A Token of My Affection: Greeting Cards and American Business Culture »

Barry Shank is professor of comparative studies at The Ohio State University. He is the author of Dissonant Identities: The Rock 'n' Roll Scene in Austin, Texas. His work on popular culture has appeared in such journals as boundary 2, Radical History Review, American Studies, and American Quarterly.

For more than 150 years, greeting cards have tapped into and organized a shared language of love, affection, and kinship, becoming an integral part of American life and culture. Sumptuously illustrated, A Token of My Affection follows the evolution of the modern greeting card industry from a traditional printing and stationery business in the mid-nineteenth century to the multibillion-dollar industry it is today. Blending archival research in business history with a study of surviving artifacts and a literary analysis of a range of relevant texts and primary sources, Barry Shank demonstrates how greeting cards have affected and defined experiences of status, longing, desire, social connectedness, and love. Fascinating and surprising, A Token of My Affection shows what an industry devoted to emotional sincerity means for the lives of all Americans.