WEBVTT - Greeting Cards 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.240 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.279 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Today's episode is a 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:22.800 bit of personal therapy for me. Yeah, in the dingiest way. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.840 It's not deep. I am working through my personal feelings 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:32.120 about greeting cards lately. Here's why. Okay, I am trying desperately, 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:36.960 as a natural born clutterbug who also married another clutterbug, 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:39.760 to just get rid of the stuff in our house 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:44.520 that is hoggin' up space, sure, which includes the backlog 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:48.600 of greeting cards. And I'm trying to set some rules 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:53.960 and consider which ones have value and why. And of 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.240 course that led me to go, where did these come from? 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:00.320 Why are we doing this? And then it came a 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.520 history project. There we go, because that way I can 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:06.039 parse it and think about their origin point, and that 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.400 will help me make the rules that will enable me 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.839 to more clearly decide on the fly do I keep 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:17.720 this one for sentimental posterity reasons or can I toss 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.480 this one? I think it has actually worked, by the way. 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.440 But okay, we're going to talk about greeting cards today 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.080 as I always say with any of these, you know, 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:32.360 kind of wide survey type things, not comprehensive. Obviously, we're 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:35.280 going to talk about some global history, but as we 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:37.760 go on, a lot of it becomes about England and 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:41.440 the US, because frankly, these are the places most obsessed 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:45.440 with greeting cards as we know them today. But it'll 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.680 be a fun little trip around the world before that. Yeah. 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.200 In The Romance of Greeting Cards, written but in nineteen 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.480 fifty six by Ernest Dudley Chase, there's a passage that 0:01:55.640 --> 0:02:00.400 reads quote, who can tell who originated the idea of 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.320 sending a word of greeting? If it were possible to 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.760 go back to that faraway age when the cave man 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.280 roamed the earth, and when there was no written word 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.560 and probably little spoken word, we would doubtless find that 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.919 greetings of friendship or symbols of a desire to be friendly, 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.280 were sent or carried from one to another in the 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:27.200 form of a sign, a leaf from a tree, a flower, 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.440 a bright feather from some beautiful jungle bird, a stone, 0:02:31.680 --> 0:02:34.959 a crystal, or any one of a thousand and one 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:38.480 objects that might have been recognized as a token of courtesy, 0:02:38.639 --> 0:02:43.280 good cheer and friendliness. And it's true we don't know 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.520 the origin of one human giving another person a token 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:50.240 of greeting, but there are some obvious precursors to the 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:55.280 modern day greeting card. Two places are usually invoked in 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.920 discussions of early greeting cards. We're using the term greeting 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.000 cards pretty loosely at this point, but those places are 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:07.040 Egypt and China. In ancient Egypt, early greeting cards were 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.679 not cards at all, but they were sometimes bugs, well, 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:14.120 at least representations of them, specifically scareb beetles, which were 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:19.160 considered a sacred symbolic representation of the god Capri. So 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.360 just as scaubs rolled dung to create balls that are 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:25.720 suitable for laying eggs, in Capri was believed to roll 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.960 the disc of the sun across the sky. If you 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.200 have been to any museum with even a small Egyptian collection, 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.960 you almost certainly have seen scaubs represented in beads, amulets, 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.680 and other artifacts. Scabs came in various forums associated with 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:46.240 different meanings, and they often had things written on their underside. 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.880 This could include things like names, mottos, or prayers, but 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.320 some had inscriptions that appear to be well wishes or greetings, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:58.400 suggesting that they were given as gifts to convey those 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.600 wishes and greetings. These were usually inscribed with messages of 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:06.720 good luck. They were associated with New Year's greetings as well. 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:10.400 Papyrus was also used to send messages of good will 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.160 or cheer in Egypt for centuries, and one of the 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:17.480 things that I read about this suggested that even if 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.520 there was nothing inscribed on it, it has been interpreted 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.640 by some historians that if you gave someone a scarab 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:27.960 at the start of a new year, it was still 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.960 meant to convey these ideas of good greetings and good cheer. 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.920 China's history with the idea of sending warm wishes to 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:40.000 others is linked to wooden greeting tablets, which date as 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.279 far back as the Han dynasty in the third century BCE, 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:46.560 and which remained in use well into the fourth century. