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Picturing the Revolution
The Real-Photo Postcards of Walter H. Horne
by Charles Bennett
he predawn raid of General Francisco “Pancho”
Villa and 484 men on the village of Columbus, New
Mexico, on March 9, 1916, left eighteen Americans
dead, including ten soldiers of the 13th Cavalry and nine townspeople. The raiders engaged in general looting of the town, and
burned the bank, hotel, and some other buildings during the
two-hour mêlée. Once deployed, the US Cavalry unit garrisoned
there pursued, killing with rifle and machine-gun fire an estimated sixty-two raiders and wounding another twenty-five.
A stunned President Woodrow Wilson ordered an immediate punitive expedition by the cavalry into Mexico, selecting
T
Brigadier General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing to lead. Pershing
and his command of 20,000 soldiers crossed into Mexico six
days after the raid, penetrating 400 miles and engaging in a
number of actions with the Villistas and troops of Venustiano
Carranza, remaining south of the border for the next ten-anda-half months.
To protect the border against further incursions Wilson
ordered the National Guard of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona
into federal service. Following the passage of the National
Defense Act of 1916, National Guard units from the other states
(except for Nevada, which had none) were called up for duty on
All images from postcards by W. H. Horne Co. are courtesy of the
Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA).
Background Image: “U.S. Troops at Deming, N.M.,” ca. 1916. Neg. No. 161187.
Opposite Top: “N.M.N.G. arrives at Columbus, N.M.,” ca. 1916. Neg. No. 005793.
Opposite Top Right: “Smoking Ruins of Columbus, N.M., Raided by Pancho Villa,”
March 1916. Neg. No. 005805.
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“Gen. Villa & Mrs. Villa,” January 1, 1914.
Neg. No. 117656.
At the time of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, postcards were
a relatively new phenomenon. The Austro-Hungarian Empire
had issued the first postcard in 1869. By 1873 the US Post
Office Department began issuing these cards to postmasters to
streamline communications between businesses. These were
not “picture postcards”; rather, they were blank, postage-prepaid
cards similar to those still available today from the US Postal
Service, with the postage inscribed directly on the card and
the reverse side left blank for a message. These early postcards
were privately printed, rectangular, and measured about 3½
by 5½ inches—stiff pieces of paper conducive to being sent
through the mail.
“Picture postcards,” with one side devoted to an image, are
a type of postcard, while “real-photo postcards” are a type of
picture postcard. Real-photo postcards such as those produced
by Walter Horne are true photographs, produced chemically
from a negative onto photographic paper with a postcard back.
The real-photo postcard was a successful union of photography
and postcard. Today, real-photo postcards remain an underappreciated component of war photojournalism in this period,
and the role of the postcard in the ideological development of
the United States has only begun to be examined.
the Mexican border. On July 1, 1916, a scant twelve days after
President Wilson’s call to arms, 122 troop trains were headed
to four major assembly areas in the border states. By the end of
August 111,000 officers and enlisted men were on the border.
One of the first on the scene after the Columbus raid was
El Paso, Texas, “real photo” postcard photographer
Walter H. Horne, who operated a business then
known as the Mexican War Photo Postcard Company.
Horne is credited with capturing the earliest images of
Columbus following the raid: ruins of burned buildings, some still smoldering; the US troops stationed
there; dead Villista raiders and their mass cremation;
and wounded horses.
For the thousands of men from across America now
encamped on the Mexican border, postcards were the
most convenient and memorable way to communicate
with family and friends. Photo picture postcards were
all the more practical in that they married two graphic
modes, handwriting and photography. They were the
“International Bridge Between El Paso & Juarez,” ca. 1916. Neg. No. 101521.
email of their day.
Note the clear signature and Horne’s typical catalog number.
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The golden age of picture postcards coincided with the Mexican
Revolution and American war-preparedness efforts along the
border. During this era a number of entrepreneurial photographers, Walter Horne among them, captured the exploits of
Pancho Villa, including his raid on Columbus; Pershing’s punitive expedition; the US naval invasion of Veracruz; and other
events. Many of the battle sites and other aspects of the conflict
were accessible from the border, and the postcard photographers
had a ready market in the thousands of National Guardsmen
encamped there.
Horne is considered one of the best-known real-photo-postcard photographers and postcard wholesalers of the Mexican
Revolution because of his subject matter and the sheer volume of
his work. He photographed innumerable scenes of the Mexican
Revolution, many of them violent in nature. His postcards were
bought by the soldiers and general public as proof of their proximity to the action and mailed throughout the world.
