Series I. Greeting Cards, circa 1925-1945

More than any other category of ephemera, greeting cards from past years survive in great numbers, often having been used in scrapbooks, or saved as personal mementos. The greeting card or "message of good will" as a personal form of communication has a long history, but emerged commercially during the 19th century, concurrent with the rise of a new and prosperous leisured middle class, the advent of reliable, efficient postal service, and new forms of mechanization in printing methods that made the mass production of color printing affordable for the first time. In America, the first leading exponent of the greeting card was German lithographer Louis Prang (1824-1909) who is credited as being the first to introduce chromolithography to the production of greeting cards in America. By the early 20th century, the foundations for a full-fledged industry had been laid with the founding of Hallmark (today, the world's largest greeting card company) in 1910. Throughout the 20th century, the variety of card themes and sentiments would evolve dramatically, from traditional annual celebrations to the acknowledgement of almost every experience in everyday life.