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:51.000 These visiting cards could be very basic, with a name, address, 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.560 and perhaps a job title. Another type of card, which 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.120 is more like the idea of a greeting card we 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.360 would use that term today, could include more space civic 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:05.520 and personal greetings. The earliest archaeological finds of these types 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.120 of wooden greetings was pretty recent. It was in the 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.880 nineteen thirties, and it actually took several decades for enough 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.400 of them to be unearthed that researchers started to focus 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:20.039 on them. These were used as communication among officials and 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:23.280 dignitaries as a means to show respect as well as 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.800 to maintain connection and good relations. One, for example, that 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.320 was translated by Maxim Korokov, was mentioned in his twenty 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:35.080 twelve paper Greeting tablets in early China Some traits of 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:39.960 the communicative etiquette of officialdom in light of newly excavated inscriptions, 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:45.640 reads simply quote youth huang chaw bows repeatedly asks for 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.479 your well being, and then it includes the name and 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:54.000 the country of the sender. That paper will of course 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.440 be in our show notes. It is a deep and 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.839 detailed dive into these missives, So if you are interested, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.320 I have you set up with reading material. An article 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.800 from South China Morning Post written earlier this year That's 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:11.120 twenty twenty six by weekek Kun notes that early New 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:16.960 Year greeting card exchanges in China were very formal. They 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:21.599 sound a little stressful for these reasons. The traditional card 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:23.960 was a calling card for the new year, and there 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.920 were a lot of social rules around them, and the 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.640 contents of the greeting had to be way more than 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.719 just the simple happy holidays that less enough on a 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.520 lot of modern cards. The development of the paper industry 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.080 also meant these greetings had enabled the transition from those 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.839 inscribed pieces of thin wood as the means to send 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:52.000 greetings to more manageable paper cards. The earliest paper cards 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.640 in China are believed to have been spring festival cards 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.640 that became popular in the Tong dynasty in the seventh 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:01.839 to tenth centuries. Over time, time, other events in holidays 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.080 included greeting cards like the New Year, and it was 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.400 these New Year's cards that became so important that a 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:12.800 poorly written greeting could really damage a person's social standing. 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:17.000 That's very stressful to me. But according to Wee Kakun's article, 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.800 over the course of several hundred years, these earnest missives 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.480 took on a new role as a way for corrupted 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.000 bureaucracy to send bribes and expensive gifts to one another 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:31.120 to grease the wheels of government. Eventually, greeting cards in 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.400 China moved from the realm of the wealthy, elite and 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.760 political to something that everyday people shared with one another. 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.760 This includes the traditional red packets given it New Years. 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.040 There's are the red envelopes with a greeting on the 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:47.920 outside printed in gold with money tucked into them. These 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.280 are given by married people to the next generation, and 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.600 they too have their own customs and etiquette, like only 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:59.000 using fresh crisp new bills and in even numbered amounts, 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.960 with eight being the luck keist and four being an 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:06.200 absolute no now because that number represents death in Chinese culture. 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.320 In ancient Rome, it was common practice to give laurel 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.840 branches that were coded in gold as a wish of 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:16.040 good fortune for the new year, and this eventually evolved 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.320 into imagery of those gold branches being used on objects 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.640 with New Year's greetings, which then eventually transitioned to versions 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.400 written on leaves of paper. This led to the practice 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:31.880 of written greetings being adopted throughout Europe. These remained largely 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.680 a way to celebrate the new year and share hopes 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.760 for a good year ahead with friends and business associates. 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.280 Wood engravers also started to produce small prints that served 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.600 as a means of conveying these greetings, but Most of 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:48.439 the cards that were given to people in Europe during 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:52.840 this early phase of greeting cards were handmade. Soon the 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.600 practice expanded beyond the New Year, people started writing Valentine's cards. 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.200 The oldest Valentine card on is a small piece of 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:05.600 paper written in fourteen fifteen by Charles, the first Duke 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:10.160 Dorleon to his wife von Darmignuc at the time he 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:12.679 was captive in the Tower of London. He had been 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.800 captured following the Battle of Agincour, in which France was 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.880 soundly defeated by England. His wife was younger than him, 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:23.319 which he referenced in the card. They had gotten married 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.280 in fourteen ten, when he was just eleven years old 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:29.520 and he was sixteen. At the time of his capture, 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:32.240 he was twenty one, and he wrote her this poem 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.120 on a card to be carried by a messenger. It went, 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.319 I am already love sick, my very gentle Valentine, since 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.439 for me we were born too late, and I, for you, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.679 was born too soon. God forgives him who has estranged 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.160 me from you for the whole year. I am already 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:54.240 love sick, my very gentle Valentine. Well might I have 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.240 suspected that such a destiny thus would have happened this day, 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.440 how much that love would have be commanded. I am 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:05.480 already love sick, my very gentle Valentine. We're going to 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:11.040 talk about that translation, which is partly mine, on Friday. Sadly, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.679 the two of them would never see each other again, 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.880 as Charles was held captive in England for twenty five 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.800 years and Bunn died before his release. He left behind 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.719 a significant body of poetry, though he's considered one of 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.160 the great court poets, and he began a trend that 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.680 became a tradition of cards that bordered on being love 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.640 letters being sent as greetings. Coming up, we'll talk about 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.560 a book designed to help people write something valuable in 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.720 their greeting cards, but first we will take a quick 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:54.439 sponsor break. The problem of how to write a good 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.560 greeting wasn't only an issue in Chinese greeting card history. