Edward H. Mitchell

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Edward H. Mitchell (April 27, 1867 – October 24, 1932) was an American businessman and a major postcard publisher in San Francisco. He ran one of the West Coast’s most productive postcard businesses, based in San Francisco from the late 1890s to the early 1920s.

Mitchell was born in San Francisco, the son of a Methodist minister. He married Idelle Gertrude Lanehan in 1891, and they had five children.

In 1895 he started the Edward H. Mitchell Company. From 1898 to 1915 the company produced about 4,000 different postcard scenes, including 32 cards about 14 California missions. Many postcards were printed on yellow paper. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged his building at 225 Post Street, he moved operations to a plant on Army Street and continued publishing thousands of divided-back cards featuring views of San Francisco, the Philippines, Hawaii, comics, and exaggerated images of California fruits and vegetables. He also bought other publishers’ lines, including a California scenes set and a Yellowstone set from Albert Kayser in 1898. The company printed postcards for photographers and publishers such as Charles Roscoe Savage and Michael Rieder. In 1898 he published San Francisco View Book, a collection of 32 city photographs, and in 1899 California View Calendar with six state views, priced at 75 cents.

In 1911 he helped form Exposition Publishing Co. with Oscar Newman to publish souvenirs for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. In 1921 he was listed as president of the Dominion Oil Company. He retired from the postcard business in 1923, selling about 3.5 million postcards. He remained active in business, including serving as vice-president and treasurer of the Pacific Novelty Company from 1928 to 1930, and he worked in real estate and oil leasing, including leading the Edward H. Mitchell Oil Company. He was also a member of the Commonwealth Club.

Edward H. Mitchell died of a heart attack on October 24, 1932, in Palo Alto, California, at age 65. He was buried at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, California.