The History of Christmas Cards
The observance of mailing Christmas cards came into existence in 1843 with Sir Henry Cole of England.
As legend has it, Sir Henry Cole had too many co-workers to hand write Christmas notes to, so, he enlisted artist John Calcott Horsley to design a card onto which he had printed “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You”. He had one thousand cards imprinted.Of those, twelve exist today.Before long, people all over the world startedmailing Christmas cards.
The most popular Christmas cards in the late 19th and early 20th century were made by the Victorian children’s author and artist Kate Greenaway. Her cards often utilized multi-media, with different fabrics, fringe and papers. Some were even elaborate pop-ups featuring skaters and tiny mangers.
Christmas cards were not wide-spread in the US until 1875, when Louis Prang, a German immigrant, opened up a shop and began producing them. BeforeUntil that year, Christmas cards were brought into the country from abroad.Unfortunately, Prang was forced out of business in the 1890’s when foreign publishing houses produced lower priced cards. Still, Prang is known as the forefather of the American Christmas card.
Technical advances in card publishing during WWI was spurred by competition among card publishers.
Color lithography, first was used during the Great Depression, rejuvenated the card industry.
A major change in greeting cards in the 1950’s was the introduction of staple cards. These cards, for the first time, used humor as an element.
The 1990’s saw the introduction of the e-card, an electronic version of a greeting card sent via e-mail.
Today, there are many types of Christmas card available, including traditional and religious Christmas cards to funny Christmas cards. In fact, the industry has evolved so much that there is a card for virtually any event, or “non-event.” Still, Christmas remains the highest ranking of the card-selling holidays.
As a staple of the holidays, Christmas cards are sent to family, friends and business colleagues to express holiday wishes. With people’s busy lives, it is often the only time they update family and friends on events that happened in their lives during the year. They are always evolving; from e-cards to written letters chronicling the year, to picture postcards, the warm sentiment is always there: Merry Christmas!
Oct 16, 2009 | Sentimental Thoughts