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.600 A lot of people have struggled with what to write 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.319 in cards because not everyone was as good with words 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.200 as the Duke d'arleon. In sixteen sixty nine, a book 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.760 called a Valentine Writer was published, and it featured a 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:14.920 collection of verses that someone who might be struggling with 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.880 what to write on a card could use. It also 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.440 featured a printed Valentine on its frontispiece, and this is 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.800 widely believed to be the first printed Valentine. The first 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:30.880 standalone pre printed Valentine's card is really not known with certainty, 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.680 but there is one candidate that was submitted to the 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:38.640 BBC by the Castle Museum, York, and this card features 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.600 a very ornate floral border that's been punched to look 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:44.840 like lace and a central image of a woman in 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:49.080 a blue dress. The interior of this printed message reads quote, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.760 since on this ever happy day, all nature's full of 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.200 love and play, yet harmless still if my design 'tis 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:01.800 but to be your Valentine? That printed in January seventeen 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:05.200 ninety seven in London. The card that is in the 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:10.920 Castle Museum's collection also includes a handwritten note on the card, 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:19.359 and that sounds maybe less romantic, a little more annoyed, perturbed. 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.800 Maybe uh we can take a look though. It reads quote, 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.760 mister Brown, as I have repeatedly requested you to come, 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.160 I think you must have some reason for not complying 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.560 with my request. But as I have something particular to 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.120 say to you, I could wish you make it all 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:43.679 agreeable to come on Sunday next without fail, and in 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:50.000 doing you will oblige your well wisher. Catherine moss Day. Yeah, 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.400 we don't know what that was about. I'm very curious 0:12:52.480 --> 0:12:56.760 what was going on between Catherine moss Day and mister Brown. Yeah, 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.959 mister Brown. Did she love you and it was unrequited? 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.280 Or did you owe her money? I don't know. Something. 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.800 I can write a whole thing. Even with books like 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.800 a Valentine Writer and the rise of cards with pre 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.600 printed sentiments, Valentine cards were still something that was considered 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.680 a bit of a luxury. It actually wasn't until the 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.760 eighteen hundreds when Britain's uniform penny post made the cost 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.640 of sending such cards something that was in the grasp 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.520 of more of the population. Christmas cards actually came a 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.280 bit later in the game. This was not because people 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.080 were not sending Christmas greetings, but the tradition in England 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.360 and other parts of Europe was to send Christmas letters 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.360 to friends and loved ones, to share wishes for the 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.440 good holidays and a prosperous New Year, and to catch 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.800 people up on the happenings in your life. Just like 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.360 modern Christmas or end of year letters tend to be 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:56.839 for people who are more motivated than me to send 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:01.240 such things. But in eighteen forty three that changed thanks 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:05.280 to Henry Cole. As the Christmas season of eighteen forty 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:09.240 three approached, Cole, who was a Public Records Office administrator, 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.200 was experiencing a bit of dread at the thought of 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:15.360 writing Christmas letters because he was very fortunate and he 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:18.680 had a wide circle of friends, and that meant he 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.320 needed to write a lot of letters, and he was 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:25.280 also just tight on time. He was already receiving letters 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.160 from other people, but he couldn't imagine ever being able 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.720 to respond to them all. It would have been considered 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.720 very impolite not to do so, so he came up 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.760 with an idea. Rather than do the very impolite thing 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:40.320 of leaving a letter unanswered, he thought he could maybe 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.080 commission an artist to create something that could be printed 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.440 in bulk, so he could send the same thing to 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:51.080 everyone and streamline his holiday correspondence responsibilities. And the artist 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:55.200 that he asked was J. C. Horsley. Worsley was quite 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:57.600 famous as a painter, even though in eighteen forty three 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.520 he was still just twenty six. He had at that 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:03.560 point exhibited a number of paintings at the Royal Academy. 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.680 He had won a number of accolades. Even so, his 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.280 reputation was not as impressive as it would one day become. