A Token of My Affection: Greeting Cards and American Business Culture

A Token of My Affection: Greeting Cards and American Business Culture
ISBN-10
0231118783
ISBN-13
9780231118781
Category
Social Science
Pages
380
Language
English
Published
2004
Publisher
Columbia University Press
Author
Barry Shank

Description

For more than 150 years, greeting cards have tapped into and organized a shared language of love, affection, and kinship, becoming an integral part of American life and culture. Sumptuously illustrated, A Token of My Affection follows the evolution of the modern greeting card industry from a traditional printing and stationery business in the mid-nineteenth century to the multibillion-dollar industry it is today. Blending archival research in business history with a study of surviving artifacts and a literary analysis of a range of relevant texts and primary sources, Barry Shank demonstrates how greeting cards have affected and defined experiences of status, longing, desire, social connectedness, and love. Fascinating and surprising, A Token of My Affection shows what an industry devoted to emotional sincerity means for the lives of all Americans.

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