Laura Seddon Greeting Card Collection, Historical greeting card collection at Manchester Metropolitan University, England
The Laura Seddon Greeting Card Collection is a large holding of around 32,000 cards from British publishers held in Manchester, combining hand-printed and machine-made examples from different time periods. The collection ranges from early handcrafted productions to modern printed versions, documenting the evolution of design and printing technology across centuries.
The collection was assembled by Laura Seddon and donated to Manchester Metropolitan University in 1992, where she was recognized as an Honorary Fellow for this contribution. This gift allowed the university to preserve and maintain access to one of Britain's most extensive greeting card archives.
The collection displays greeting cards from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, showing how people expressed sentiments and what imagery mattered to them at the time. The cards reflect the printing methods and artistic preferences of those periods, offering windows into daily life and social values of earlier generations.
Visitors need to book an appointment in advance to access the collection in the Reading Room and examine the cards closely. Photography of specific items requires permission from the archivists, which should be requested beforehand.
The collection holds Britain's first commercial Christmas card from 1843 and the only known copy of America's first Christmas card from 1850. These two rare items make it an invaluable resource for studying the early history of Christmas greeting cards.
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