Walter H. Horne (1883–1921) arrived in El Paso in 1910,
remaining there until his death eleven years later. He had come
from Hallowell, Maine, where his ancestors had settled, having
come by way of Colorado and California. There in Hallowell,
generations of Hornes, including Walter’s father, were tanners.
Horne’s decision to move to El Paso, a center of political opposition in Mexico since 1906, was fortuitous. Francisco I. Madero,
the revolutionary challenger to the long-time authoritarian
Mexican president, Porfirio Díaz, understood the geographical
and political significance of the El Paso–Cuidad Juárez border,
knowing that whoever controlled Cd. Juárez controlled northern
Mexico. El Paso’s direct railroad line to Mexico City would be
used to transport rebel troops and horses as well as equipment
and munitions purchased in El Paso.
It appears that Horne came to the Southwest, like thousands
of others, in search of an arid climate to recover from tuberculosis. None of his letters housed in the collection bearing his
“Post Office and Grocery Store at Columbus, N.M., looted by Villa’s Bandits,” ca. 1916.
Neg. No. 151701. Note the clear signature: “W. H. Horne.”
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name in the Special Collections department of the El Paso Public
Library specifically mention the malady by name, but one says
that “his health [had] . . . broken down while he was employed
in New York” and refers to his search for a more agreeable
climate. Although he apparently had little previous interest in
photography, he saw the financial potential of the real-photo
postcard. He began covering the US–Mexico border conflict and
other elements of daily life in the El Paso–Cd. Juárez area.
Spring 1911 found Francisco Madero’s revolutionary army
camped on the outskirts of Cd. Juárez, threatening the Mexican
Army garrison. In early May Madero attacked and took Cd.
Juárez from its defenders as El Pasoans watched from the roofs
of their homes. One postcard, attributed to Horne, has the
Advertisement for the R.O.C. Post Card Printer, the same model
used by Horne. Courtesy Todd Gustavson, Technical Department
curator at the Geo. Eastman House, Rochester NY. 62 E l P a l a c i o
hand-lettered caption “On the Roof Garden of Hotel Paso del
(Norte). The only Hotel in the World offering its Guests a Safe,
Comfortable Place to View a Mexican Revolution.” Horne’s
postcards from this period also documented camp life at El
Paso’s Fort Bliss, military parades, bullfights, and “Mexican
scenes.” By the end of July 1911 he wrote of selling 700 cards
depicting the “revolution.”
For the next several years Horne seems to have contented
himself with selling postcards of local events and scenes, as
well as engaging in other business interests. In 1913, as further
evidence of this dedication to documenting and marketing
images of border life and events, he wrote of having purchased
“a Graflex $135 outfit. The best camera on the market. The lens
alone cost $50.50.” The Graflex camera, manufactured by Kodak
between 1907 and 1926, was particularly popular because it
used sheet film, exposed a sheet at a time so individual photos
could be processed immediately. When Horne first started out
in the business he used a Kodak Model 3A camera, which also
produced postcard-size negatives but used roll film.
Horne also sold his photographs to newspapers. In January
1914 he wrote his sister that he was advertising his photographs
and postcards in newspapers along the border, with limited
success. Hoping for wholesale orders, he stated that he had “put
out over 30,000 postcards. Sent some to Atlantic City, N.J., Los
Angeles, Calif. etc. etc. (1 & 2000 lots).” By May he wrote his
parents that he was “16,000 cards behind with orders right now.
Shipped 7,800 cards to N.Y. City today.”
Horne’s business expanded with the Columbus raid. A letter
to his mother, dated March 21, 1916, states, “We were the first
ones into Columbus with cameras, and the first ones out with
negatives, consequently we beat them all to the newspapers; got
our stuff into Chicago, New York, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco
over twelve hours ahead of the others . . . these papers are dead
anxious for photos. . . . We are getting out postcards as fast as
possible; have two men and two girls working.” In a postscript
he added, “We made 2700 photos today.” In August he wrote:
“Am producing 5,000 postcards a day. Supply post exchanges
and stores all along the border. . . . Shall go to Deming N.Mex.
tomorrow to shoot up the Delaware troops. Big camp there.”
Horne’s real-photo postcards were printed on “gaslight,” “developing-out” manufactured postcard paper. “Gaslight” referred to
photographic paper with emulsion sensitive enough to light that
it worked under gaslight illumination. “Developing-out” meant
that the exposed paper had to be placed in a developing solution
to bring out the picture, whereas “printing-out” paper did not
Top right: On the back of one postcard by Horne depicting a
particularly graphic scene (not shown) is this note: “This man was
killed in Villa’s raid, Columbus N.M. . . . I will be discharged about
Tuesday Aug. 1st.” Neg. No. 101525.
