Greeting Cards
Title
Greeting Cards
Creator
Jacob Schlitt
Description
"Greeting cards have always had a special significance in my life."
Date
2011/2012
Format
application/pdf
Type
text
Language
en
Identifier
Greeting_Cards
Text
Greeting Cards
Greeting cards have always had a special significance in my life. I looked forward with great anticipation to receiving birthday cards, and have a folder containing birthday cards that were sent to me, dating back to my first birthday. The champion birthday card sender was my cousin Ruth. She sent me a birthday card every year from my first birthday to the year she died, and I was approaching 60. I used to joke that I knew it really was my birthday when I went to the mailbox and took out Ruth’s birthday card. As a result, I had to reciprocate and made sure to send her daughter a birthday card each year.
In elementary school, I had no disposable income, so I was unable to buy cards for my mother on her birthday or on Mother’s Day. Being resourceful, I would make my own. It is amazing what you can do with crayons and a little imagination. And my mother loved my hand made cards. However, by the time I entered high school and had a part time job, I had the money to buy a card for my mother.
The only other cards that I remember sending out, besides birthday cards, were Jewish New Year cards. They were smaller and came in packs of 10 or 12, for around 59 cents. My mother and I would sit at the kitchen table deciding whom to send cards to. This was determined in part by remembering whether they sent us cards the year before. Then I would write something geared to the recipient, and sign it for my mother and myself. These cards were apparently printed by a Jewish card company, possibly Shulsinger. They may still be around, but it appears that the card market is now dominated by Hallmark. For many years prior to World War II, my uncle Hersh Leib in Paris would send us an ornately hand lettered Jewish New Year post card which we treasured. That was a labor of love. It became an inspiration for the cards I made for my mother.
When I was a kid (that phrase pops up in almost all my memoirs) we bought our greeting cards from the neighborhood candy store. A better selection was usually found in stationery stores. (When I was a kid, I wondered why they were called stationery stores. Aren’t all stores stationary? I later learned the difference between stationery and stationary.) Which brings me to how I acquired my expertise in greeting cards. As I may have written elsewhere, my part time job when I went to CCNY was as a clerk in the Reich and Schrift stationery store at 146 Hamilton Place, just four short blocks from CCNY.
The variety of cards: Norcross (my favorite), Rust Craft (for old ladies), Gibson (in between) and Hallmark. A cheap line which we didn’t carry was American.
My job: taking customers to the racks for the particular card they were looking for—birthdays, anniversary, wedding, sympathy, get well. Mostly in the back. In the front of the store, we would display special occasion, and holiday cards—graduation, mother’s day, father’s day, Easter, Christmas etc. It was also my responsibility to keep the cards neat and to replace the cards in the racks from the drawers below the racks, and to inform Mr or Mrs Reich if we were running out of a particular card.
Today: e-cards. My e-mail is inundated with ads from American Greetings and Blue Mountain.
Greeting cards have always had a special significance in my life. I looked forward with great anticipation to receiving birthday cards, and have a folder containing birthday cards that were sent to me, dating back to my first birthday. The champion birthday card sender was my cousin Ruth. She sent me a birthday card every year from my first birthday to the year she died, and I was approaching 60. I used to joke that I knew it really was my birthday when I went to the mailbox and took out Ruth’s birthday card. As a result, I had to reciprocate and made sure to send her daughter a birthday card each year.
In elementary school, I had no disposable income, so I was unable to buy cards for my mother on her birthday or on Mother’s Day. Being resourceful, I would make my own. It is amazing what you can do with crayons and a little imagination. And my mother loved my hand made cards. However, by the time I entered high school and had a part time job, I had the money to buy a card for my mother.
The only other cards that I remember sending out, besides birthday cards, were Jewish New Year cards. They were smaller and came in packs of 10 or 12, for around 59 cents. My mother and I would sit at the kitchen table deciding whom to send cards to. This was determined in part by remembering whether they sent us cards the year before. Then I would write something geared to the recipient, and sign it for my mother and myself. These cards were apparently printed by a Jewish card company, possibly Shulsinger. They may still be around, but it appears that the card market is now dominated by Hallmark. For many years prior to World War II, my uncle Hersh Leib in Paris would send us an ornately hand lettered Jewish New Year post card which we treasured. That was a labor of love. It became an inspiration for the cards I made for my mother.
When I was a kid (that phrase pops up in almost all my memoirs) we bought our greeting cards from the neighborhood candy store. A better selection was usually found in stationery stores. (When I was a kid, I wondered why they were called stationery stores. Aren’t all stores stationary? I later learned the difference between stationery and stationary.) Which brings me to how I acquired my expertise in greeting cards. As I may have written elsewhere, my part time job when I went to CCNY was as a clerk in the Reich and Schrift stationery store at 146 Hamilton Place, just four short blocks from CCNY.
The variety of cards: Norcross (my favorite), Rust Craft (for old ladies), Gibson (in between) and Hallmark. A cheap line which we didn’t carry was American.
My job: taking customers to the racks for the particular card they were looking for—birthdays, anniversary, wedding, sympathy, get well. Mostly in the back. In the front of the store, we would display special occasion, and holiday cards—graduation, mother’s day, father’s day, Easter, Christmas etc. It was also my responsibility to keep the cards neat and to replace the cards in the racks from the drawers below the racks, and to inform Mr or Mrs Reich if we were running out of a particular card.
Today: e-cards. My e-mail is inundated with ads from American Greetings and Blue Mountain.
Original Format
application/msword
Collection
Citation
Jacob Schlitt, “Greeting Cards,” Autobiographical stories & other writing by Jacob Schlitt, accessed April 24, 2024, https://tsirlson.omeka.net/items/show/191.