Christmas cards are a relatively new invention, but the practice of exchanging cards goes back to the 1400s when men and women placed their names in a hat to choose who would be their Valentine for the year. New Year's cards were also exchanged as early as the 1400s.
By the 1800s, more cards were being exchanged, but it was more common to use
illustrated envelopes in which handwritten greetings were sent, like the envelope to the right. (Click on the envelope to see an enlarged view.)
Historians agree that the first known Christmas card was designed in London in 1843 by John Calcoltt Horsely at the request of Sir Henry Cole. It seems that Sir Henry was behind in getting his season's greeting out, so asked Horsely to hand color 1000 cards for him with a seasonal message.
The first Christmas card’s inscription read: "merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you." "Merry" was then a spiritual word meaning "blessed," as in "merry old England." Of the original one thousand cards printed for Henry Cole, twelve exist today in private collections.
It's an interesting card designed to try to please everyone. In the center we have people celebrating with
food and drink. On either side we have acts of charity. During the Victorian era, too much celebrating was frowned upon so the card struck a happy medium. The message on the card was Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you. Just to clarify, back then "merry" actually meant "blessed" rather than a wish for gaiety and cheerfulness so the card wasn't quite as celebratory as we might think.
The cards went over really well, probably because Victorians were already using calling cards for their social visits.
They also would have appealed to the Victorians great love of collecting cards for their journals and scrapbooks.
At the time, many businesses issued collectible trade cards (like the card to the right) with all kinds of interesting images on them and their advertisements on the back. They were really popular.
By the 1850s, greeting cards had become much less expensive because of advances in printed as well as the introduction of the penny stamp in 1840 in England. Germany followed suit and soon greeting cards were being sent by the thousands and thousands all over Europe and beyond.
Greeting cards and penny postcards really didn't catch on in America until 1875, when a
publisher named Louis Prang started producing cards in America. In the early 1900s, the postcard laws allowed printing of just an image on the front with the writing only on
the back and the "Golden Age" of postcards began, millions of postcards were exchanged and ther was a postcard collecting
craze was in full swing.
Now the greeting card industry has grown to a multi-billion dollar industry. In the U.S. alone,
over two billion Christmas cards will be exchanged and Christmas is the number holiday for sending greeting cards.
