When did giving Christmas Cards become popular ?
People had been making hand made Christmas Cards for years and delivering them in person and through the mail. Sending them through the mail was getting more and more popular and in 1822 the Superintendent of Mail complained to congress that he needed to hire 16 more postal deliverers for the Christmas season. He wanted the Govt. to limit how much mail a person could send, luckily he did not get that wish. Also in 1822 a man in England, always in Europe have you noticed, named Sir Henry Cole commissioned illustrator John Calcott Horsley to design a printed card for Christmas. 1,000 of them were sold with in moments. And over in the US when the very wealthy heard about it they started importing printed cards directly from England. In 1875 a German immigrant named Louis Prang opened his own lithography shop in the US. He made some of the most beautiful scenes ever seen by the human eye. His beautiful designs were so popular that by 1881 Louis was creating more than 5 million Christmas Cards every year. We made homemade cards with our home school group this week for our troops and then today we made some printed cards for our friends and neighbors. We also made some yummy cookies to deliver with our cards but I forgot to take pictures of them. BUSY day today.
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