Entitled: "Christmas Card vendor, 14th Street, New York." The custom of sending Christmas cards was started in the UK in 1843 by Sir Henry Cole. He was a civil servant who was very interested in the new Public Post Office and wondered how it could be used more by ordinary people. Christmas Cards appeared in the U.S.A. in the late 1840s, but were very expensive and most people couldn't afford them. It 1875, Louis Prang started mass producing cards so more people could afford to buy them. His first cards featured flowers, plants, and children. In 1915, John C. Hall and two of his brothers created Hallmark Cards. Photographed by the Bain News Service, no date recorded on caption card.