Alan Mays

Alan Mays club

Posted: 21 Apr 2015


Taken: 21 Apr 2015

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May I Become the Proud Bird Who Shall Accompany You?

May I Become the Proud Bird Who Shall Accompany You?
Escort Card

Fair Lady: May I become the proud bird who shall accompany you to your leafy bower, or must I suffer the misery of seeing you borne away in triumph by the individual whose chromo tintype appears at the right.

"Gaze on this picture, then on that."--Hamlet.

A Victorian-era acquaintance card with amusingly convoluted language. These cards--also called escort, flirtation, or invitation cards--provided a humorous way for a young man to make the acquaintance of a young woman. See below for additional examples.

May I. C. U. Home? Yes! / No!

May I C U Home?

May I See You Home?

May I Be Permitted the Pleasure of Escorting You Home?

Acquaintance Compliments with Confidence and Respect

Caution

Flirtation Card

Dear Miss, I Will Risk Everything Depicted Here

, , Smiley Derleth have particularly liked this photo


Comments
 arts enthusiast
arts enthusiast
I wonder how effective these were, also whether they were used in place of a pick-up line, or given to acquaintances at parties. You have quite the collection of them!
9 years ago.
Alan Mays club has replied to arts enthusiast
Thanks! It's hard to tell how seriously they were taken and who exactly used them. Some card companies listed acquaintance cards in the same sales circulars that they sent out for calling cards. In contrast to the somewhat more formal calling cards, it seems that acquaintance cards were simply an amusing way to break the ice.

Check out, for instance, "Funny Flirtation Cards," a short story by Frank Bellew that appeared in Harper's Young People: An Illustrated Weekly, Jan. 4, 1881, p. 160. Charley Sparks is the "sunshiny young fellow" in the story who's described as the kind of boy who usually has "something new in the way of a puzzle, or a riddle, or a notion of some sort wherewith to amuse his friends." Although Charlie's cards are homemade and somewhat different than the usual acquaintance cards (the illustrations accompanying the article make them look like printed cards, however), I'd imagine that young gents of the time used printed acquaintance cards in a manner similar to the way Charlie does in the story.

For another perspective, see the Encyclopedia of Ephemera's entry on acquaintance cards.
9 years ago.

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