The ritual of sending greeting cards dates back to the early Chinese, who exchanged goodwill messages to bring each New Year, and to the ancient Egyptians, who communicated their good wishes on papyrus scrolls.
However, greeting cards have only been part of the tradition of many cultures for about two centuries or a little longer, to be precise. The oldest 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 acquired royal status. It was during the latter part of this century that cards were incorporated into the mainstream culture, so that the majority of the population could afford it.
It was around this time that cheap printing emerged and a new trade for printers and artists was born. Soon after, post offices were flooded with millions (literally) of letters during Christmas week alone. Following the line of this new trend were Easter, Halloween and Thanksgiving, which gained momentum as suitable occasions for the delivery of cards.
At the end of the 19th century, Valentine’s cards were completely machine-made. The first of many Valentine’s Day greeting cards that can be sold in the US was created in the 1840s.
John Calcott Horsley was the architect of the first Christmas card, and Louis Prang has come to be known as the father of Christmas greetings. 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 came up with exclusive editions of Christmas greetings, which were an instant hit in Britain.
In the mid-1870s, he presented the first complete series of Christmas greetings to the American public. Soon after, knockoffs began to invade the market, forcing Prang into bankruptcy. For nearly two decades later, there was a noticeable decline in greeting card production in the United States. Since then, things have evolved into what could be considered a huge greeting card trade around the world – something of a revolution has taken place.
Today there are paper cards of all sizes and for every occasion. There are even e-cards and digital postcards.
