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Show Greeting Cards Show a Basic Social Urge Man has always found some means by which to exchange greetings greet-ings and salutations upon appropriate appropri-ate occasions. The papyrus salutations saluta-tions used by the Egyptians; the Apostle Paul's phrase "Grace to you and Peace" in his Epistles; the exchange ex-change of symbols such as gloves, garters, handkerchiefs, or bows, in the Dark ages of Europe all these were manifestations of this basic social urge. This year marks the 100th anniversary anni-versary of the appearance in England Eng-land of the first known Christmas Greeting Card. The original card is now in the possession of the British Brit-ish museum. In the United States the first greeting cards were the work of a Boston lithographer, Louis Prang an exile of the German revolution of 1848 who made the public conscious con-scious of the value of fine art reproductions. re-productions. His example soon led others to venture into the field others oth-ers who first published only Christmas Christ-mas cards, but who soon commenced com-menced to manufacture a wide variety vari-ety of types of greeting cards. Shortly Short-ly after the beginning of the Twen tieth century, greeting card publishers publish-ers began to spring up in increasing numbers. After the early 1920s and continuing continu-ing to the present time, the public demand for more and better greeting greet-ing cards has continued to grow rapidly. Today the exchange of greeting cards is the accepted means by which millions of Americans remember re-member their friends and loved ones, not only at Christmas, but throughout the year. And the greeting greet-ing card in America, by answering in its own modern way, social needs that are age-old, is rapidly becoming becom-ing indigenous to our national life. |