A Happy New Year To You From 1914!
As the the world awoke to a new year on January 1, 1914, it would be another month before a relatively unknown vaudeville actor by the name of Charlie Chaplin would make his film debut. Similarly in just one month, construction on a monument that would become the centerpiece of Washington D. C. in the 20th century would begin. That monument would become known as the Lincoln Memorial.
However, in a pre Charlie Chaplin world on the first day of 1914, in the small village of Still River, CT a postcard had been penned. On what I picture being a frigidly cold January day, that postcard is brought to the local mail carrier. It is stamped and readied for delivery to New Preston, CT some 30 miles away. There’s still some snow on the ground from a storm a few days ago, but that wouldn’t slow the mail too much.
In New York City, Andrew Carnegie, world renowned philanthropist, industrialist, and author penned a somewhat bleak view for the current state of mankind when he spent the majority of the letter denouncing murder and war. At the close of his New Year Greeting he wrote these words:
We send this New Year Greeting, January 1, 1914, strong in the faith that International Peace is soon to prevail, thru several of the great powers agreeing to settle their disputes by arbitration under International Law, the pen thus proving mightier than the sword. Three of these did sign such a treaty recently — Britain, France, and the United States, Germany looking on approvingly. Thru mismanagement it failed of approval by the Senate. We have only to try again.
Carnegie’s vision of international peace prevailing over the simmering international disputes of the day would be smashed by a war the likes mankind had never seen before — and in only five short months. On June 28, 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria would be assassinated by a young man in Sarajevo, sending Europe, and in time the world, spiraling into The Great War.
However, on the first day of 1914 in the cold winter of Connecticut, a postcard was sent by C. L. Stevens. It was a simple New Year greeting. Nothing like anything Andrew Carnegie would pen.
A happy New Year to you from C. L. Stevens.
Simple. To the point. Thoughtful. Thoughtful enough to have been sent in the first place anyway, since most personal mail takes some personal care and time for the sender.
It was addressed to Mrs. Sarah Cable, New Preston Conn. A formal address was unnecessary. The postmaster would know who Mrs. Cable was and how he could find her. These were simpler times. Before the required necessity of an address and certainly before world wars.
The world may have been simmering on the brink of all out war, but in Connecticut at the beginning of the new year it was still peaceful, calm, and full of greetings and anticipation for the year to come.
Happy New Year!
