The ancient Chinese are the first known to send greeting cards. It is believed that they exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year.
Handmade greeting cards were exchanged in Europe in the early 1400s. Around 1850 greeting cards changed from an expensive, handmade gift that had to be hand delivered to a fashionable and affordable method of personal communication. The 1840 introduction of the postage stamp and development of printing technology took the greeting card to another dimension.
The world’s first commercial Christmas card was designed by John Callcott Horsley, for his friend Henry Cole, who was founder of the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Cole’s card was about the size of a postcard. The middle part of the card shows a happy family gathering, drinking a toast to Christmas and the New Year, inviting the reader to join in.
The greeting card industry in America, is thought to be started by Louis Prang, a German immigrant. He started a small printing shop near Boston in 1856 and within ten years, he had perfected greeting cards processed with color. In 1875, Prang introduced the first complete line of Christmas cards to the American public.
Today, greeting cards are a multi-million dollar business, and growing.
Greeting cards are sent to family, friends, co-workers, bosses, and others, for a multitude of holidays and various occasions. There are cards for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, weddings, having babies, sympathy cards for the death of a loved one, graduations, retirement, buying a new house, loss of a pet, saying I love you, saying I am sorry, feeling sad, and feeling glad to name only a few.
In the commercialization of today’s society, many think greeting cards have lost their meaning, as there seem to be cards for every occasion. Greeting card companies; have even been accused of making up new holidays or occasions just to sell cards. Giving this some thought, it very well may be true. After all, where did Grandparents Day, Bosses Day, and Secretary’s Day come from? Twenty years ago, these occasions did not exist. Was it the brainchild of the greeting card companies, or did they originate elsewhere?
Greeting cards in themselves have evolved to keep up with technology. We now have greeting cards that talk, cards that sing, e-cards that send greetings via email — they sing, dance, sparkle, and flash, and even programmable cards that can record a personal message.
Regardless of how we feel about the greeting card companies and the role they have played in commercializing every holiday and occasion, we all enjoy getting that special message and knowing that someone is thinking of us. Yes, we do still like to receive greeting cards.
Card Cafe (http://www.cardcafe.com) offers a wide variety, allowing you to send greeting cards of sympathy that you can quickly and easily customize with words and even photos to add a very personal touch. Art Gib is a freelance writer.
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