Vigo County Historical Society
Historical Treasure Article

Historic Treasure of the Week - December 14, 1986
By Susie Dewey
Vigo County Historical Society

In 1902, cards were heartfelt

The Christmas card is so much a part of the celebration today that many consider it more traditional than it is. Today in the United States more than three billion cards are sold and, presumably, mailed.

In Charles Dickens’ "Christmas Carol" of 1843, the Christmas card is not mentioned for a very good reason. It hadn’t been invented yet.

In 1902, after the Christmas dinner, the gentlemen often retired to the library to drink wine or brandy and the women gathered in the parlor to sip chocolate or tea and look at the Christmas cards, noting who had sent each one.

Young ladies mounted the cards in albums to show their friends. Aunts and grandmothers also had albums to prove their popularity and to use to entertain guests.

Today’s sophisticated media viewers would not believe the admiration the simple cards of

the Victorian era received. Today’s cards are displayed in homes, but few receive the scrutiny the earlier ones did. Because there were fewer cards and fewer impersonal mass mailings, each card had special significance.

The albums for the cards frequently were gifts to young girls. One album was used each year. Several collectors in the Wabash Valley have extensive displays of early cards.

The albums often were embossed with the appropriate designs. One album in the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley shows a deer in a pine forest, embossed in gold.

One of the most seasonal albums, the property of professor Dolph Gotelli of Davis, Calif., is an 1890 album embossed with red-and-white Santas. Each year Gotelli turns his eight-room Victorian mansion into a Christmas wonderland and exhibits his collection of ornaments, toys and decorations. The Christmas card album has a prominent place.

Victorian Christmas greetings differ from the ones in stores today. Pictures were not necessarily seasonal. Favorite pictures included flowers, kittens, birds, dogs and landscapes without any Christmas connotations. Cards often were postcards and were mailed without envelopes.

Pansies, water lilies and roses were especially popular flowers. Robins and bluebirds were favored birds. Sometimes silk fringe or lace framed the cards. A notable card was bordered with tiny bells that rang. Another card, with a picture of a robin, contained a sound device that chirped when the card was touched.

The first Christmas cards were developed in England in the 1840s and contained a picture of a family celebrating Christmas at a festive dinner. Today only a dozen survive, and they are extremely valuable.

In 1878, a Boston printer, Louis Prang, printed the first cards in America. He sent the first printing to Europe because he was uncertain of the American market. He sold the second batch in the United States and gained fame and wealth until the 1890s. During this time, he conducted contests for artists to find the best illustrations. The prizes went up to $2,000 and attracted some of the best illustrators in America.

Until the outbreak of World War I, German producers dominated the market.

In 1902 not all Christmas cards were sentimental. Many contained outrageous puns and childish jokes. Some referred to current events such as riots, suffragettes and changes of government. Some poked fun at such new inventions as bicycles, electricity and telephones.

Jonathan King was perhaps the greatest collector of Christmas cards. In 1870 he began to collect one of every greeting card ever printed. At his death in 1912, his collection of more than one million cards filled two London townhouses and weighed 15 tons.

In 1902 young ladies and old women in the middle class were keeping their albums and displaying them to friends and relatives. They sometimes asked their friends for unusual or pretty cards for their collections.

Queen Victoria sent thousands of cards to relatives in Europe and neighbors at Windsor and Osborne. Secretaries to the Queen kept those sent to her in albums in the royal library. The albums, both royal and common, disappeared on the Twelfth Night not to be seen again until the next holiday season.

The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday through Friday.