The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-12-13
ORIGIN OF THE
 CHRISTMAS CARD
Woman Suggested it First Back in 1873 at Time of Vienna
 Exposition
N. Y. Post.)

When you go this week to the christmas-card counter and select a 1ozen or two of these decorative bits >uggestive of the holiday season, per haps it will not occur to you to won Ser how the Christmas card came into being It doubtless will be just your hazy notion that there were always Christmas cards, or at least for the last nineteen hundred and twelve years Of course, some one must have thought of the idea at some time, and others must have devoted thought and ingenuity to the preparation or the thousa nds which lie there on the counter for your choosing. But as for how long the Christmas card haS bean an inStitution-why, perhaps you are not sure that Robert HIerrTck, verses originally for a holiday greet Ing on a Christmas card Oh, yes, surely the idea is as old as that. Christmas subjects in the M1odle Agas2-and so on
 Neither Herrick nor the Italian painters had notion of a Christmas card The idea is virtually 8 new conner, and Is altogether American in its inception and development, ana American artists of the highest stand ing contributed to it's growth-J ohm La Farge and others. The story Of the beginning of the card is an inter esttne one and has not a. little to do with the story of the better apDre- citation of art which has come in this country in the last three decades The Christmas card as we know 1t noW had it's beginning in the simply deco rated bushes card of Boston art dealer.
 position was held. To this the art dealer sent a small exhibition. and with 1t a number of hdS business floral floral design in colors about the name Even obvious a thing as this as it seems now, was much com mented on and admired. To one wo- came that a design of the same sort, with Merry Christmas' and Happy New Year" would be a pretty remem- brance to send to friends at the hol- tday time So new was the idea. that it Gsd not occur to Mrs. Whitney for some years that the appropriate de- signs of holly or mfstletoe might be employed with good effect. The next year a1ter she made her suggestion to the art dealer, Mrs. Whitney saw that the tokens were placed on sale floral decorations for the most part unseasonable, done on small tinted boards. Immediate popularity came to them, and within year the cards were issued for Easter, St Va1entdne's s Day, New Year, and Thanksgiving, all with the same conventiona1ity of ex-
 Prom the first indication of favor, however, the developm ent of the in novafion was more than the ordinary story of ingenuity. The art dealer saw great possibilities offered by the cards and he conceived the thou ght of making them a real expression of the best that could be had in artistic design; 1t Is much to his credit that he was able to discern what was real 1y worth while. For 1t was done in those decades just after the Civil War that taste was at such a low level in the United States Perhaps forty years from now the people will be astounded at what passes muster for beautiful with today; but it Is fair to say that the difference in standards between then and now will not be so great as between the period of 1873 and 1912. MT. Dooley put it Ghts way: Those were the years .whin tn iron dogs howled on tn lawn and people come fir miles to see a grotto built iv relics iv tn Chicago dre-~ Besides these open-air adocn- ments. the interiors bOasted ta sse1led 1ambreq1ins pictures execrab1e in sentiment and execution resting on eaSels, with throws draped about wax fruit under glass jars, and such