The Postcard
A carte postale published by C.M. of Le Havre.
The card was posted in Sainte-Adresse on Saturday the 19th. January 1935 to:
Mr. & Mrs. Prado,
58 Green Lane North,
Wavertree,
Liverpool,
G.B.
The message on the back of the card was as follows:
"19.1.35
In case you have not heard
from Ed., he arrived OK in
Frankfurt a.m.
He says it's bitterly cold.
Probably I shall leave this
dear place on the 28th. or
29th. - off to Paris for 2 or 3
days, then off to Germany.
Today is cold but oh! so
sunny, so blue, so calm.
You still have time to write
here.
Ed. says it's a fine town -
very clean & splendid
organisation to be greatly
admired.
Love from your old Maman".
Sainte-Adresse
Sainte-Adresse is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in Normandy, France. It is a coastal suburb situated some 2 miles (3.2 km) northwest of Le Havre city centre. The English Channel forms the western border of the commune.
The town's population was 8,068 in 2006.
Henri de Gaulle and his wife Jeanne, parents of Charles de Gaulle, are buried in the town.
History of Sainte-Adresse
Starting in 1905, Georges Dufayel, a Parisian businessman, created a residential seaside resort known as Nice Havrais (the "Nice of Le Havre"), at Sainte Adresse. The local architect Ernest Daniel directed operations.
The Avenue de Regatta on the waterfront is designed in the image of the promenade des Anglais in Nice.
During the Great War, Sainte-Adresse was the administrative capital of Belgium. The Belgian government in exile was installed from October 1914 to November 1918 in the Dufayel building, named after the businessman who had built it in 1911. It had at its disposal a post office using Belgian postage stamps.
During World War II, the Germans built several fortifications here for the Atlantic Wall, to defend the port of Le Havre.
Places of Interest
Places of interest include:
-- Sarah Bernhardt's villa.
-- The church of St. Denis, dating from the nineteenth century.
-- The de la Hève lighthouse.
-- A fifteenth-century manor house.
-- The chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Flots, built in 1857.
-- The Pain de sucre, a mausoleum in memory of General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouëttes, erected by his widow Stephanie Rollier, a cousin of Napoleon.
Paintings of Sainte-Adresse
Paintings include:
-- Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Maison de Pêcheurs à Sainte-Adresse, entre 1830 et 1840, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
-- Claude Monet, La Pointe de la Hève, Sainte-Adresse, 1864, National Gallery, London.
-- Claude Monet, La Pointe de la Hève à Marée Basse, 1865, 90 x 151 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
-- Claude Monet, Jardin à Sainte-Adresse, 1867, 98 cm x 130 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
-- Claude Monet, La Plage de Sainte-Adresse, 1867, Art Institute of Chicago.
-- Claude Monet, La Côte de Sainte-Adresse.
-- Claude Monet, La Mer à Sainte-Adresse.
-- Claude Monet, Promenade sur les Falaises de Sainte-Adresse.
-- Claude Monet, Régates à Sainte-Adresse, 1867, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
-- Claude Monet, Les Cabanes à Sainte-Adresse, 1868.
-- Claude Monet, Rue à Sainte-Adresse.
-- Claude Monet, La Falaise de Sainte-Adresse.
-- Claude Monet, Sainte-Adresse, Bateau à Voile Échoué.
-- Claude Monet, Sainte-Adresse, Bateaux de Pêche sur le Rivage.
-- Alfred Stevens, La Villa des Falaises à Sainte-Adresse, 1884.
-- Raoul Dufy, La Plage de Sainte Adresse, 1902.
Tighty-Whiteys
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 19th. January 1935, briefs were first sold by Coopers, Inc., in Chicago, Illinois, at Marshall Field's department store.
They dubbed the new undergarment the "Jockey" because it offered a similar degree of support as the jockstrap.
The designer of the new style was reportedly inspired by a postcard he had received from a friend visiting the French Riviera depicting a man in a very short, form-fitting bathing suit.
30,000 pairs were sold within three months of their introduction.
In North America, "jockey shorts" or "jockeys" became an often-used generic term for men's briefs. More recently, "tighty-whiteys" has become a commonly used slang term for briefs.
In the UK, briefs were first sold in 1938. Soon, shops were selling 3,000 pairs of briefs per week. They were so popular that in 1948, every member of the British Olympic team was given a free pair.
In the UK, the term "jockeys" has never caught on, and briefs are often referred to as "Y-fronts" or simply "pants".
