Louis Prang & Company, Boston

Louis Prang & Company was a respected lithography firm when it entered the holiday card market in 1881. The firm was the first to sponsor an open prize exhibition for Christmas card designs in 1880, with distinguished judges and significant prize money. Prang was know for high quality design and technical excellence. White writes,

"Both for their intrinsic merits and the influence they had upon English taste, it is not easy, even now that their novelty has faded, to speak of them except in superlatives. For, with all due respect to our English makers, it is doubtful if any designs on this side of the Atlantic were better printed; indeed it would be a somewhat difficult task to find a dozen examples published in England that could be set forward as worthy rivals to the best dozen of the Boston cards."

Prang was the first major card producer in the United States. Their innovative marketing and publicity strategies affected the entire industry, in both the U.S. and Britain.

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Series of cards with a dining theme, ca. 1880's

Prang was the first firm to introduce cards with black backgrounds, a design theme that became very popular for a time.

MENU.
FOR A CHRISTMAS FEAST.

Of soup, fish, flesh and fowl there be enough,
All toothsome, juicy, tender, never tough.
The wine well iced, -- the welcome the reverse,
Dessert, tobacco, coffee, -- nothing worse,
Then pass the loving cup, filled with that rarity,
The milk of human kindness [?]

A MERRY CHRISTMAS

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THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON

Let those love now
Who never loved
Before; Let those
Who always loved
Now love the
more.

Here's a health to thee.

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A MOST MERRY CHRISTMAS

These are emblems
of the good things,
Dear Old Christmas
Evermore brings.

Mirth and feasting,
Sensible joys-
Reason offers
No counterpoise.

These to enjoy
In their season,
All men behoves
Who have reason.

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Wishing You a Happy New Year, A Calendar for the New Year, 1883

Inside this little card is a verse about the four seasons of the year, and a one-page calendar for 1883.

Front:

Wishing You a Happy New Year.
Sun comes moon comes
Time slips away.

Back:

A Calendar for the New Year
Sun sets moon sets
The year's grown gray.

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Wishing You a Happy New Year, A Calendar for the New Year, 1883

Wishing You a Year of Joy and Blessing

	Spring, with her change of sun and shower,
	And streams released from Winter's chain,
	And blooming [?] bud, and opening flower,
	And greenly growing grain.

	And Summer's shade and sunshine warm
	And raninbows o'er her hilltops bowed,
	And voices in her rising storm,
	God speaking from his cloud!

	And Autumn's fruits and clustering sheaves
	And soft, warm days of golden light,
	The glory of her forest leaves
	And harvest moon at night,

	And Winter with her leafless groves [?]
	And prisoned stream and drifting snow,
	The brilliance of her heaven above,
	And of her heart below.

				J.G. Whittier

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Folding floral card with fringe, ca. 1880's

Though elaborate, this card is still relatively sedate in comparison to the strained novelty of later cards. In 1894, White writes of card design: "Now-a-days, from frosted surfaces to fringed edges, from perforated cardboard to pieces of brown paper, old cigar ends, and rubbish of all sorts-its catholicity is unbounded."

Front: I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Inside:

A Merry Christmas
A Merry Christmas

When friends are nearest,
When joys are dearest,
Oh! then remember me!

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