Sedgwick woman documented local life through postcards

Traveling the Peninsula in her Model A in the early 1900s, Evie Barbour ran a prolific postcard business

Evie Barbour captured the golden age of postcards on the Blue Hill Peninsula by documenting local life. All photos courtesy of the Penobscot Marine Museum.

May 27, 2026

By John Boit

SEDGWICK–While everyone has a camera in their pocket these days, it was a Sedwick woman in the early 1900s who documented much of life on and around the Blue Hill Peninsula with a booming postcard business.

Evie Kimball Barbour, born in 1877 in Sargentville, an area of Sedgwick, turned pictures into postcards for her business. The daughter of Francis and Adelaide Billings, she lived much of her adult life in Bangor, where she met and later married Maurice Kimball of Lewiston in 1898, according to the Penobscot Marine Museum, which houses her collection.

Kimball, a professional photographer, taught his new wife how to use a box camera.

Evie with her children, Ruth and Elwood.

“Being of an artistic temperament, Evie took to this with quiet devotion. She began to accompany her husband, presumably packing her own gear along, when he went afield searching out distinctive views for his real-photo postcard business,” according to a history of Evie’s life compiled by the museum.

Following Maurice’s death from tuberculosis in 1907, Evie married Captain George Barbour. She continued the business of producing and selling real photo postcards.

It was the golden age of postcards: An estimated 200 to 300 billion postcards were produced and mailed worldwide from the 1890s to the 1920s, according to the museum. 

“In her Model A, she made rounds throughout the Blue Hill peninsula and to Ellsworth, stopping at post offices, libraries, markets—anyplace willing to sell her cards. This afforded her a comfortable living. In later years, she still distributed the photographs herself but began employing a driver,” according to the museum’s archives.

Evie survived Capt. Barbour, and later lived with her sister, Mary Etta, when they were both widowed. They remained together for the rest of their lives, and Evie continued to photograph into old age. She died in 1960 at the age of 83.

A selection of her postcards are below. The Sargentville Library has a photo of her house, still standing, along with additional postcards, on its website.