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PROFILE: Joyce C. Hall

Joyce C. Hall: Hallmark founder believed "When you care enough to send the very best"

Copyright © 2008 by E. A. Kral

The person who turned greeting cards into one of the most important means of personal communication in the 20th century was Joyce C. Hall, the Nebraska native who founded Hallmark Cards in 1910.

Along with the help of his family, he developed what became the world's largest greeting card company. Presently, it annually creates some 23,000 designs in over 30 languages and distributes them in more than 100 countries. Hallmark also offers other products such as gifts, gift wrap, party products, and stationery.

Known for innovations and practices ahead of his time, he believed that "good taste is good business" and that selling ideas is the most crucial of jobs.

Hall also felt that "we didn't start our business to see how much money we could make, but to see how good a job we could do."

His original experiences in business occurred as a youth in Nebraska. But after he relocated in 1910 to Kansas City, Missouri, he became a mail-order postcard distributor, and added greeting cards a year later when he was joined by his older brother, Rollie.

In 1914, the Hall brothers set up a retail store and sold cards and stationery. During World War I, they began manufacturing their own cards, and later introduced greeting cards that expressed friendship. Joyce also understood that a company's success is in direct ratio to its dealers' success.

Older brother, William, joined the partnership, and by 1923, the Hall Brothers Company built a new plant and opened their own employee cafeteria. The staff had grown from four in 1911 to some 120 employees at this time, with 16 salesmen doing business in all 48 states. Their 12 artists were creating 600 different designs per year.

A popular card contained lines from Edgar Guest's poem "A Friend's Greeting," and the company introduced decorative gift wrap. Begun also was a line of nonfolding flat cards and envelopes with heavy gold foil, which reinforced Joyce's belief the public wanted quality products.

By the mid-1920s, the word "Hallmark" began appearing on the backs of cards, and it was one of the first companies to offer bonuses to employees. In 1928, its first national ad appeared in Ladies Home Journal.

In the 1930s, Walt Disney characters were used on cards, the welfare of company employees became a high priority, and display racks that made it convenient for customers to select cards were introduced at dealers' stores.

By 1940, Hallmark began advertising on radio, and four years later, it initiated its slogan "When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best," which at the time became the second most memorable behind Coca Cola's "The Pause That Refreshes."

Ever the innovator, Joyce visited various retail stores for ideas to expand his offerings. He had discovered the vast majority of greeting card buyers prefer verse to prose, and quotations and poetry from William Shakespeare to Ogden Nash were used.

After World War II, the company officially adopted as its logo a five-pointed crown, and among its staff of artists were individuals who represented 13 different nationalities.

A new line of Christmas cards introduced the public to works by such renowned artists as Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. And former British prime minister Winston Churchill consented to use of his paintings on Christmas cards.

In 1954, the company name became Hallmark Cards, Inc. Also in the early 1950s, Hall wanted to showcase some of the world's greatest performers, so he sponsored the Hallmark Hall of Fame, which established the concept of a television special that pre-empted regularly scheduled programs. In more than 50 years, the Hallmark Hall of Fame has produced more than 200 shows and won more than 80 major awards.

About 1960, Hallmark introduced the Ambassador brand of cards to serve large, mass marketing stores, and soon new product offerings included albums, candles, gifts, party favors, stationery, and more.

After Joyce had served over 50 years as company leader, his son Donald assumed presidency in 1966. At that time, some 14,000 designs per year were produced by more than 300 artists and another 150 engaged in specialized graphic techniques.

In the later 1960s and 1970s, Joyce and Donald oversaw construction of Crown Center, a retail, office and residential complex surrounding Hallmark headquarters that became a city within Kansas City. While Joyce continued as chairman of the board until his death in 1982, his son began to diversify the company's operations, and several personal development industries became subsidiaries.

By the turn of the 21st century, Hallmark Cards, Inc. was the personal expression leader, with company cards sold under brand names such as Hallmark, Shoebox, Expressions From Hallmark, and Ambassador in more than 42,000 U.S. retail stores, more than 4,000 of which comprise the Hallmark Gold Crown store network. It also owns businesses in family entertainment, such as the Hallmark Channel cable network.

Its sales have reached some $4 billion annually, and Joyce's grandson Donald J. Hall, Jr. has served as chief executive since 2002.

The legacy of Joyce C. Hall was assured also by his many significant honors, such as the Horatio Alger Award in 1957, an Emmy Award as sponsor in 1961, and honorary doctorate degrees granted by several institutions, including the University of Nebraska in 1968.

A comprehensive account of his life is his autobiography titled When You Care Enough (Hallmark, 1979) and an entry is included in the prestigious American National Biography, Vol 9 (1999). See also Nebraska History, Vol 89 (Spring 2008) 2-13.

Born in 1891 at David City, Butler County, Nebraska, one of five children of George and Nancy Houston Hall, Joyce attended the local elementary school. At the age of eight, he held various part-time jobs after his father abandoned the family. One summer he was a local door-to-door salesman for the California Perfume Company, later renamed Avon Products.

In 1902, he moved with his family to Norfolk, where his older brothers had purchased a bookstore. There he worked after school and on weekends. One summer he traveled with his brother, Rollie, to western Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota selling candy.

Three years later, he and his brothers began a picture postcard business, and learned the importance of quality retailing, he reported later.

Joyce did not complete high school in Norfolk, but decades later he was granted a diploma from David City High School during a graduation ceremony held in May 1962, reported the May 25 Lincoln Evening Journal.

At the end of 1909, he was persuaded by a cigar salesman to move to Kansas City, where he attended Spalding's Commercial College for one year, and conducted his mail-order postcard business. He also developed an interest in the theater.

Joyce C. Hall and his wife, Elizabeth, raised three children, and were supporters of the community in many ways. He died in 1982 at nearby Leawood, Kansas.

He was posthumously inducted into the Emmy Hall of Fame in 1985.

For more information, consult "900 Famous Nebraskans" on the Internet at www.nsea.org or www.beatricene.com/gagecountymuseum or www.nebpress.com.