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September 23, 2004
The History of the Greeting Card
Having read on a site that the Valentine was the oldest known greeting card dating from the 1400's. According to riverdeep.net:
"The oldest known Valentine was a poem written in 1415 by Charles, Duke of Orleans, from his prison cell. It is on display at the British Museum."
That is hardly what I think of when I think Greeting Card. It wasn't until cheap printing came along that the greeting card as we know it was popularized. Before 1860 the greeting card was a piece of fine art.
The Greeting Card Association claims that the custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of well-wishes for the New Year.
The first commercial valentine greeting cards produced in the United States were created in the 1840s by Esther A. Howland (1828-1904), the mother of the American Valentine.
I read that Christmas cards were introduced and popularized by John Calcott Horsley (1817-1903), the artist of the first Christmas card and I see that Sir Henry Cole supplied the idea. Louis Prang, known as the father of the American Christmas Card but his first cards were sold in England.
For years I believed that the first commercially produced paper greeting card was a Christmas card, manufactured in Germany. But now I am seeing that the greeting card was popularized in England, first with Valentines Day and birthdays. Common tradition was to visit someone on their birthday to wish them well and the first birthday cards were apology cards when one couldn't make that visit. Louis Prang, a German immigrant who started a small lithographic business in Boston back in 1856, is often credited with the start of the greeting card industry in the United States.
I was surprised to discover in 1990 when I did my first research on the greeting card industry that 90% of all paper greeting cards are sold in the United States. The business has grown to 7 billion dollar plus worldwide annually and with the addition of e-greetings, the industry has started on a new road of history.
I wonder who sends all of the e-cards now?
Posted by photocartoonist at September 23, 2004 8:17 AM