Image of Victorian house with Christmas revelers

With the Compliments of the Season

About the Exhibition

Christmas holiday greeting cards have been popular in Great Britain and the United States since their creation in 1843. The advanced development of color printing and the establishment of a trade interested in decorative stationery, combined with Victorian tastes and fashions, led to a profusion of styles and types of cards. This exhibition features some of the cards prevalent during the Victorian era. The cards differ in how they were made and the subjects they show but they all reveal aspects of Victorian life and attitudes.

This online exhibition was originally created in 1992. View the original version of With the Compliments of the Season on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Curators

Erika Dowell

Erika Dowell

Executive Associate Director, Lilly Library and Curator of Modern Manuscripts