Greeting Cards

about greeting cards lately. Here's why. Okay, I am trying desperately, as a natural born clutterbug who also married another clutterbug, to just get rid of the stuff in our house that is hoggin' up space, sure, which includes the backlog of greeting cards. And I'm trying to set some rules and consider which ones have value and why. And of course that led me to go, where did these come from? Why are we doing this? And then it came a

history project. There we go, because that way I can parse it and think about their origin point, and that will help me make the rules that will enable me to more clearly decide on the fly do I keep this one for sentimental posterity reasons or can I toss this one? I think it has actually worked, by the way. But okay, we're going to talk about greeting cards today as I always say with any of these, you know,

kind of wide survey type things, not comprehensive. Obviously, we're going to talk about some global history, but as we go on, a lot of it becomes about England and the US, because frankly, these are the places most obsessed with greeting cards as we know them today. But it'll be a fun little trip around the world before that. Yeah.

In The Romance of Greeting Cards, written but in nineteen fifty six by Ernest Dudley Chase, there's a passage that reads quote, who can tell who originated the idea of

sending a word of greeting? If it were possible to go back to that faraway age when the cave man roamed the earth, and when there was no written word and probably little spoken word, we would doubtless find that greetings of friendship or symbols of a desire to be friendly, were sent or carried from one to another in the form of a sign, a leaf from a tree, a flower, a bright feather from some beautiful jungle bird, a stone, a crystal, or any one of a thousand and one

objects that might have been recognized as a token of courtesy, good cheer and friendliness. And it's true we don't know the origin of one human giving another person a token of greeting, but there are some obvious precursors to the modern day greeting card. Two places are usually invoked in discussions of early greeting cards. We're using the term greeting cards pretty loosely at this point, but those places are

Egypt and China. In ancient Egypt, early greeting cards were not cards at all, but they were sometimes bugs, well, at least representations of them, specifically scareb beetles, which were considered a sacred symbolic representation of the god Capri. So just as scaubs rolled dung to create balls that are suitable for laying eggs, in Capri was believed to roll

the disc of the sun across the sky. If you have been to any museum with even a small Egyptian collection, you almost certainly have seen scaubs represented in beads, amulets, and other artifacts. Scabs came in various forums associated with different meanings, and they often had things written on their underside. This could include things like names, mottos, or prayers, but some had inscriptions that appear to be well wishes or greetings, suggesting that they were given as gifts to convey those

wishes and greetings. These were usually inscribed with messages of good luck. They were associated with New Year's greetings as well.

Papyrus was also used to send messages of good will or cheer in Egypt for centuries, and one of the things that I read about this suggested that even if there was nothing inscribed on it, it has been interpreted by some historians that if you gave someone a scarab at the start of a new year, it was still meant to convey these ideas of good greetings and good cheer.

China's history with the idea of sending warm wishes to others is linked to wooden greeting tablets, which date as far back as the Han dynasty in the third century BCE, and which remained in use well into the fourth century. These visiting cards could be very basic, with a name, address, and perhaps a job title. Another type of card, which is more like the idea of a greeting card we would use that term today, could include more space civic

and personal greetings. The earliest archaeological finds of these types of wooden greetings was pretty recent. It was in the nineteen thirties, and it actually took several decades for enough of them to be unearthed that researchers started to focus on them. These were used as communication among officials and dignitaries as a means to show respect as well as

to maintain connection and good relations. One, for example, that was translated by Maxim Korokov, was mentioned in his twenty twelve paper Greeting tablets in early China Some traits of the communicative etiquette of officialdom in light of newly excavated inscriptions, reads simply quote youth huang chaw bows repeatedly asks for your well being, and then it includes the name and the country of the sender. That paper will of course

be in our show notes. It is a deep and detailed dive into these missives, So if you are interested, I have you set up with reading material. An article from South China Morning Post written earlier this year That's twenty twenty six by weekek Kun notes that early New Year greeting card exchanges in China were very formal. They

sound a little stressful for these reasons. The traditional card was a calling card for the new year, and there were a lot of social rules around them, and the contents of the greeting had to be way more than just the simple happy holidays that less enough on a lot of modern cards. The development of the paper industry also meant these greetings had enabled the transition from those inscribed pieces of thin wood as the means to send

greetings to more manageable paper cards. The earliest paper cards in China are believed to have been spring festival cards that became popular in the Tong dynasty in the seventh to tenth centuries. Over time, time, other events in holidays included greeting cards like the New Year, and it was these New Year's cards that became so important that a poorly written greeting could really damage a person's social standing.

