The Interesting History Behind The Greeting Card

The history of the greeting card goes a long way back and is very interesting. It is believed that the first people to send such cards were the Chinese who did so in ancient times as a means to spread good cheer, especially on the occasion of the Chinese New Year. About the same time, the Egyptians too began using scrolls made out of papyrus to convey their greetings to one another.
Handmade Cards
The first use of greeting card that was actually made by hand can be traced to the early fifteenth century when the Europeans and Germans in particular used the practice of greeting fellow countrymen on New Year’s day. In addition to this big day the Europeans also made paper Valentines (handmade) during the middle part of the fifteenth century.
It took another four to five more centuries before the greeting card was transformed from being quite expensive and also made by hand into an affordable means of sending messages to others. The reason for this was the huge advances that were taking place in the printing industry and also because of greater mechanization and to a lesser degree because of the introduction of postage stamps in the year 1840.
When further improvements took place in the early twentieth century in the form of color lithography the greeting card industry took a giant step forward. During the forties and fifties there were many more humorous greeting cards that began hitting the market and the market for greeting cards really began to thrive in the eighties when these cards began to be known as alternative greeting cards.
In America, a person by the name of Louis Prang who had emigrated from Germany began a small sized lithograph business in the year 1856 in Boston and it is he who is generally acknowledged as being the person responsible for starting the American greeting card industry. In just a decade after he first began business he had perfected the process of color lithography and this helped make his greeting cards the most popular items in the entire United States as well as over in Great Britain.
Thank you cards are very popular – mainly because they help in conveying gratitude as well as sincere good wishes to those who are near and dear to you. Greeting cards on the other hand are excellent means of connecting with others including friends and associates and they also help to recognize important events whenever they take place.