Happy Holidays postcard

This charming postcard was issued in Krakow by the then large Akropol Printing House. The establishment was founded in 1923, and its owners, Juliusz and Józef Frist, were at the same time in possession of another publishing house, called Salon of Polish Painters. In the interwar period demand for postcards was very high. Both factories printed cards on a variety of subjects: views of Polish cities, reproductions of works by Polish painters, patriotic and festive postcards.

The custom of sending postcards emerged on the wave of interest in tourism around the second half of the 19th century. The creation of new railway lines made travelling much easier. Popular were trips to spas and sightseeing tours. People liked to send postcards from their places of stay or buy them as souvenirs. They were quite cheap, and thus a common form of content popularisation. The invention and spread of photography had a huge impact on postcard motifs.

Attention was paid to the aesthetics of postcards. Old Christmas postcards were simply photographs of towns and cities in winter, which were sometimes enhanced by adding an element such as a spruce branch or the words "Merry Christmas". This postcard is all about the winter atmosphere and children's joy at the approaching holidays. However, it does not contain any religious references.

In 1900, the first exhibition of illustrated postcards was organised in Warsaw, where a competition for a name for this new form of correspondence was announced. The name "postcard" won, its author being the well-known writer Henryk Sienkiewicz.