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.600 Cole gave Horselee a brief on what he had in 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.680 mind for an image. He wanted a family sitting down 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.880 to a holiday feast, but he also wanted to depict 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.240 them doing good works and helping the less fortunate. So 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.320 Horseley came up with a three part image. The central 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.840 and largest section features the feast, and then it is 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:34.640 separated from each side by a framework of wood and foliage. 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.040 In the left section we see a man handing out 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:40.480 food to a woman and child, and then the right 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:43.560 section depicts a woman draping a blanket or a cloak 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.840 around another woman. A drape of fabric beneath that main 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.560 image of the feast reads a Merry Christmas and a 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.960 Happy New Year to you, and at the top was 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.760 a line that just said two and a blank for 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:01.840 the name of the recipient. Popule loved the result, and 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.560 he had one thousand copies printed on heavy card stock. 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.560 They had to be printed in you could say it's 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:10.360 black and white. It was actually kind of a CPA 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.680 tone and then hand painted, and the result is that 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.600 the central image is in full color, while the side 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:20.080 images are in softer, more diluted tones. This is also 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.840 why if you look at images of this card online, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.320 because a number have survived, they may all look a 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.360 little different. It's because of the hand painting. These cards 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:30.840 were quite small. They were five and one eighth by 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:34.120 three and one quarter inches for reference, This is a 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.440 little smaller than the most common postcard size today, which 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.640 is four by six inches, and Cole sent these out. 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.120 This apparently actually upset some people, but not because it 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.640 broke the social more of penning a personalized letter. The 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.160 problem was that the children in the image are shown 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:57.560 drinking from wineglasses, and a number of temperance minded people 0:16:57.680 --> 0:17:00.160 on Cole's list thought that was very in a prop 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.840 This was a time in England when the temperance movement 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:08.040 had a big surge. But nevertheless, there were people in 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.560 his circle that thought this was a brilliant idea, and 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:14.119 they copied it and started sending Christmas cards as well. 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:17.520 Although it did not become a common practice until later 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.560 in the eighteen hundreds, Henry Cole won a design prize 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:25.080 in a contest sponsored by Prince Albert just two years 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.880 after his Christmas card debuted, and he was instrumental in 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.359 conceptualizing and mounting of the eighteen fifty one Great Exhibition 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.879 as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum. He was 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.919 knighted in eighteen seventy five. Yeah, he was pretty interesting. 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.920 Greeting cards became popular in the US very shortly after 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:46.960 they did in England, and one of the first entrepreneurs 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.600 to really take advantage of the interest that people had 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:51.880 in this new way to let people know you were 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.400 thinking of them was a woman from Worcester, Massachusetts named 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.879 Esther Howland. After Esther graduated from Mount Holyoke in eighteen 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.560 forty seven, she founded her own business after receiving a 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:07.320 Valentine card from England. I read one account that said 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.560 this card came from one of her father's associates. She 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.920 had the idea that she could design and sell her 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.280 own Valentine cards and then have her brother, who worked 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.480 for the family business, take orders for them whenever he 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:23.240 went on sales calls. His first time out, it said 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.160 that Esther had a goal that he would get two 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.159 hundred dollars worth of orders for them, and then when 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.960 he came home he had actually had five thousand dollars 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:35.720 worth of orders, which is quite significant. These are really 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.320 lovely little art pieces. They often combined fabric and lace 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:43.080 with paper to create ornate designs that contained little poems 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.280 as the greeting for the first batch of samples they 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.120 had used for those sales calls. Esther had made them 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:51.760 by herself after convincing her father to get her all 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.399 the needed supplies, but as those huge orders rolled in, 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.199 she knew she needed a staff to keep up, and 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.440 she sometimes described as having actually created the first assembly 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.879 line because she hired several other women friends of hers, 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.600 and each of them had a specific component of the 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:12.119 card that they were responsible for adding. Ester wasn't the 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:15.720 first person in the US to produce Valentine cards, but 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.439 she was the first to create a line that felt 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.520 special and could compete with the ones that were imported 0:19:21.560 --> 0:19:25.359 from Europe. By eighteen fifty, her line had expanded and 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.399 her company was advertising a whole product line, which ranged 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:32.800 in price from five cents to a dollar. Her most 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.840 expensive cards had tiny springs tucked in between layers of 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:40.160 lace and printed imagery, so when you pulled them out 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:42.840 of the envelope, they'd sort of fluff up and create 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:47.280 a lux three dimensional shadow box effect. Others in the 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.000 premium category had layers and layers of silk and lace 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.760 that could be unfolded and reveal a beautiful picture inside. