Early Christmas Cards
By Joy J. Fine
It was not until 1843, in London England, that Christmas cards were first printed and sold. Before this cards were handmade. They were exchanged originally by hand. One person would make a card for another and give it directly to them or include it with a gift. In 1822 cards for the festive season began to be mailed. The American postal service was overwhelmed at this new tradition and had to hire more staff to deal with the influx of mail. One postal superintendent in Washington found this new practice to his immediate dislike, claiming is would undermine the postal service and demanded in Congress that it be put to an end.
The first commercial Christmas cards were designed by a British artist named John Calcott Horsley. He was hired by a wealthy businessman, Sir Henry Cole, in England, to make a card that he could impress the friends and business acquaintances who he wanted to send cards to. The card that Horsley designed was made in the style of a triptych. This meant it was done in three panels, with the middle one the largest and the two side pieces of smaller size but equal to the other. The side pieces would often fold over the middle one. This work had a party with women, men and children all enjoying the celebration. In the picture there was lots of food and drink for them to partake of. The side pieces showed an act of kindness being made. One was clothing those without anything to cover themselves while the other side piece showed someone giving food to the hungry.
The card had the words “merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you” written across it. Unlike today when this sentiment means to enjoy the celebration of the day back then merry represented the word blessed. So the sentiment was slightly different. Sir Cole ordered one thousand of the cards. There are still a few, a dozen it is believed, in personal collections around the world.
The fad took off quite quickly and printed cards sent at Christmas time became the norm in England and soon after in Germany. It did not take long for this trend to cover Europe. Interestingly early Christmas cards did not have religious messages on them. They were more likely to have pictures of flowers on them than the baby Jesus. One famous card maker of the time was Louis Prang an American who went to Germany and began selling printed Christmas cards in 1873. It was the next year, nearly thirty years after these cards began to sell in Europe, that Prang sold the first commercially prints cards in the United States. This earned him the nickname of the father of the American Christmas Card. Unfortunately for Prang his cards, though of excellent quality, were too expensive. So, instead, cards were brought from Germany. These penny cards were very popular until the onset of World War One when the industry instead became all American. Now Christmas cards are the largest selling card of any occasion with sales reaching over two billion cards yearly in the United States alone.
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