You have probably sent and received Christmas cards for as long as you can remember – just like your parents and grandparents too. But in historical terms, the tradition of sending cards at Christmas time is actually relatively new, having started only around 170 years ago. Like so many holiday traditions, from the turkey to the Christmas tree, the history of the Christmas card dates back to the Victorians.
A Time-Saving Tradition
The first Christmas card was born out of a dilemma that many of us face during the holiday season: having too little time. Sir Henry Cole, a scholar and civil servant in Victorian Britain, was a very sociable but busy man. In this period, it was customary to write long and personal letters to acquaintances to wish them a ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.’ With the introduction of the ‘Penny Post’ in 1840 – allowing a sender to mail a letter or card anywhere in the country for just one penny – these seasonal letters boomed among the upper classes. So in the season of 1843, Sir Cole’s unanswered holiday mail was seriously stacking up, and with little time to respond to all his well-wishers, he had to find a solution!
Sir Cole asked an artist friend, J.C. Horsley, for assistance. Together, they created an illustration of a family at a table celebrating the holiday with the greeting ‘A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year To You.’ They had a thousand copies made by a London printer, each printed on a piece of cardboard 5′ 1/8″ x 3′ 1/4″ inches in size. On the top of every print was the salutation, ‘TO:_____,’ allowing Cole to easily fill in a name and personalize his responses. The first Christmas card had arrived!
Christmas Cards in the USA
While some of the early Victorian Christmas cards made their way to the USA, the custom wasn’t really seen across the Atlantic until later in the 19th century. One reason was that a uniform postal rate like Britain’s ‘Penny Post’ wasn’t in place until 1883, so it was expensive to send mail long distances. However, the American Christmas card found a champion in Louis Prang, a Prussian immigrant and print shop owner near Boston who printed his first holiday cards in 1875. Illustrated with a simple flower and the greeting ‘Merry Christmas,’ these first American Christmas cards and those that followed, looked quite different from their British counterparts. Instead of depicting banqueting or religious scenes, they focused on animals and nature.
In 1880, Prang hosted the first-ever holiday card design challenge! On the jury was a list of famous art critics, artists, and architects, but there was also, remarkably, a public vote to select the winners. The first contest drew 800 entries and ran for 4 more years, with many of the winners being women.
20th Century Innovations
The modern Christmas card industry really began in 1915, when a little-known Kansas City-based postcard printing company, the Hall Brothers (later to be renamed Hallmark), published its first holiday card. It used a new technique, called ‘offset’ printing, with rubber rollers on the presses instead of heavy metal plates, to develop sharper, more vibrant designs. Hallmark’s beautiful colorful cards became incredibly popular and provided some much-needed cheer in tough times during the First and Second World Wars.
The company also promoted a new format for Christmas cards – 4″ x 6″ inches, folded, and sent in an envelope. This new style gave senders more space to share family news, but without the pressure of writing a whole letter. In a bid to boost the popularity of their cards even further (and to beat the competition), Hallmark reached out to famous artists to create designs. Hence the creation of Christmas cards from figures like Salvador Dali and Norman Rockwell.
Christmas Cards Today
The first personalized Christmas card was sent as far back as 1891. Annie Oakley, the famous star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, was in Glasgow, Scotland for Christmas in 1891. She sent cards back to her friends and family in the USA featuring a picture of her on it dressed in the local Scottish tartan! However, it wasn’t until the late 20th and early 21st centuries that new printing methods allowed mass-produced cards to be easily customized. Since then, cards with family names, photographs, and news updates have become the norm, and creating them has never been easier. The busy Sir Henry Cole would be very pleased!
Now that you’ve learned a little about the history of Christmas cards, take a look at the future of the tradition with our run-down of our favorite new Zazzle collections and the latest holiday card trends.
Merry Christmas!
Matilda is Marketing Manager in the International Team, bringing Zazzle to customers everywhere from Sydney to Stockholm.