That's very stressful to me. But according to Wee Kakun's article, over the course of several hundred years, these earnest missives took on a new role as a way for corrupted bureaucracy to send bribes and expensive gifts to one another to grease the wheels of government. Eventually, greeting cards in China moved from the realm of the wealthy, elite and political to something that everyday people shared with one another. This includes the traditional red packets given it New Years.

There's are the red envelopes with a greeting on the outside printed in gold with money tucked into them. These are given by married people to the next generation, and they too have their own customs and etiquette, like only using fresh crisp new bills and in even numbered amounts, with eight being the luck keist and four being an absolute no now because that number represents death in Chinese culture.

In ancient Rome, it was common practice to give laurel branches that were coded in gold as a wish of good fortune for the new year, and this eventually evolved into imagery of those gold branches being used on objects with New Year's greetings, which then eventually transitioned to versions written on leaves of paper. This led to the practice

of written greetings being adopted throughout Europe. These remained largely a way to celebrate the new year and share hopes for a good year ahead with friends and business associates. Wood engravers also started to produce small prints that served as a means of conveying these greetings, but Most of the cards that were given to people in Europe during this early phase of greeting cards were handmade. Soon the practice expanded beyond the New Year, people started writing Valentine's cards.

The oldest Valentine card on is a small piece of paper written in fourteen fifteen by Charles, the first Duke Dorleon to his wife von Darmignuc at the time he was captive in the Tower of London. He had been captured following the Battle of Agincour, in which France was soundly defeated by England. His wife was younger than him, which he referenced in the card. They had gotten married in fourteen ten, when he was just eleven years old

and he was sixteen. At the time of his capture, he was twenty one, and he wrote her this poem on a card to be carried by a messenger. It went, I am already love sick, my very gentle Valentine, since for me we were born too late, and I, for you, was born too soon. God forgives him who has estranged me from you for the whole year. I am already love sick, my very gentle Valentine. Well might I have suspected that such a destiny thus would have happened this day,

how much that love would have be commanded. I am already love sick, my very gentle Valentine. We're going to talk about that translation, which is partly mine, on Friday. Sadly, the two of them would never see each other again, as Charles was held captive in England for twenty five

years and Bunn died before his release. He left behind a significant body of poetry, though he's considered one of the great court poets, and he began a trend that became a tradition of cards that bordered on being love letters being sent as greetings. Coming up, we'll talk about a book designed to help people write something valuable in their greeting cards, but first we will take a quick

sponsor break. The problem of how to write a good greeting wasn't only an issue in Chinese greeting card history. A lot of people have struggled with what to write in cards because not everyone was as good with words as the Duke d'arleon. In sixteen sixty nine, a book called a Valentine Writer was published, and it featured a collection of verses that someone who might be struggling with what to write on a card could use. It also featured a printed Valentine on its frontispiece, and this is

widely believed to be the first printed Valentine. The first standalone pre printed Valentine's card is really not known with certainty, but there is one candidate that was submitted to the BBC by the Castle Museum, York, and this card features a very ornate floral border that's been punched to look like lace and a central image of a woman in

a blue dress. The interior of this printed message reads quote, since on this ever happy day, all nature's full of love and play, yet harmless still if my design 'tis but to be your Valentine? That printed in January seventeen ninety seven in London. The card that is in the Castle Museum's collection also includes a handwritten note on the card, and that sounds maybe less romantic, a little more annoyed, perturbed.

