I'd be surprised if it weren't a period piece with the annotation on the reverse.
Tangential to this thread, I stumbled across the Boston Public Library Flicker page the other day and had a ball looking at their photos, many of which were new to these eyes, at least. In particular, the McGreevey collection is well worth a look (although the bulk of it predates the 1930s era).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_...7624088175578/
