Greeting cards

The ritual of sending greeting cards dates back to the early Chinese, who exchanged goodwill messages to celebrate each New Year, and to the ancient Egyptians, who communicated their good wishes on papyrus scrolls.

However, greeting cards have only been a part of the tradition of many cultures for about two centuries or a little longer, to be precise. The earliest identified greeting card is a Valentine’s card made in the 15th century, which can be found in a London museum. It was during the 19th century that greeting cards gained royal status. It was during the last part of this century that the cards became part of the mainstream culture, so that the majority of the population could afford them.

It was at this time that cheap printing arose and a new trade for printers and artists was born. Soon after, post offices were inundated with millions (literally) of letters during Christmas week alone. Keeping in line with this new trend were Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, all of which gained momentum as suitable card-giving occasions.

At the end of the 19th century, Valentine’s cards were made entirely by machine. The first of many salable Valentine’s greeting cards produced in the US was created in the 1840s.

John Calcott Horsley was the creator of the first Christmas card and Louis Prang has come to be known as the father of Christmas cards. He emigrated from Germany and started a small-scale lithographic unit near Boston in the 1850s, and is generally responsible for starting greeting card production in the United States.

His lithographic techniques, including color, had been so perfected that he had no competition from artists and craftsmen. During the 1870s, he created exclusive editions of Christmas greetings, which were an instant success in Britain.

In the mid-1870s, he presented the first complete series of Christmas greetings to the American public. Soon after, knockoffs began to gobble up the market, forcing Prang out of business. For almost two decades afterward, there was a startling decline in greeting card production in the United States. Since then, things have turned into what might be considered one big worldwide greeting card trade – something of a revolution has taken place.

Today there are paper cards of all sizes and for every occasion. There are even eCards and digital postcards.