Maybe uh we can take a look though. It reads quote, mister Brown, as I have repeatedly requested you to come, I think you must have some reason for not complying with my request. But as I have something particular to say to you, I could wish you make it all agreeable to come on Sunday next without fail, and in doing you will oblige your well wisher. Catherine moss Day. Yeah, we don't know what that was about. I'm very curious what was going on between Catherine moss Day and mister Brown. Yeah,

mister Brown. Did she love you and it was unrequited? Or did you owe her money? I don't know. Something. I can write a whole thing. Even with books like a Valentine Writer and the rise of cards with pre printed sentiments, Valentine cards were still something that was considered a bit of a luxury. It actually wasn't until the eighteen hundreds when Britain's uniform penny post made the cost of sending such cards something that was in the grasp

of more of the population. Christmas cards actually came a bit later in the game. This was not because people were not sending Christmas greetings, but the tradition in England and other parts of Europe was to send Christmas letters to friends and loved ones, to share wishes for the good holidays and a prosperous New Year, and to catch people up on the happenings in your life. Just like modern Christmas or end of year letters tend to be for people who are more motivated than me to send

such things. But in eighteen forty three that changed thanks to Henry Cole. As the Christmas season of eighteen forty three approached, Cole, who was a Public Records Office administrator, was experiencing a bit of dread at the thought of writing Christmas letters because he was very fortunate and he had a wide circle of friends, and that meant he needed to write a lot of letters, and he was

also just tight on time. He was already receiving letters from other people, but he couldn't imagine ever being able to respond to them all. It would have been considered very impolite not to do so, so he came up with an idea. Rather than do the very impolite thing of leaving a letter unanswered, he thought he could maybe commission an artist to create something that could be printed in bulk, so he could send the same thing to

everyone and streamline his holiday correspondence responsibilities. And the artist that he asked was J. C. Horsley. Worsley was quite famous as a painter, even though in eighteen forty three he was still just twenty six. He had at that point exhibited a number of paintings at the Royal Academy. He had won a number of accolades. Even so, his reputation was not as impressive as it would one day become. Cole gave Horselee a brief on what he had in

mind for an image. He wanted a family sitting down to a holiday feast, but he also wanted to depict them doing good works and helping the less fortunate. So Horseley came up with a three part image. The central and largest section features the feast, and then it is separated from each side by a framework of wood and foliage. In the left section we see a man handing out food to a woman and child, and then the right section depicts a woman draping a blanket or a cloak

around another woman. A drape of fabric beneath that main image of the feast reads a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, and at the top was a line that just said two and a blank for the name of the recipient. Popule loved the result, and he had one thousand copies printed on heavy card stock. They had to be printed in you could say it's black and white. It was actually kind of a CPA tone and then hand painted, and the result is that the central image is in full color, while the side

images are in softer, more diluted tones. This is also why if you look at images of this card online, because a number have survived, they may all look a little different. It's because of the hand painting. These cards were quite small. They were five and one eighth by three and one quarter inches for reference, This is a little smaller than the most common postcard size today, which is four by six inches, and Cole sent these out. This apparently actually upset some people, but not because it

broke the social more of penning a personalized letter. The problem was that the children in the image are shown drinking from wineglasses, and a number of temperance minded people on Cole's list thought that was very in a prop This was a time in England when the temperance movement had a big surge. But nevertheless, there were people in his circle that thought this was a brilliant idea, and they copied it and started sending Christmas cards as well.

Although it did not become a common practice until later in the eighteen hundreds, Henry Cole won a design prize in a contest sponsored by Prince Albert just two years after his Christmas card debuted, and he was instrumental in conceptualizing and mounting of the eighteen fifty one Great Exhibition as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum. He was knighted in eighteen seventy five. Yeah, he was pretty interesting.

