Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Short Stuff: Christmas Cards

Transcript

Short Stuff: Christmas Cards · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is short Stuff and this is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the special Christmas Week version of Short Stuff. So for
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: this for this episode, Chuck, we're going to do a
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: special Christmas e themed one that also, you can make
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: an argument is card themed as well. That's right, and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we got to give a big shout out to our stuff.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: You shnow. Army member and old friend Robert Paulson also
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: now sends us Christmas ideas every year as a gift
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to us. I think, yeah, he actually says, this is
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: your holiday gift for me, so don't expect anything else.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: But they're good ideas. Yeah, he's He's like, I just
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: want to make sure that the Christmas episodes never dry
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: up or go away. So he's doing his part, which
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is pretty sweet, and he's not the only one. Every
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: once in a while, some other people sends some ideas,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: but Paulson actually sends links. So that's amazing, and this
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: is one of them. He suggested we do one on
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Christmas cards and thank you, Robert. We're going going to
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: do that right now. Yes, and also thanks to t Town,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Britannica Victorian Albert Museum in Smithsonian, And we need to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: talk about Sir Henry Cole, one of the one of
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the early pioneers of industrial design. Yeah. I don't know
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: if he's known as the father of it or not,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: but he very well maybe not okay, but he's close.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: He's the how we'll call him the grand pappy of
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: industrial design. Hum, well, the father came after. It's one
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: of those things where like you know, he probably he's
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: probably is the grand pappy. So he said that he
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: laid the germs of a style. Um, so yeah, I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: guess that was. That's not being the father, that's the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: grand pappy. So um, that's not the only thing he did.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Just doing that would probably be enough to be remembered.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But he was like a civil servant. He was a
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: patron of the yards. He was an important figure in
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the UK in the eighteen forties fifties. In eighteen fifty
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: two he became the founding director of the UM, the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Victorian Albert Museum, which is a world famous art and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: design museum. UM and leading up to that, he was
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: just kind of like a man about town and he
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: made a lot of He was a very popular guy,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: apparently a good person, and he made a lot of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: friends and acquaintances, and that actually became problematic for him, Chuck,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: because one of the things that was a tradition in
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Victorian England was that around the holidays you would write
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a letter to your friends and relatives and acquaintances people
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: you cared about. And um, that was fine. Like Henry
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Cole could have conceivably gotten away without writing letters because
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: he was a very busy guy, and still the Victorians
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: would have considered impolite and genteel. It was a different
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: side of that same tradition that eventually tripped him up. Yeah,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you gotta write people back, unfortunately, and I think we
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: all can identify with an email inbox where you have
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: to write these people back. You can't just ignore these
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: things and couldn't back then. You can't now I guess
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: you could, but you be rude. So he would get letters,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots of letters because he was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a popular guy, and he found himself in a bind
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: around the holidays because he just didn't have time to
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: get back to everyone. So he invented the Christmas card. Yeah,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: it's it's indisputable, Like he was the guy that did it. Um,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and he did it by being a big old patron
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: of the arts. He um got in touch with a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: friend of his, John cow Horsely, and said, hoarsely, you
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: old dog, can you please draw me a great holiday
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: themed image that I can use to transfer a thousand
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: times onto card stock. And Horsely did just that. He
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: made a very sweet little design. In the middle is
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Sir Henry and his family I think a few generations
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of his family, and they're all toasting and um engaging
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: in merriment. Then on the side they're helping out like
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the poor um. And then at the top it says
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to colon blank and then I think it said like
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas in Happy New Year, uh, from Sir Henry Cole.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: And there's maybe a little bit of a space for
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: him to like write like a hush or something as well.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: But that was it. That was the first Christmas card,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and you sent him out in the Christmas of eighteen
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: forty three. Brilliant idea time saver. Although people in Victorian
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: age didn't think it was a little bit of controversy
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: to it because they were like, you know, you didn't
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the point of these Christmas letters is you tell everyone
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: what's going on. You catch everyone up on your family,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: what little uh Timmy is doing, what little Janey is doing? Um,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: how bad our alcohol problem is his parents in Victorian England?
