Dempsey & Carroll has long been considered the finest purveyor of elegant engraved social stationery. In 1878, John Dempsey, a talented engraver, and George Carroll, a savvy businessman, collaborated on the founding of a company that would not only provide its customers with luxury writing papers but also offer advice on etiquette and proper decorum in a variety of social settings. To the founders, the social institutions of correspondence and etiquette were inseparable, and they saw Dempsey & Carroll as an ideal marriage of the two.