Greeting cards became popular in the US very shortly after they did in England, and one of the first entrepreneurs to really take advantage of the interest that people had in this new way to let people know you were thinking of them was a woman from Worcester, Massachusetts named Esther Howland. After Esther graduated from Mount Holyoke in eighteen forty seven, she founded her own business after receiving a Valentine card from England. I read one account that said

this card came from one of her father's associates. She had the idea that she could design and sell her own Valentine cards and then have her brother, who worked for the family business, take orders for them whenever he went on sales calls. His first time out, it said that Esther had a goal that he would get two hundred dollars worth of orders for them, and then when he came home he had actually had five thousand dollars worth of orders, which is quite significant. These are really

lovely little art pieces. They often combined fabric and lace with paper to create ornate designs that contained little poems as the greeting for the first batch of samples they

had used for those sales calls. Esther had made them by herself after convincing her father to get her all the needed supplies, but as those huge orders rolled in, she knew she needed a staff to keep up, and she sometimes described as having actually created the first assembly line because she hired several other women friends of hers, and each of them had a specific component of the

card that they were responsible for adding. Ester wasn't the first person in the US to produce Valentine cards, but she was the first to create a line that felt special and could compete with the ones that were imported from Europe. By eighteen fifty, her line had expanded and her company was advertising a whole product line, which ranged

in price from five cents to a dollar. Her most expensive cards had tiny springs tucked in between layers of lace and printed imagery, so when you pulled them out of the envelope, they'd sort of fluff up and create a lux three dimensional shadow box effect. Others in the premium category had layers and layers of silk and lace that could be unfolded and reveal a beautiful picture inside. Soon she expanded to make cards for other occasions like Christmas,

New Year's and birthdays. Howland really drove the development of the greeting card industry in the US in its earliest phase. Her company, which became the New England Valentine Company in

the eighteen seventies, produced cards and also books. The New England Valentine Company's Valentine Verse Book, for example, was a book of decoratively printed poems so that consumers could replace the verse in a purchased Valentine if they felt that it did not suit their needs, they could just find a better one in Holland's book and then cut it out and paste it over the one that the card came printed with. Esther did eventually sell her company in

eighteen eighty. That was so that she could take care of her father full time. It became quite ill as he got older, and then by the time she died in nineteen oh four. The greeting card was a standard part of holiday culture in the US. We'll talk about the early days of Christmas cards in the US after we hear from some of the sponsors that keep the show going. While Esther was building her Valentine card business,

another entrepreneur, Louis Prong, was focused on Christmas cards. Prong was born in Breslau, Prussia, and he moved to the US in the eighteen fifties after being involved in some revolutionary activity in Prussia. He settled in Boston and started working as a lithographer. He had learned the lithography trade from his father because the family couldn't afford to send

him to school. In the early eighteen fifties, Prong created illustrations for Gleason magazine before starting the lithography company Prong and Mayor with his partner Julius Mayer in eighteen fifty six. He took over the business entirely four years later and it became El Prong in Company. Prong's company printed things like advertisement art and business cards, and he continued to learn the latest techniques to ensure his company was producing

top quality work. In eighteen sixty four, Prong traveled to Germany to learn a new technique, and that was chromo lithography. Up until that point, all lithographs worked the same way that Cole and Horseley had done with their cards. They were printed in two color black and white or in sepia, and then they were hand painted. But chromo lithography removed the need for the hand painting step, and so you

could use multiple lithographic plates to add the color. Prong returns to Boston completely inspired by the possibilities of this new technique, and right from the beginning he really wanted to push chromo lithography to create incredibly complex images. He wasn't doing just a few passes with color plates. He was creating these vivid, deep color images using as many as twenty plates per design, and in doing so he really set a standard in lithography that was hard for

other companies to match. In eighteen seventy five, he used that process to produce a Christmas card. Prog's card did not feature any of the symbols of the season that you might expect on a Christmas card. It was just an image of a flower, not a point setia, just a regular flower with the words Merry Christmas underneath it. I couldn't find an image of that original eighteen seventy five card, but I did see an image of the eighteen seventy six card that appears to feature pink roses,

and two different cards from eighteen seventy seven. One of those looks like it features slightly stylized carnations, and the other looks like a spray of wild flowers, including a pansy. Prongs cards were so pretty that they gained popularity really quickly, and over time the company started using more standard holiday imagery, although they still outpaced other printers on quality. Prong was reportedly selling and astonishing five million cards each year by

