Gift wrapping

Gift Wrapping

   Gift wrapping was very popular in Britain. They used wallpaper to conceal the gift secured with ribbons and lace. The upper class soon found it cumbersome and went to tissue paper. However, it easily tore and broke revealing the gift. This was a disaster because it revealed the gift allowing others to estimation the cost of the present. So they moved to brown paper to hide their gifts from view.

   The U.S. played one of the biggest roles in gift wrapping the way we know it today. In 1917  Joyce Clyde Hall and his brother, Rollie, invented modern gift wrap in their Kansas City, Mo. store. They ran out of solid colored tissue gift wrap, during the peak of the Christmas season. Desperate they began substituting the thicker French envelope liner for wrapping presents. It sold so well they printed their own. Then 20 years later, Scotch tape was invented, replacing twine, ribbon, lace and string to secure gift wrap.