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The earliest printed Christmas Card, (see above), was made in
1843 by Sir Henry Cole, an Englishman. Sir Henry decided to have a card printed,
in colorful
black and white, that he could send to relatives and friends.
In truth, it was a labor saving device to reduce the chore of writing
Christmas greetings letters in long hand with a goose quill pen. In those steam
powered days word processors, the Internet and e-mail were still on the drawing
boards of various mad professors so the Christmas card was a top invention.
Sir Henry's card was produced by John Alcott Horsley and pictured a
family enjoying Christmas celebrations and raising their glasses in a toast.
This greatly shocked temperance workers who quickly denounced it. The first
greeting card produced in the United States was by a German lithographer, Louis
Prang, who emigrated to New York around 1850. Prang set up a workshop in Boston,
Massachusetts in 1860 and began to produce the first colored
cards. At this
time, however, greeting cards were more often linked to New Year than to
Christmas.
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