Materials in the collection are arranged chronologically by date of notebook creation.
Accession No. RARE.2025.0181: Purchased, 2021 February
[identification of item], Mary E. K. Farmer Papers, SPEC.RARE.0365, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Ohio State University
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Processed by: Casey Blackmore, 2025 November; Finding aid written by: Casey Blackmore, 2025 November.
Mary Elizabeth Keller was born in October of 1882 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and died on September 5, 1976. She married Clayton A. Farmer in 1906 in Pennsylvania. Farmer's family was well known in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania where she was raised, as several generations of family also resided in town. She wrote poetry and free verse in her spare time; several of her writings were furthered published by greeting card companies.
The earliest origins of greetings cards can be traced back to the ancient civilizations in Egypt and China, who would exchange messages around New Year’s to ward off bad luck, although these were not printed on card, but on papyrus. Greeting cards first became popular and affordable in Europe in the early 1800s, when the first Valentines were created. In 1856, America’s greeting card industry began when Louis Prang opened a lithographic business near Boston, Massachusetts. The style of cards in the 19th century emphasized intricate detail and often depicted pastoral and nature scenes.
The Mary E. K. Papers contain eight notebooks filled with thousands of greeting card poetry and verse, several rejection and acceptance letters from greeting card publishers and greeting cards from companies that featured Farmer's writing. Included in the collection are some correspondence from the Hall Brothers Company which was later become the Hallmark Greeting Card Company. The bulk of the writing is for major United States holidays including Christmas and Valentine's Day and personal milestones such as birthdays, deaths, and children's births. Material is dated 1916 to 1948.
Farmer created an indexing system to track which submissions she sent for publication were published or not accepted. Some years overlap within the notebooks, as Farmer appeared to send one verse or poem for a specific holiday to several publishers at once. Submissions were given a number to track which greeting card company they were sent to, along with the date of submission.