Nothing says Happy New Year like a bug looking through a telescope
UNB sharing its collection of holiday cards from the 1800s on social media
While Christmas cards these days usually feature the family posed in front of a lovely winter backdrop or a generic image of Santa Claus, seasonal greetings used to be collected like hockey cards or paintings, and featured anything from a bug looking through a telescope, to a lobster for Christmas dinner.
"A lot of the Christmas cards were kind of considered little pieces of art that they'd want to put in scrapbooks and then show to their friends," said Christine Lovelace, head of the University of New Brunswick's archives and special collections.
UNB has been sharing the hundreds of old Christmas card scrapbooks in its collection on social media over the holiday season.
The collection includes sets of cards sent to Canadian poet Bliss Carman, who was born in Fredericton and lived from 1861 to 1929. It also includes a collection from librarian Beatrice Welling, who amassed cards from Canadian artists.
Some of the cards in the UNB collection were made by New Brunswickers, while others came from across Atlantic Canada and the United States.
"Because they show a connection between people, they do hold a certain amount of interest and inspiration for us today," said Lovelace.
"To look back at all these beautifully done cards and think about the thought that went into sending them and then to the interest in them to collect them and keep them in the book and keep them year after year after year."
The hobby of Christmas cards
Christmas cards were so popular in the 1870s and '80s that they would actually be reviewed in newspapers, like movies and TV shows today.
And it went well beyond Christmas, according to Lovelace. People would send out New Year's cards and Easter cards as well. Basically, if there was a celebration, people would send a special card.
There were even specific scrapbooks designed exclusively for showing off holiday cards, and the cards themselves were affordable, making them easy to collect.
"Because they were considered little pieces of art, it was something that a lot of young ladies of a certain age would do," said Lovelace.
"Some [were] just bought to be saved as art, but a lot of them would have a little message on the back."
The Fredericton Region Museum also has a collection of Christmas cards from the late 1800s and early 1900s, collected by New Brunswick families.
Melynda Jarratt, a member of the exhibits committee for the museum, said old Christmas postcards make for more than just a neat collection. They tell the story of the people who sent them.
"The messages on the back side of the postcard are, of course, the snapshot in time … That is the only remaining evidence we have of that family's lives at that period in our histories," said Jarratt.
She said it's easy to "put together the story of their lives and of the communities' lives because they're detailed enough that you start to know who these people are."
Unique art
Cards in the UNB collection might not seem especially festive, but that is how they were made. The cards feature scenes such as a bug looking into a telescope at the moon, a lobster for Christmas dinner, and two dogs fighting over a blanket.
"I don't like lobster, but I kind of want to eat lobster when I see that," said Lovelace. "So not quite what you'd be used to in Christmas cards today."
Christmas cards were first started by Henry Cole in the United Kingdom because he didn't have time to answer all the letters he would get around the holidays. So with the help of artist John Callcott Horsley, he came up with the idea for the first commercially produced Christmas cards.
"It would save time, it would show someone that he was thinking of them and responding to them and sending them Christmas cheer. But he didn't have time to write these traditional Christmas letters back," said Lovelace.
But Lovelace said the era of collectible and unique Christmas cards came to an end in 1910, when Hallmark started mass producing them. Santa Claus and religious scenery became more popular, and Christmas cards became less artistic and more generic.
Now, as much of people's communication has become digital, Jarratt said it will be harder for historians to get a glimpse into the past.
"Woe be the historian of the future who tries to pull together the story of this society from the digital record because it's not going to be available. Who among us remembers CDs, flash drives, those great big floppy disks?" said Jarratt.
"What's going to happen in the future? We don't know. But I do know that the letters, these postcards still exist. Those records still exist. The letters that my grandparents wrote to each other during the Second World War still exist."
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With files from Lars Schwarz