the eighteen eighties. The Prong company also initiated a very popular program where it's started having contests each year for aspiring artists to design the next card. This is a lucrative contest. The first placed winner got one thousand dollars. That was a lot of money in eighteen eighty when this contest started. Second, third, and fourth place also got

prize money in smaller increments. It also was unique in that it was open to women and to men competing equally offering women an unusual opportunity to get their foot in the door of the commercial design market. The submissions were displayed at the American Art Gallery, and the winner's cards would be printed along with their name on the

back of the card. Prong would also sometimes purchase the rights to cards that had not been in the top four, and he would sometimes sign contracts with artists from the competition as designers for the company. This made Prong cards collectors items. People wanted to get the winning card every year they wanted that art. It also served another purpose. Prong always had an ey on art education, and he used this contest to share information about the lithographic process

with the public. His company still exists today and makes art supplies for the education market, which is why that name sounded so familiar to me. This contest ran from eighteen eighty to eighteen eighty four, and by the time it was done, a lot of other printers were catching up to Prog's level and the US greeting card market

was well established. While Prong is often lauded as printing the first American Christmas card, there's another rarely mentioned figure in card printing who put a Christmas card out in the late eighteen forties. That was shop owner and printer Richard Hps of Albany, New York. According to the Albany Institute of History and Art, Peace had a card designed by a woman named Eliza Forbes and printed it in black and white for most likely the eighteen forty nine

holiday season. The image is interesting because it almost feels like pea sore Forbes had seen a copy of the Coal Horsely card, maybe use that as inspiration. It features a family celebrating Christmas in the center. That image spills over to the right and left. Along the bottom of the image. To the upper left is an image of what looks like a holiday fancy dress ball, and to the upper right is an image of the building where PiS's shop was. This card was obviously intended to also

be a little bit of advertising for the shop. There's a banner of text that arches over the family, which reads Peas's Great Variety Store in the Temple of Fancy. The Temple of Fancy was the actual name of the store. Under the family, the card reads a Merry Christmas in a Happy New Year, and then there are the two and from lines that have blanks for the sender to

fill in. It's not clear how many copies of this card were printed, but as the messaging was specific to Albany, it doesn't really seem like they traveled very far beyond that, and that account for this card being kind of a relative unknown. I feel like I want shirts that say

Temple of Fancy, such a great name. There was a concern around this time, fueled by critics of greeting cards, that sending sentiments in card form was really just a fad and that people were going to get tired of them in the twentieth century, But of course the opposite happened. Printing processes got better, so even inexpensive cards looked pretty good. Additionally, life got busier for everybody. Just like Henry Cole, they

turned to greeting cards to ensure they stayed in touch. Additionally, cards more and more frequently offered ways to enjoy works of art. We talked about that a little bit in our episode on Tyris Wong, which came out on May twenty twenty four. You want to talk about beautiful Christmas cards, so pretty, that's where to look. Another earlier artist whose work became coveted on greeting cards was a woman named Kate Greenaway. She may very well be a topic one day.

Greenaway was an illustrator and she was hired by Marcus Worden Company, a publishing company in Belfast, Ireland that was moving into the card market because they didn't want to miss out on this new revenue. Kate's card illustrations, which frequently featured children celebrating, are still reprinted commonly today. It's easy to see why they're very cute. In nineteen fifteen, a family business was started by Joyce Hall in Kansas City.

They printed their first Christmas card. As the business quickly grew, Joyce's brothers also became part of the Hall company and they began to focus less on the original plan of postcards and more on holiday cards. Later, the company changed its name to Hallmark Hallmark innovated and introducing the folded card. Previous greeting cards had just been one flat card a lot like a postcard, but the Hall brothers wanted to add more space for a sender to write in the car.

They also started hiring well known artists to design cards, including Salvadore Dolli. The company still has the original paintings for card designs by Deli and its collection. Norman Rockwell was also hired to design cards for the company, and his continue to be printed with some regularity. I feel like Salvador Dolli has been on the show a lot lately,

which is just fine by me. The US greeting card industry became a significant employer, with an estimated forty factories operating by the late nineteen twenties, and to keep this new industry lucrative, businesses focused their marketing on the idea the sending cards was an old tradition, even though it was still pretty new. There were also charity card drives to drum up interest and just get people in the

practice of buying cards. In those cases, consumers were encouraged purchase cards knowing that the proceeds or a portion of the proceeds would benefit a good cause. This practice really solidified with the introduction of UNICEF's first holiday card in nineteen forty nine, and charity cards have continued consistently ever since. Today, the greeting card industry is in a unique position. On the one hand, digital cards have cut into the market significantly.

