Christmas Greeting Card History

One of the joys of the Christmas season is receiving Christmas cards. For many of us this is the only communication we have with some friends and family all year.  It is always good to get cards even if it’s from someone we didn’t send one to. It’s easy enough to add that person to the card list for next year if it arrived too late to send one this year.

In England in 1843 Sir Henry Cole, a wealthy and successful London businessman, commissioned John Calcott, an artist, to create a card that he could use to send Christmas greetings to his friends and business clients. This is the first known time a card was made for just this purpose.

In addition to sending Christmas greetings Sir Henry Cole wanted to raise awareness in his friends and business associates to the needs of the poor in London. The card that John Calcott Horsley created was a triptych which is a card with three-panels; the two outer panels fold in towards the middle panel. Each side panel showed a good deed being performed: people feeding the hungry and clothing the poor. The inside panel, with its depiction of a wealthy family a feast raising glasses in a toast, caused quite an uproar at the time.

One thousand cards were printed in black and white then hand colored. The inside message read “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you.”  Neither Sir Henry Cole nor John Calcott Horsley knew the impact this first Christmas card would have on England or the United States. For several years many thought the idea of sending Christmas cards was just a passing fancy.

Somewhere around 1845 Americans began sending cards to each other through the mail. But it wasn’t until 1875 that Americans could buy cards made in the United States by a German immigrant, Louis Prang. Until that time they had to buy cards that were made in Germany.

The cards that Prang made were high-quality but expensive. In the beginning his cards didn’t look like what we think of as Christmas cards with the manger scene or Santa Claus. Rather his designs were mostly of floral designs. Americans became enthusiastic about Christmas cards, but not those made by Prang. In fact he was forced to close his business in 1890. His cards were just too expensive. Americans went back to buying cards from Germany and it was the cheap penny postcards that they favored. These cards were popular until the end of World War I. By the end of the war American companies had started making cards.

Today, more than 2 billion Christmas cards are exchanged each year.  As you send and receive cards this year may your heart be filled with the joyful Christmas spirit. Personalized photo cards at Cardstore.com