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At Ancestorville, we have over 650 Victorian era calling cards on our site, all searchable by surname and county, and noted where they were found. They range from the ornate die cut Victorian hidden name cards, to handwritten cards in beautiful old script, to printed cards with simply the name of the bearer. Some cards have the wife's maiden name and printed town name left for us as genealogy clues, and some not. They offer an invaluable look at family names, customs, naming patterns, nicknames, and genealogy. Each offers an important clue as to surname, and lost family ties.
We also have many early coated stock cards from the 1840-60’s, also known as "Friendship Cards". This card is a cousin to the early Reward of Merit cards, a school related paper item given by a teacher to a student for good conduct. Often these friendship cards have moral lessons, poetry, quotes, or verse indicative of the time period. They also may be religious in nature. Above we see a beautiful example from our ancestor site. These cards are usually hand tinted or colored, as they were printed before the advent of printed color or chomolithography. Many of our 1870-90's cards were found together as a collection of cards in a certain region of the country. We sort them by like family names, if so, and carefully document the location each item was found; as to county, state and region. Please note that where an object is found, is not necessarily an indication of where a family lived. Although sometimes a clue, ancestral migration made the mailing and movement of ephemera common between separated family members. Each
family member had their own card; parents, brothers, sisters,
older children, newlyweds. Cards were also printed announcing
the joyful birth of a child. Calling cards were first introduced
in France in the early 1800's and caught on through Europe
and America as an important social craze. The height of the
popularity of the calling card era coincides with the reign
of Queen Victoria, Queen of England from 1837-1901, which
is commonly referred to as the "Victorian era".
Queen Victoria truly lived her life in celebrity status,
influencing both a generation at home and "across the
pond." We suggest the 1997 film "Mrs.
Brown", starring Judy Dench as Queen Victoria, as
a wonderful look at her steady and illustrious reign.
The CDV
or Carte de Visite Photograph, the first paper photographs,
have their roots in the calling card, as well as the Advertising
Trade Card. We see an unusual advertising trade card,
in the style of a calling card at page top. This advertises
the Philadelphia area woman run millinery business of Mrs.
E Harris.
The term "Calling" or the verb "to call" was a common Victorian term for making a visit. The card was left at the door, or in the front parlor in a silver urn, basket or "Card Receiver". These receivers were placed to hold cards for the family, whether they be home or not. Cards left reminded the family of who had called, thus requiring a visit in return. This served as a mode of communication, to receive messages, greetings and announcements of who was in town, births, deaths, sympathy announcements, engagements, and general social events. As a form of communication, the calling card in itself was considered a very important message. It was also an exciting day in the social life of a young Victorian era family member to be granted their first calling card. Proper
manners, and acceptable social etiquette were paramount to
one’s social standing in a community, and "Calling" or "Visiting" was
the most important leisure activity of the period. Calling
card etiquette itself dictated the clothing, length of stay,
time of visit and how long to stay. Women were the more frequent
callers, this being an important ritual of daily life of
upper class women. It was simply the job of the woman of
the house to keep the family in good social standing in the
larger social world. There were strict rules on how a woman
was to behave, with men's calling habits showing less strict
rules or ceremony.
Cards were often (thankfully!) saved and glued into scrapbooks as family mementos. Young people exchanged cards and autograph and scrapbooks to be kept as cherished mementos. The humorous card above was found recently. This card first had us looking at the surname for clues, until it was realized it to be a humorous Victorian play on initials! Rarely would we use initials today in all our legal and social dealings, although it was very common practice in the 1800's to do so. Overall, we see each calling card on our site as a beautiful, one of a kind piece of history, and with the added benefit of a family surname attached! The ancestors who owned these cards lay in graves across America, and await being found. At times with unusual names, we have found explicit genealogy info online from one single card, as in item number #2871, the calling card of Seneca Kettelle. We hope a your lost family member is represented on our Ancestorville site, but we also invite you to "adopt" a family and do some online genealogy research. We will be happy to add the info you may find to the listing. These spirits await being found by their 21st century familes and historian friends. Enjoy! — Debra
Clifford, Town Historian of Ancestorville. |
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