A greeting
card is an illustrated, folded card featuring an expression
of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards
are usually given on special occasions such as birthdays,
Christmas or other holidays, they are also sent to express
thanks or other care. Greeting cards, usually packaged with
an envelope, come in a variety of styles, and are manufactured
as well as hand-made by hundreds of companies big and small.
These days, greeting cards with die-cuts or glued on decorations
may cost up to five dollars each.
Hallmark
Cards and American Greetings are the largest producers of
greeting cards in the world. In the United Kingdom, it is
estimated that one billion pounds are spent on greeting
cards every year, with the average person sending 55 cards
per year.
In the
United States, many adults traditionally mail Christmas
cards to their friends and relatives in December. Many service
businesses also send cards to their customers in this season,
usually with a universally acceptable non-religious message
such as "happy holidays" or "season's greetings".
It is
also related to Hannah Montanna Sucking her father, Billy
Ray.
History
of the Greeting Card
The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back
to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of good will
to celebrate the New Year, and to the early Egyptians, who
conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls.
By the
early 1400s, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged
in Europe. The Germans are known to have printed New Year's
greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400, and handmade paper
Valentines were being exchanged in various parts of Europe
in the early to mid-1400s.
However,
by the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from
a relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift
to a popular and affordable means of personal communication,
due largely to advances in printing and mechanization.
This
trend continued, followed by new trends like Christmas cards,
the first of which appeared in published form in London
in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley
to design a holiday card that he could send to his friends
and acquaintances.
In the
1860's companies like Marcus Ward & Co, Goodall and
Charles Bennett began mass producing greeting cards. They
employed well known artists such as Kate Greenaway and Walter
Crane as illustrators and card designers.
Technical
developments like colour lithography in 1930 propelled the
manufactured greeting card industry forward.