New Year’s Past On Paper

 New Year’s Day has a distinguished past which has left behind a treasure trove of paper collectibles. They range from trade cards and early postcards to magazine covers and party programs.

 Granted there was precious little paper in 46 BC when Julius Caesar finalized the Roman calendar. The ‘New Year’ has begun on the first day of January ever since. The month, by the way, was named for the Roman god Janus who was usually shown as having two heads. One head looked back at the past year and one head looked forward to the New Year.

 Additionally the Roman festival of celebration was known as Calends, which was later derived the word for calendar. And calendars ultimately became a timely gift welcoming the New Year.

 In 1752 the British adopted the Gregorian calendar for their county and the American colonies thus clearing up confusion and re-establishing January first as the official start of the new year. It took nearly another century before the event was celebrated to any great degree. In 1857 the Illustrated News of London featured a wood cut engraving of a large New Year’s event. The grand affair had reportedly filled a London ballroom where adults and children feasted on an elegant dinner. A detailed account with the illustration also made mention of similar events in the country and in the colonies.

 Victorians distributed fashionable calling cards as early as the 1870s in the United States. Depending on the season of the year, some of the embossed cards bore a scripted Happy New Year on a folded corner. The small, white rectangular card itself usually included a bouquet of flowers or a lovely Victorian dressed woman, sometimes both.

 By the 1880s there was lots of evidence on paper that New Year’s was being fully observed in the United States.

 There were beautifully lithographed trade cards distributed by merchants to eager customers who marveled at their dramatic display of color and often collected them in boxes or albums. Typically the cards advertised a product or a local merchant, or sometimes both. New Year’s trade cards were not as numerous as Christmas or Easter holiday trade cards, but they were certainly in significant use. In 1884 the Bromwell Manufacturing Company opted to distribute full-sized  New Year’s Greeting cards to friends and merchants in Cincinnati, Ohio. The gray cards used geometric bordering to surround the relatively stark greeting.

 In preparation for greeting that same 1884 year invitations for a gala New Year’s party in New York City were sent out to the fortunate on the list. Their message in part asked “the pleasure of yourself and ladies…at the New Year Party at Waffle Hall.” Music was to be provided by Yordon’s Orchestra, and the evening’s entire cost “including supper” was $1.75.

 Meanwhile the Illustrated News of London continued its coverage of such gala affairs during the 1880s. One such story was headlined, “New Year’s Greetings by Telephone” and included an illustration of guests enjoying the “novelty” of a phone conversation. Party attendees were formally dressed in tuxedos and full-length gowns as they sat at elegant dining tables, one man clutched a telephone with an ear piece in each ear.

 An American New Year’s tradition began in 1887 with the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California.  Reportedly a zoologist had seen a similar event in France and had suggest to the Valley Hunt Club that they sponsor “an artistic celebration of the ripening of oranges” at the beginning of the year. The great parade, which produced some stunning pictorial programs, was not always just the prelude to a football game. As late as early 1900s the “midwinter floral pageant” on New Year’s Day included roman chariot races.

 Holiday postcards were a major craze early in the 20th century, and a large number of them extended New Year’s greetings in various ways. Popular topics were a baby or toddler that represented the birth of a New Year and Father  Time with perhaps a grandfather clock in the background. Other symbols on the New Year postcards included pigs, which at the time were a mark of prosperity, and horseshoes.

 Despite the fact that holiday postcards pretty much dominated the greetings business during the first dozen years of that era, some folding cards were available for well wishers. In a 1912 a resident of California sent such a version complete with a small blue-green envelope to a friend in Illinois. On the front were two brightly shining candles. Inside was a simple verse:

 It’s been a happy old year

 Because you are my friend.

 The New Year – may it bring you

 success clear to its end.

 Ironically 1912 was the very same year that the legendary Hallmark Company actually went beyond holiday postcards to add folding greeting cards to their line. During the 1920s the company, and similar companies, found some success with flat greeting cards. Such non-folding New Year’s greetings often offered contrasting bright colors on rather dark cardboard issues.

 The 1920s also saw a whole industry of paper toys, favors, and decorations for bringing in the New Year. One company offered 200 different styles of paper hats for that particular holiday celebration. Among them were pointed hats with comic figures, skull caps, chefs hats, chauffeurs’ hats with goggles, hats with feathers, and some that simply said, Kiss Me. Such hats could have tinsel trimming, and came in lithographed colors of red or blue with a paper plume.

 Additionally catalogs of that decade also offered paper shakers, paper clowns, crepe paper flowers, paper lanterns, paper tubes filled with assorted confetti, and cardboard horns with decorations of fringe.

 In 1929 McCall’s magazine offered hints for decorating the home while hosting a New Year’s Party. They suggested invitations be written on oblong cards highlighted with tiny calendars, sketches of hour-glasses, and “the little New  Year, or Janus.” The magazine also called for a Gate of Years archway where Janus lets through only those in costume.  Further, the house would be decorated with greens, and with bells hung from every available place. They also recommended that “an hour-glass, a scythe, and a Kewpie New Year (figure) occupy conspicuous places.”

 And if a party at home was not planned there was always the option of a night out at a night club or movie theater. In 1929 Twentieth Century Fox released to the silver screen New Year’s Eve. Featuring the glamour and excitement of high society’s New Year reveling it starred Mary Astor and Charles Morton. Today posters and lobby cards from that uniquely named film are prized collectibles.

 New Years greeting cards were in fairly frequent use despite the Great Depression of the 1930s and war-tom years in the early 1940s. During the patriotic times of World War II some New Year’s cards were issued bearing images of the flags of the United States and China. They were designed to call attention to the alliance of the two nations during the worldwide conflict and sometimes extended greetings in both English and Chinese.

 The famed children’s magazine Jack and Jill featured a New Year’s cover in 1947, which included a baby blowing a trumpet over a village of people. The villagers were in turn celebrating as the town’s clock tower reached midnight

 That same issue also included a song called Little Happy New Year. Written by Mary Peacock it read in part: Little   Happy New Year’s come at last.

 He slipped right in when the Old Year passed.

 Let the merry bells ring loud and long,

 For Little Happy New Year likes a jolly song.

 During the 1950s New Year’s party celebrations became more widespread in this country producing a variety of invitations, programs, menus, and related paper materials with holiday flavors.

 Even Communist countries apparently gave some regard to the New Year in the 1950s. Recently auctioned as a 1958  Communist party greeting sent out to mark the New Year in Bulgaria. Reportedly the two-sided folding cards of red and green were sent out by the Party Committee (parti Komitet) to party elite. The example sold at auction came from the estate of General Ivan Kaprielov and Mrs. Kaprielov of the Bulgarian Central Committee.