A Short History of the Greeting Card: From Handmade Notes to Custom Designs

The greeting card industry is worth billions. Roughly seven billion cards are sent in the United States every year. In the United Kingdom, more greeting cards are sent per person than anywhere else on Earth.

But before it was an industry, it was a gesture. A piece of paper, a few words, handed to someone who mattered. The form has changed almost beyond recognition. The impulse behind it has not.

The earliest known greeting card

In 1415, Charles, Duke of Orleans, was imprisoned in the Tower of London following the Battle of Agincourt. From his cell, he wrote love poems to his wife in France. One of them — written on vellum — is now housed in the British Library. It is the oldest known greeting card in existence, over six hundred years old.

Around the same period, handmade paper cards were appearing across Europe. In Germany, woodcuts were used to create decorative New Year greetings. In China, people had been exchanging good wishes on paper during the New Year for centuries before Europeans had thought of it.

The Victorian boom: penny post and mass production

For most of history, sending a letter was expensive. In Britain before 1840, postage was calculated by distance and paid by the recipient — sometimes more than a day's wages for a working person. Written communication was largely a privilege of the wealthy.

Then, in 1840, the Penny Post was introduced. For one penny, you could send a letter anywhere in Britain. Suddenly, ordinary people could afford to communicate in writing. The effect on greeting cards was immediate and dramatic.

In 1843 — just three years after the Penny Post launched — Henry Cole commissioned the first commercial Christmas card. Designed by John Callcott Horsley, it showed a family gathered around a festive table and was sold for a shilling each. Around one thousand were printed. Today, surviving examples sell at auction for thousands of pounds.

The Victorian era that followed became the golden age of the greeting card. Elaborate designs featuring flowers, ribbons, birds, and lace were exchanged for Christmas, Valentine's Day, birthdays, and the New Year. Sending cards became a social ritual — evidence that you remembered, that you cared, that you were part of someone's world.

America and the birth of an industry

In the United States, Louis Prang — a German-born lithographer working in Boston — began mass-producing greeting cards in the 1870s. His Christmas cards were so popular that he became known as "the father of the American Christmas card." By 1881, he was printing and selling five million cards a year.

Then, in 1910, a young man named Joyce Hall arrived in Kansas City with a shoebox of picture postcards and a plan to sell them through bookstores and pharmacies. His company — originally called Hall Brothers — would become Hallmark Cards. Today it remains one of the largest greeting card companies in the world.

The 20th century: cards for everything

Through the twentieth century, the occasions for sending cards multiplied. Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, Graduation, Get Well Soon, Congratulations, Thank You, Sympathy — each became its own category, its own section in the card shop.

Cards also became more personal in tone. The rise of humour cards in the 1950s and 60s reflected a cultural shift toward informality. The stiff, formal Victorian card gave way to the witty, irreverent, sometimes absurdist card we recognise today.

The digital age: threat or opportunity?

When email arrived in the 1990s, the greeting card industry braced itself. When social media arrived in the 2000s — making it possible to write "Happy Birthday!" on someone's wall instead of buying a card — many predicted the physical card would disappear entirely.

It did not. Card sales declined, but they did not collapse. What emerged instead was something interesting: a renewed appetite for cards that feel personal and meaningful. As digital communication became faster and more disposable, the physical card became more valuable — not less.

People began to want cards that were genuinely theirs. Cards with their own words, their own photos, their own design. The custom card was not a new idea, but the technology to produce it affordably and beautifully had finally caught up with the desire.

Where we are now

The greeting card is not dying. It is evolving. Six centuries after Charles of Orleans sent a love poem from the Tower of London, people are still finding ways to say on paper what they cannot quite say out loud.

The medium changes. The impulse behind it does not.