Sir Henry Cole is credited as being one of the first who suggested a design for a printed card to be sent to many relatives and friends. He submitted his idea to artist John Calcott Horsley in 1843. One thousand copies of it sold for one shilling each.
"A merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You" appeared on the card of three panels, along with a reminder to feed the hungry and clothe the naked to the left and the right. The center panel depicted a family of three generations toasting the holiday season. Those of the Temperance movement complained that the card promoted the consumption of alcoholic beverages, but despite their outcry, the card successfully gave birth to the greeting card industry which spread to the United States.
The Castell Brothers, Dickes & Mansell, Marcus Ward, and Thomas De La Rue, greatly contributed to the growth of the Christmas card industry, as did others who supplied established stationers with them. Their cards were imported to the United States and also arrived in American mailboxes.
The New York lithograph firm of R. H. Pease presented a Christmas card in 1850 that may be considered the first printed in the United States. As described by George Buday, "The design includes the features of a small, rather elf-like Santa Claus with fur trimmed cap, sleigh and reindeer. A ballroom with dancers, the building marked 'Temple of Fancy', an array of Christmas presents and Christmas dishes and drinks decorate the four corners of the card, while in the center, we see a young couple with three children visibly delighted with their presents; behind the family group a black servant is laying the table for the Christmas dinner. In addition to the central 'A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year' the ornamented lettering includes 'To: and 'From:' with spaces to be filled by the sender." One example remains today in the archives of the RustCraft Company.
It is also said the real "Father of the American Christmas Card", was a heavily bearded man by the name of Louis Prang, (1824 -1909) an artist, writer, and the producer of Prang Water Colors and the color wheel denoting primary, secondary, and intermediate colors.
After being born to a German mother and a French Huguenot father in Breslau, Louis printed calico cloth in his father's shop. He later traveled Europe as a journeyman, then in 1850, he entered the United States.
Louis made his home in the Roxbury section of Boston, and became an engraver in the employment of Gleason's, and Joseph Mayer. Prang also became a lithographer, color-printer, and publisher, and he printed chromo lithographs after the end of the Civil War. He'd set up his own business in 1860, utilizing a series of metal plates instead of lithographic stone, which resulted in richly colored images surpassing black and white, hand tinted lithographs and engravings of Currier & Ives or Kellogg. He began issuing color reproductions of famous paintings in the 1870's.
The first modern, color printed Christmas cards were produced by Prang in Massachusetts in 1875 and were an immediate success with the public who demanded more. Louis Prang began holding contests with prizes as high as $100 to $300 which was a substantial amount of money in the 1870's and 1880's. Great artists such as Elihu Vedder, Thomas Morgan, and Will H. Low were quick to submit their designs, and cards designed by them are now in great demand by collectors.
Tastes of the Victorian age became more opulent, and so it was that some of Prang's Christmas cards were embellished with silken fringe, cord, tassels, and other rich touches. Prang also remembered those with tight budgets and produced beautiful, affordable cards to the less afluent, labeled as a product of the L. Prang Company, along with the date.
The market became flooded with cheap imitations of Prang's products in 1890 by Marcus Ward, Rapheal Tuck, and other original groups of American and European card producers. German imports impressed the public with mechanical components that folded out or otherwise moved via a paper tab, and where Prang used layers of gold ink and other quality materials, imitators resorted to glitter applied with glue to represent snow. Cards featured cut out areas, were embossed, and became cheap novelties while hardly offering a message of greeting.
Louis refused to lower his standards and compete in the market, and stopped card production soon after 1890. He continued artistic printing and good quality work after joining the Taber company. The Taber-Prang company moved to Springfield in 1892.
During the course of his life, Louis Prang also became a writer, the "Prang Standards of Color", "Prang method of Art Instruction", and the "Prang's Natural History Series", the latter being published in 1873. "Prang's Aids for Objective Teaching", published in 1877, along with "Prang's Natural History Series" greatly effected art instruction throughout the United States.
In 1882 Louis established the Prang Educational Company and began publishing drawing books for the classroom, and Prang Water Colors was among standard school supplies for decades. A son of a Leipzig artist, Sylvester Koehler, entered the United States at twelve years old in 1849 and in 1868 became technical manager of Prang and Company. He also became one of the founders of the American Art Review, and curator of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
The colorfully printed penny postcard nearly replaced the traditional Christmas card after making it's appearance at the end of the 19th century due to a decision by the U.S. Postal Service and a contract with Ilisha Morgan of Springfield. The post card, lacking an envelope, was less expensive to send and easier to address, though personal messages were exposed for all to read. Some were printed in the United States, but large numbers of them were imports from Germany and England.
Cards in envelopes cost a penny more to send than those without, making a substantial difference to those sending greetings to hundreds of people. By the 1920's, however, the traditional Christmas card with it's envelope had returned. The "studio card" appeared in the 1960's with it's stark greetings and design, but by the 1970's more artistic cards with longer poetic greetings were back in vogue.
And so it is to this day, Christmas and other greeting cards are commonly found for sale in department stores, and often find their way into our homes and hearts.