Antique Greeting Card Collection
name: label: Collection Collector
content: Norcross, Arthur Dickinson, d. 1968
label: Collection Designer
content: Tuck, Raphael, fl. 1880s
label: Collection Manufacturer
content: Norcross Greeting Card Company (New York (N.Y.))
label: Collection Manufacturer
content: Rust Craft Publishers (Boston, Mass.)
label: Collection Collector
content: Rust, Fred Winslow, 1877?-1949
label: Collection Designer
content: Prang, Louis, fl. 1880-1900
label: Collection Designer
content: Chase, Ernest Dudley, fl. 1920s
label: Collection Collector
content: Rust Craft Greeting Card Company (Dedham (Mass.))
setName: label: See more items in
content: Norcross Greeting Card Collection
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1800-1930 (bulk 1880-1900)
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0058, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This series consists of twenty seven cubic feet of scrapbooks of greeting cards, greeting cards not in volumes, and antique cards used in the Norcross Traveling Greeting Card Exhibition.  This material includes many handmade items as well as the products of early card manufacturers. Also included are Valentine writers and materials of card designers. Materials include mainly scrapbooks of greeting cards, greeting cards not in volumes, and antique cards used in the Norcross Travelling Greeting Card Exhibition.  Also included are related products such as trade cards, postcards, calendars, and calling cards; cards and other materials of Louis Prang and Raphael Tuck; Valentine writers from which verses for cards were drawn; novelties; and a few slides.

The greeting cards not in volumes are arranged primarily by season, occasion, designer and/or manufacturer, physical characteristic and visual image.  Others are unsorted.  The bulk of these cards are dated 1880 1900.  The scrapbooks contain Valentines, Christmas and New Years cards, and sample cards.  Several hundred mounted antique cards make up the Norcross Traveling Greeting Card Exhibition, circa 1825 1905.  These cards are labeled with descriptive information and a set number.  A small number have been un-mounted for convenience in storage and for conservation reasons.

The materials of designer Louis Prang include biographical information, correspondence and notes, greeting cards and artwork, several scrapbooks of cards, a proof book and impressions, printed material, a scrapbook of Lizbeth B. Humphrey (a designer for Prang), and a few other types of material.  The materials of designer Raphael Tuck include volumes of cards and novelties.  Other cards by Prang and Tuck can be found in the "designer, manufacturer" category of the antique greeting cards.  A number of novelties, which were perhaps exchanged in place of greeting cards or exchanged prior to the production of cards, are included as well as volumes of Valentine writers, 1800 1898, from which verses for cards were drawn. Materials include mainly scrapbooks of greeting cards, greeting cards not in volumes, and antique cards used in the Norcross Traveling Greeting Card Exhibition.  Also included are related products such as trade cards, postcards, calendars, and calling cards; cards and other materials of Louis Prang and Raphael Tuck; Valentine writers from which verses for cards were drawn; novelties; and a few slides.

Valentine cards include bank note cameo embossed civil war cobweb (beehive), comic (vinegar) cutouts, embossed envelopes, fans, handmade and handwritten lace-edged and lift-up.  Lithograph lock of hair mechanicals. The cards are arranged first by occasion.  If there is enough materials are then arranged by publisher, physical characteristics, and then general.