of the world's major cities. The product was celebrated on postcards like this virtual painting.
Clifton & Co.
A Cobbler
Itinerant workers, cobblers can repair all sorts of things. Note the sophisticated lithographic printing of this image, which some early Clifton & Co.
Sampling and Weighing Cotton
Mumbai grew from the 1860s through the 1890s largely because of the international cotton trade, which went from exporting cotton to textile manufacturing mills dotting the city.
Group of famine stricken victims
There were numerous famines during the Raj, some like this one around the turn of the century, often simultaneous with plagues that came to Bombay by ship.
An Indian Bungalow
An Indian Bungalow or single story house.
The word bungalow derives from the Gujarati word baṅglo and means "Bengali", used to communicate "house in the Bengal style". Such houses were traditionally small, thatched and had a wide veranda.
Ancient Buddhist Temple Gwalior
Buddhism had largely departed India by this time, having flourished between the 3rd century BCE and 13th century CE, but its temples still stood and were frequently subjects of postcards.
A Mohamedan dancing Girl in Attitude
This so-called "chromo-collotype" card was created by running an image derived from a black and white photograph through multiple color runs, after each color had dried, creating rich and translucent images.
Hindu Woman.
Hindu woman wearing a white sari. Getting the shades and printing correct, especially the white, on this card would have required great skill, and apparently was done by the leading early German postcard printer Knackstedt and Roder.
Water Carrier
The Pakistani poet Daud Kamal (1935-1987) has a poem entitled Water-Carrier:
More patches on his clothes
than on the empty goatskin
slung across his shoulder.
Like the others
he waits his turn
at the Municipal tap.
Twice a day
he delivers water
free
Fruit Sellers
A very popular image, also published in a hand-colored version by D. Macopolo & Co.
Postmarked with no message at the Sea Post Office, likely Bombay May 6, 1905 and sent to Miss Adelaide McConway (sp?), 252 Bishop St., Montreal, Canada.
