The Origin and Continuation of the Greeting Card Essay Example

of modern greeting cards.These were followed by eighteenth century print versions which merchants sent their customers on New Year's. “The greeting cards we exchange at Christmas or New Year's and are so much a part of our holiday traditions have their origins in England.

By the late middle ages, letters and messages of love, including romantic verses sent near St. Valentine's Day, were exchanged throughout Europe. Personal messages of greeting and sentiment were individually crafted until at least the mid-nineteenth century.The custom of multiple card production quickly developed in Europe, especially in Germany, because of a brand-new printing process perfected by Aloys Senefelder in 1796.

Lithography, as the technique was called, could be used to reproduce large numbers of drawings or texts first drawn on a finely-textured stone. ” (Bell) Although the first known valentine card can be traced back to 1415, it wasn’t until the early 1800s and the Penny Post that they became popular and affordable. Esther Howland, a young woman from Massachusetts, was the first regular publisher of valentines in the United States.She sold her first handmade valentine in 1849, eventually establishing a successful publishing firm specializing in the elaborately decorated cards. A respected illustrator of the day, London artist John Calcott Horsley told Sir Henry Cole, a wealthy British businessman, he wanted a card he could proudly send to friends and professional acquaintances to wish them a "merry Christmas.

" Cole was, at that time, a prominent innovator. He modernized the British postal system, managed construction of the Albert Hall, arranged for the Great Exhibition in 1851, and oversaw the inauguration of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Most of all, Cole sought to "beautify

life," and in his spare time he ran an art shop on Bond Street, specializing in decorative objects for the home. In the summer of 1843, he commissioned Horsley to design an impressive card for that year’s Christmas. Horsley produced a triptych. Each of the two side panels depicted a good deed-clothing the naked and feeding the hungry.

The centerpiece featured a party of adults and children, with plentiful food and drink. Puritans immediately denounced the card, since it showed people drinking in the family party.But with most people the idea was a great success and the Christmas card quickly became very popular. ” (Shank) By the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from a relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift to a popular and affordable means of personal communication, due largely to advances in printing and mechanization, as well as the 1840 introduction of the postage stamp.

”First in person, then via post, by 1822, homemade Christmas cards had become the bane of the U. S. postal system. That year, the Superintendent of Mails in Washington, D. C. complained of the need to hire sixteen extra mailmen. Fearful of future bottlenecks, he petitioned Congress to limit the exchange of cards by post, concluding, ‘I don’t know what we’ll do if it keeps on’. " (Panati) Of the original one thousand cards printed for Henry Cole, twelve exist today in private collections. Printed cards soon became the rage in England; then in Germany. But it required an additional thirty years for Americans to take to the idea. In 1875, Boston lithographer Louis Prang, a native of Germany, began publishing cards, and earned the title "father of

the American Christmas card..“

Prang’s high-quality cards were costly, and they initially featured not images as the Madonna and Child, a decorated tree, or even Santa Claus, but of colored floral arrangements of roses, daisies, gardenias, geraniums, and apple blossoms. Americans took to Christmas cards, but unfortunately, not to Prang’s; he was forced out of business in 1890. It was cheap penny Christmas postcards imported from Germany that remained the vogue until World War 1. By war’s end, America’s modern greeting card industry had been born.

Horsley’s favor to Henry Cole made an impact on his friend but neither man had any idea or could fathom the impact it would have in Britain and later in America. Even the early Christmas card manufactures believed Christmas cards to be a vogue which would soon pass. They operated on a quick turn basis and did not bother to document the cards they produced. However, the Christ card was destined to become an integral part of the holiday season. By 1880 their manufacture was big business, creating previously unknown opportunities for artists, writers, printers and engravers.

The ‘trick card’ was the most popular Christmas card of the Victorian era. While infinite in variety, it always featured some element of surprise. While seemingly simple at first glance, the turning of the page, the pulling of a string or the moving of a lever would reveal the unexpected showing the card to be more complex than first imagined. Pull out flower cards were among the most treasured of trick cards. An example from 1870 is that of the red, white and yellow roses encased in a fan shaped handle. Pull the silken thread

dangling from the handle and the card opens to twice its size.

Five separate rose petals come into view, each surrounded with lilies of the valley and imprinted with quotes from poets such as Wordsworth and Keats. “Modern greeting card industry from the 1840’s when cards were a seasonal complement to the more consistent traditional printing and stationery businesses, to the 1960’s when the expansion of card-sending occasions and special titles for cards led to the dominance of five large firms that relied on fordist techniques of machine-based assembly-line production to ell billions of 50-cent cards per year. ” Along with the new ways of making cards also came a new way of looking at cards. No longer were there only cards that displayed sentiments of love and affection on Valentine’s Day and verses that would warm the heart at Christmas. “At the turn of the nineteenth century, there was Valentine cards known as “penny dreadful” or “vinegar” cards that included an insulting verse directed at their recipient.

It would seem that these cards were meant to be insulting rather than humorous.There were also books that contained Valentine verses that one might copy that included such selections as “To a Bad Dancer,” “To a Conceited Man,” “To an Old Maid,” “To a Stingy Fellow,” To a Coxcomb,” To the Lady with Bad Teeth. ” (Chase) “In the United States today, there is an estimated 3,000 publishers of greeting cards. These range from giants like Hallmark to smaller, specialized card makers like TaDa Greeting Cards. ” (Pearson) Two manufacturers dominate this business: American Greetings Corporation, the largest publicly owned greeting card manufacturer in the world, and Hallmark Cards,

Inc. the largest privately owned manufacturer.

Together, these two companies control about 80 percent of the $7. 5 billion U. S. greeting card market. There is no doubt the greeting card has come a long way since its lowly development as a loving sentiment to friends and family. Today greeting cards are available under every heading possible.

Messages like divorce, stepfamilies, alternative families and the death of beloved pets, are just a few new sentiments sent daily to loved and hated family, friends and enemies. The emergence of greeting cards for "alternative" families is just a sign of how commercialism follows demographics.But, does the commercialism merely follow? In some sense, it appears that the commercial aspect may actually drive cultural momentum. After all, a new family form represents a new market.

Every new lifestyle is a new opportunity. In fact, the latest of sentimental messages are being aimed at the adulteress. Yes, there's nothing like a little home-wrecking sentiment to warm the adulterous heart at Yuletide. The Los Angeles Times reported “on the emergence of a new line of cards for adulterers. ” (Kiehl) Now, this little line of cards is not yet a major cultural phenomenon.

After all, the major national greeting card companies have no similar product line -- at least not yet. But consider this fascinating and revealing section from The Times story: “Hallmark, the nation's largest greeting-card seller, says some of its relationship cards are broad enough that their meaning can vary depending on the situation, so it doesn't see a need for an explicit line of cards for adulterers. The "Between You and Me" line covers a wide variety of relationships, says spokeswoman Rachel

Bolton. She points to a card that says, "I love the private world that you and I share. "I look at that and I'm thinking of my husband. You might look at that and think of your secretary," Bolton says.

"The purpose of a greeting card is to make somebody feel good -- to solidify or further a relationship. " (Kiehl) I think we have come too far. We need to go back to the times when our children were creating cards for us to show us the improvement in their penmanship. Louis Prang would be rolling over in his grave. Where did we go wrong…oh don’t worry, I’m sure if we wait long enough, we’ll find that answer in the next wave of card text messages, sent via our cell phones. And so it goes…

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