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.840 Soon she expanded to make cards for other occasions like Christmas, 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:03.159 New Year's and birthdays. Howland really drove the development of 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.320 the greeting card industry in the US in its earliest phase. 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:10.199 Her company, which became the New England Valentine Company in 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:15.040 the eighteen seventies, produced cards and also books. The New 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.159 England Valentine Company's Valentine Verse Book, for example, was a 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:23.440 book of decoratively printed poems so that consumers could replace 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.280 the verse in a purchased Valentine if they felt that 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.760 it did not suit their needs, they could just find 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:30.879 a better one in Holland's book and then cut it 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.240 out and paste it over the one that the card 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.119 came printed with. Esther did eventually sell her company in 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:39.000 eighteen eighty. That was so that she could take care 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:41.520 of her father full time. It became quite ill as 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:43.879 he got older, and then by the time she died 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.960 in nineteen oh four. The greeting card was a standard 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.320 part of holiday culture in the US. We'll talk about 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.400 the early days of Christmas cards in the US after 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:55.879 we hear from some of the sponsors that keep the 0:20:55.920 --> 0:21:09.520 show going. While Esther was building her Valentine card business, 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.840 another entrepreneur, Louis Prong, was focused on Christmas cards. Prong 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:17.040 was born in Breslau, Prussia, and he moved to the 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.159 US in the eighteen fifties after being involved in some 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.639 revolutionary activity in Prussia. He settled in Boston and started 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.359 working as a lithographer. He had learned the lithography trade 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.280 from his father because the family couldn't afford to send 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:35.159 him to school. In the early eighteen fifties, Prong created 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:39.800 illustrations for Gleason magazine before starting the lithography company Prong 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.280 and Mayor with his partner Julius Mayer in eighteen fifty six. 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.280 He took over the business entirely four years later and 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:51.679 it became El Prong in Company. Prong's company printed things 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:55.320 like advertisement art and business cards, and he continued to 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.280 learn the latest techniques to ensure his company was producing 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.800 top quality work. In eighteen sixty four, Prong traveled to 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.520 Germany to learn a new technique, and that was chromo lithography. 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:10.960 Up until that point, all lithographs worked the same way 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.120 that Cole and Horseley had done with their cards. They 0:22:14.119 --> 0:22:17.080 were printed in two color black and white or in sepia, 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:21.080 and then they were hand painted. But chromo lithography removed 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.439 the need for the hand painting step, and so you 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:27.760 could use multiple lithographic plates to add the color. Prong 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.959 returns to Boston completely inspired by the possibilities of this 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.560 new technique, and right from the beginning he really wanted 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:40.679 to push chromo lithography to create incredibly complex images. He 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.399 wasn't doing just a few passes with color plates. He 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:47.280 was creating these vivid, deep color images using as many 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:51.159 as twenty plates per design, and in doing so he 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.159 really set a standard in lithography that was hard for 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:58.480 other companies to match. In eighteen seventy five, he used 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:02.920 that process to produce a Christmas card. Prog's card did 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:05.119 not feature any of the symbols of the season that 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:07.879 you might expect on a Christmas card. It was just 0:23:07.960 --> 0:23:10.879 an image of a flower, not a point setia, just 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:14.119 a regular flower with the words Merry Christmas underneath it. 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:17.840 I couldn't find an image of that original eighteen seventy 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:19.760 five card, but I did see an image of the 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:23.560 eighteen seventy six card that appears to feature pink roses, 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:27.240 and two different cards from eighteen seventy seven. One of 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:31.919 those looks like it features slightly stylized carnations, and the 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:35.320 other looks like a spray of wild flowers, including a pansy. 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:40.400 Prongs cards were so pretty that they gained popularity really quickly, 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:44.720 and over time the company started using more standard holiday imagery, 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:49.320 although they still outpaced other printers on quality. Prong was 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:53.960 reportedly selling and astonishing five million cards each year by 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:58.600 the eighteen eighties. The Prong company also initiated a very 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:02.480 popular program where it's started having contests each year for 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:06.240 aspiring artists to design the next card. This is a 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:09.720 lucrative contest. The first placed winner got one thousand dollars. 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:13.200 That was a lot of money in eighteen eighty when 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:17.160 this contest started. Second, third, and fourth place also got 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.960 prize money in smaller increments. It also was unique in 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.160 that it was open to women and to men competing 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:27.280 equally offering women an unusual opportunity to get their foot 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.440 in the door of the commercial design market. The submissions 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:34.480 were displayed at the American Art Gallery, and the winner's 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:36.840 cards would be printed along with their name on the 0:24:36.840 --> 0:24:40.520 back of the card. Prong would also sometimes purchase the 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:43.040