^{Images courtesy of the ONE Archives at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles}

Provincetown’s History Told Through Artifacts

by Steve Desroches 

Postcards are interesting snapshots in time, even if never written upon or sent. This postcard features the Steel Pier, a passenger ship that ran between Boston and Provincetown from 1934 to 1948. The ship was originally named Miami and was built to ferry passengers between the Florida city and Nassau, Bahamas. It then moved to the Florida Keys, providing passage back and forth from Key West to Havana, Cuba. She was taken out of commission for a few years until the Atlantic Steamship Company bought her, renamed her Steel Pier, and moved her to Atlantic City where, in 1932 and 1933, she took tourists on cruises along the New Jersey coast. Come 1934 the Cape Cod Steamship Company purchased the Steel Pier and did tourist cruises from Boston through the Cape Cod Canal, before providing regular service to the Cape tip until she was sold in 1948 and brought back down to Key West. 

The postcard is certainly of interest to those who love maritime history, but it’s the message on it that actually makes this artifact quite interesting and amusing. Postmarked in Provincetown on August 2, 1950, a woman named Louise wrote to a friend Sonia in Jersey City, whom she nicknamed “Angel Petunia Face.” She has a laugh over her rustic harborside accommodations. But she finishes her brief message by adding, “Its fun here—saw a ‘queer’ yesterday. Will tell ye all about it when I comes home.” While her language might be a bit off-color, she seemed impressed by the gay man she saw, and it is a document of how long Provincetown has attracted a large LGBTQ population, albeit an awkward reminder. The postcard itself is now part of the collection at the ONE Archives at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the world’s largest LGBTQ archive.