Below: “Sandstorm in Camp,” ca. 1916. Neg. No. 101523.
require developing solution. After being exposed, the photographs
were simply fixed with hypo solution and washed.
The invention of a postcard printer in 1910 by R.O.C., the
Rochester Optical Company, a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak,
facilitated the postcard boom. It cost $7.50, with a 40-percent
discount to professionals. A beautiful, compact contraption made
of “handsomely finished” cherry wood, polished and lacquered,
and with brass fittings, it was made for rapid developing-out of
postcards. The blank card stock, purchased from Kodak, was
placed in the device against the negative; the frame was then
closed by means of a small lever. Once the exposure was made, the
lever was pulled back, opening the frame and dropping the card.
Horne’s many views on his postcards were captioned in white,
numbered, and often dated. Unfortunately, his cataloguing key
or ledger, which he undoubtedly used as a method of organizing prints and negatives into a filing system and for filling
customer’s orders, has not been found. Many of his cards bear
numbers in high triple digits, indicative of the number of images
he had made. The categories of his postcards in the collection at
the El Paso Public Library include Army Camps, Bridges, Bull
Fights, Columbus NM, Dead, Executions, Fort Bliss, National
Guard, Punitive Expedition, and sixteen others. Horne, or
most likely one of his workers, wrote the caption for an image
in freehand directly on each negative. Typically this was done
with Indian red ink applied with a finely pointed steel pen. The
lettering had to be done backwards, from right to left, so that it
would appear correctly on the print. The final result was a white
caption appearing across the bottom of the card, and on every
real-photo postcard made from the negative.
Horne’s postcard business flourished for the next few years.
In September 1917 he wrote that he had Deming, New Mexico,
“covered with cards.” His letters of this period, however, make
fewer references to his postcard business than to a number of
shooting galleries that he and his partner operated in various
locations. Surely Horne’s postcard business felt the impact of
the movement of troops away from the border: in February 1917
Pershing and his force of regular Army troops returned from
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“N.M.N.G. arrives at Columbus, N.M.,” ca. 1916. Neg. No. 005793.
their search for Pancho Villa. A week later the National Guard
troops were ordered back to their home states, but before they
could return, President Wilson ordered the retention of most of
them in the face of war in Europe.
Horne wrote his brother in December 1917 that he was
thinking of returning to Maine to open shooting galleries there,
but also noted that business was still good. In his next letter,
written in September 1918, he wrote that a partner was running
the business in Deming while he ran a photography gallery
and shooting galleries in El Paso. Horne’s postcard business
undoubtedly got additional stimulus after June 14–17, 1919,
when Villa’s forces attacked Carranza troops in Cd. Juárez.
American troops, cavalry and infantry, once again moved
across the border, engaging the main Villista force with rifle,
machine-gun, and artillery fire in what would be Villa’s army’s
swan song. About this time Horne’s health apparently started
to take a turn for the worse.
The collection of Horne’s personal correspondence ends here,
with only a few more documents giving clues to the rest of his
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story. Horne’s health failed completely. His brother Edward
arrived in El Paso in September 1921 to be with him during his
final days. Horne’s will is in the collection, as well as a certificate of marriage to Adelina Zuvia, dated July 21, 1921. A son,
Edward Elmer Horne, also is mentioned.
Horne died October 13, 1921, and is buried in El Paso’s
Evergreen Cemetery. His legacy of real-photo postcards documents life and events on the US–Mexico border between 1910
and 1921 more comprehensively than the work of any other
photographer. Horne’s postcards can be viewed as important
sources of visual historical documentation. Their images, and
possibly even the messages written by their senders, reveal
details of the conflict, including matériel and weaponry, as well
as the attitudes of American soldiers toward their adversaries
and the Mexican people. n
Charles Bennett was chief curator and assistant director at the Palace of the Governors from 1983–2003. To see another postcard by W.H. Horne and read Bennett’s list
of sources, visit elpalacio.org.
Bonus Contente
“The National Army at Deming, N.M.,” ca. 1916. Neg. No. 108138.
SOURCES
Todd Gustavson, curator, Technology Collection, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
Special Collections, El Paso Public Library, El Paso, Texas.
Margolis & Moss Fine Books, Prints, Photographs and Ephemera, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Robert Bogdan and Todd Weseloh, Real Photo Postcard Guide, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2006.
Mary A. Sarber, “W. H. Horne and the Mexican War Photo Postcard Company,” Password 31, 1986.
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