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.
Fruit Sellers
A gorgeously coloured collotype with the anonymous note on the front: "They are nearly as nice as ruby lips. best."
Elphinstone Bombay
Among the earliest postcards of Bombay from a photograph. One can see the title and photographer inscribed at the bottom of the original glass negative, and the hand-tinting is done in large blocks.
A Knife Grinder
Knife grinders are a vanishing craft. Doing this at home before electric knife sharpeners was difficult. Knife grinders would take their sharpening wheels from door to door and take care of the problem.
An earlier postcard view, before divided backs
