Images, ideologies, and commodities: the French colonial postcard industry in Morocco

Abstract

At the height of French overseas activity, the invention of the picture postcard established a new type of commodity to be mass‐produced and distributed throughout the metropole and the colonies. In addition to the many pro‐colonial postcards circulated by the photography industry, postcard producers created a variety of images and accompanying captions that included ambiguous and anti‐colonial messages. Postcards demonstrating the violence inherent in the colonial project corresponded with the growth in anti‐colonial movements in the Arab world and Europe and contributed to the expanding feelings of uncertainty over the civilizing mission. Photographers such as Marcelin Flandrin acted as entrepreneurs more concerned with profits than the message they conveyed and produced images that both supported and questioned the French presence in Morocco. At the same time, officials in the French government attempted to censor those photographs and postcards that did not correspond with their official narrative of pacification and civilization.