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: What kind of various diseases are going through the family
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: right now? And we get none of this with this card.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: And he went, yeah, but you know what, you're missing
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the point. That is the point I'm thinking about you guys,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: what more needs to be said? Yeah, stop being so grabby,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: so needy. Just accept your card and be happy for once,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: like today. So this required like a little bit of
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: a transition for the Victorians to get over this, this
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: this kind of social transition from these very long drawn
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: out letters and the the expectation that they'd be replied
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to these slightly impersonal at least compared to letters Christmas cards.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: But they actually did finally kind of stick. It wasn't
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: like an instant hit, but by the eighteen sixties they
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: were definitely there and they were helped along, Chuck by
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a few um other factors that all kind of converged
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: together that basically said Christmas cards are it and they're
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: here to stay, and no one cares that little Todd
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: cholera this year We don't want to hear about that.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: We just want the beautiful image in the happy New
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Year and marry Christmas, well wishes. That's right, and we'll
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: get to those convergences right after this. Alright, So the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Christmas card is invented. Christmas started to become really really
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: popular as a holiday in Victorian England, so that all
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of a sudden was converging with the invention of the
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Christmas card, which also converged with the UK, or at
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: least Great Britain introducing the penny posts, where anybody gets
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: into postcard for a penny, which was affordable for almost everybody,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: and all of these things kind of coming together at
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: once meant all of a sudden, the Christmas card was
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: a real deal thing. So one thing about that penny
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: post was that Sir Henry Cole himself actually helped get
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: that passed through Parliament, which is pretty neat that he
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: had his hand in that as well. But um also
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: one of the other things that cemented Christmas in the
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: aisles was Charles Dickens and Christmas Carol, like really laid
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the foundation for how we understand Christmas today, and that
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: book came out the same year that Sir Henry Uh
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: mailed his first Christmas cards back in eighteen forty three.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So all these things came together, and like I said,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: by the eighteen sixties, Christmas cards were happening, not just
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: in the UK, but they've made their way over to
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the US as well. That's right. And the first American
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: printer of the card was Louis or Louis Prang, who
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: was in Roxbury, mass And he debuted his cards in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three, Uh, and he also held the design contest.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: So I think some of these printers were entrepreneurs, they
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: knew how to run a printer, weren't necessarily artists, so
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: they would do people still do you know, commission artist
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: contest today And that was kind of the first Christmas
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: cards in the United States. Yeah, And so for a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: little while there, it looked like Christmas cards were going
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to go the way of Disco. Would eventually go a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: century or so later, um with the introduction of gim cracks,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: which were also called geegaws or do dads or whatever.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: They're just basically little um like a figurine or costume jewelry.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I saw somebody explain they're just a little something you
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: can mail very easily. It says, here's your Christmas President,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of you. And those actually replaced Christmas cards
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: for a couple of decades in the United States. That's right,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: about twenty years. They went away, but they came back.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I think once cameras became a bigger thing. You could
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: include a photo of the family, which was a big deal.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Offset printing came around. You could do multiple colors. You
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: could do that green and you could do that red
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: at the same time, and it made him a big deal.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Of course, in the Hallmark finally comes around and starts
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: making Christmas cards, and uh they as well as Louis
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Prang and other folks. They commissioned works from great artists
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: including Salvador Dali, Norman Rockwell, Grandma Moses, and Jackie Kennedy.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Have you seen Dolly's Christmas cards? Yeah? It was pretty
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I mean I love everything Dolly does. Yeah, pretty cool.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: One of them is Santa Claus growing out of the snow.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: It's like Dolly doing a Christmas card. It's perfect. Yeah,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: it's great. The but um Hallmark also owns the best
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: selling Christmas card of all time, called Three Little Angels
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that debuted in which you have almost certainly seen um
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: because it's still in print today. You can still find
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it today. But it almost looks like a drawing of
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: some kind of precious moments e Um, angels and like
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: three like they all are are praying, but one of
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: them's like got our eyes open and looking at you
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: from the card. Um. But that one has sold something
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: like thirty four million copies. At least it's a lot
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: of copies. That was a Gangbusters Christmas card is the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: best Hallmark could have ever hoped for. That's right. These
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: days there are digital all ternatives. A lot of people
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: just send either on social media or through email or
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: something that'll send a digital version. Because Christmas cards are
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: pretty wasteful. Uh. There are two point five billion holiday
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: cards sold in the US every year, and that's enough
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: to fill a football field tin stories high. And so
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna do Christmas cards, you might want to
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: look into u not using an envelope, just use that postcard.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: If if you gotta mail something, maybe looking to recycled
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: paper post consumer recycling is great. Uh, maybe use wood
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: based paper, Maybe use hemp or veggie fiber. This one sad.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: This next one is well, you cannot recycle the glossy
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: ones or the metallic finishes. So if you're gonna use those,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: those are gonna go in a landfill. Yes, and they're
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: gonna have to be fully replaced next year by brand
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: new trees, which is say it's right. Also another one
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and by the way, this is from t Town, which
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: is a nature preserve in the Hudson Valley. Their blogs
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: suggested these. Um the last one is hilarious because it's
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: gonna make some really great friends out of the people
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: who you work with about the year. But do you
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: want to contact your Dennis veterinarian or you know other
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: people and say, can you please take me off of
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: your Christmas card? Yeah, which is awkward, but it will
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: save the planet, so it's worth it. Because do you
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: really care what your Dennist thinks of you? I don't.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I need to go so they don't like me right now.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I've never sent Christmas cards in my life. Uh, we
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: don't do it, but I do appreciate it when people
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: send them. And I want to shout out Emily's aunt
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: peg who they do the Christmas newsletter every year, which
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I really love. You get a big like one page
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: sheet about the family and all those things we talked about,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: catching everyone up on what everyone's been doing throughout and
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: on intoo and it's really really nice. So big shout
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: out to Aunt Peg and her cousin Alex for this
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: great Christmas tradition in that family. Todd got caller this year. Yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: hopefully that doesn't happen, so big shout out to Aunt
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Paig always means everybody that we wish you a merry
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Christmas and a happy Holidays. And that short stuff is out.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.