On the other, the United States Chamber of Commerce says there's some interesting growth in the industry. For one thing, it's still huge. It's estimated to be a seven billion dollar market annually. That is billion with a B. For another,

there's some interesting innovation going on within it. While Hallmark and American Greetings are credited with a whopping eighty percent market share, industry leaders note that the remaining slice of the market is filled with smaller producers who are able to get into the business because of the relatively low startup costs, and a lot of those folks are doing

really creative things. According to the Greeting Card Art Association, which is like a professional org for all these companies, there are two things that have fueled a new wave of greeting card interest in recent years, and the first is the COVID nineteen pandemic, because as people were separated from loved ones and close friends, the greeting card industry is one of the few that actually had some growth because people were seeking ways to stay connected that felt

more meaningful than simply sending a text. Another is that millennials and Gen Z consumers have embraced greeting cards as previous generations have lost interests. Millennials are now listed as the largest consumer group of greeting cards. One theory about this growth is that it feels sort of retro to

send cards, which has appeal to younger buyers. Another is that there's some fresh diversity in the messaging and that lets people share sentiments or laughed with loved ones through a card that feels in line with their usual dynamic. New holidays are also being represented. Some are old holidays that didn't used to be associated with greeting cards, like Halloween. Others reflect an expanded awareness of cultural diversity, like Diwali.

And then, of course there are newly created holidays like Gallantines Day that have become popular and there are cards to celebrate them. There's also a new availability of cards that address more social and life moments, some of which haven't historically gotten a lot of notice. On the card aisle for sobriety or for a serious loss. For literally any life event from puberty to gallbladder surgery, there is

a card. I have one that is like uh mad libs, almost a lot of wild things you can choose from about what you're sending your condolences for, and they're all very silly. Yeah, uh yeah, we'll talk about interesting greeting cards Friday. In the meantime, we're going to talk about art again. Okay, but this is like some beautiful art by one of our listeners, Oh yay, who claims that they're not that great but is a fibber. This is from our listener Kieren, who writes, Hello ladies. A bit

of a rambling note. But I recently decided that I wanted to go back and improve upon my art education and finally tackle learning some figure drawing. Unfortunately, my BFA program was not stellar, so I missed out on a lot of foundational skills. But there's no time like the present to learn is I would love to be able to do some fun and inclusive character design and storytelling someday. I'm just starting as a February and am knee deep in anatomy studies and have found that ballet dancers make

such excellent references to work from. That, of course, got me down a whole rabbit hole of re listening to the two part episodes on the history of ballet, as well as the one on Jean Baptiste Lulli, which had been so fun to re listen to while I draw. I think It's safe to say at this point that everything in life somehow connects back to one of your episodes, and all of my friends in really are thoroughly sick of me going ooh, there's a podcast episode about that.

Thank you so much for all of the education and company you provided over the years. I also recently went through a big move to a new town at the start of this year, so having comfort media to lean on in the transition has been essential. Thank you again for all that you are and all that you do. I hope your spring season is off to as positive a start as possible. Questionably proportioned practice sketches attached. I promise I will send better ones in future. These look

spectacular to me. I mean, I don't think these are banned. They may be practice, but you're nailing it. Listen. We love art. I love sporting artists. I love that ballet was a good Dancers are a really good opportunity to study the mechanics of the human body, which is very cool. This also a little bit is going to relate to something I'm going to talk about on Friday. So okay, when we talk about human figure drawing, there is comedy coming.

Great Friday. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. If you would like to see the show notes for the episode, they are available at mystonhistory dot com. You'll see all the sources we used. If you would like to subscribe to the podcast and you haven't done so yet, you can do that anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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