| Joyce Hall |
EasyNews, UseNet made Ea .. |
| ::darkshadows:: (bat@cave.org) |
2009/05/16 02:21 |
Joyce Hall
Hallmark
Joyce C. Hall was raised in Nebraska by his mother. His father left
home when Hall was nine. In 1910, Hall headed to Kansas City to seek
his fortune. He was armed with two shoeboxes full of picture postcards
he hoped to sell to dealers throughout the Midwest. After only a few
years, the postcard business had expanded enough to allow his bothers
Rollie and Willliam to join him and open a specialty store for
postcards and stationery. Then Hall decided that selling Christmas
cards with envelopes might be more profitable. He decided to call his
company Hallmark, a play on his name and the word for quality.
The word hallmark dates back to the year 1300, when gold and sil- were
marked for quality at Goldsmith's Hall in London. Coins of quality
received a "Hall mark." The first Hallmark card appeared in 1916. It
featured the greeting "I'd like to be the kind of friend you are to
me." One of the innovations that made Hallmark so successful, however,
had nothing to do with the sentiments contained in the cards. In 1936,
Hall introduced display cases that featured rows of cards that the
customer could browse. Previously, cards were purchased by asking a
clerk to choose an appropriate card.
When Hall died in 1982, the company he had founded was worth $1.5
billion. These days, more than 10 million Hallmark cards are sold each
year "All I was trying to do was make a living," Hall once said. "In
those days, if you didn't work, you didn't eat. And I like to eat."
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