Hallmark Celebrates 100 Years Of Helping People "Say It All"

  

For 100 years Hallmark (http://www.hallmark.com) has been part of the milestones in our lives. Whether finding the right words to say ‘happy birthday,’ ‘get well soon’ or ’thinking of you’ - Hallmark has been there for us when we needed inspiration or could not find the right words ourselves.  
 
It all started inauspiciously 100 years ago, when teenager Joyce Clyde Hall from Nebraska stepped off a train in Kansas City with little more than big dreams and two shoeboxes of picture postcards. He rented a room at the YMCA and began wholesaling postcards to retailers in the region.  One hundred years and billions of well-wishes later, Hallmark Cards, Inc., will celebrate its own 100th birthday in 2010 with a nod to the past, a focus on the future, and the grandsons of that Nebraska teenager at the helm.
 
This is a story about how one company’s products have captured the zeitgeist of our nation and evolution of our society over the past century.
 
Within our collective shoeboxes are our histories. These saved greeting cards are cherished tangible well-wishes through a century of American history. A century of wars and rationing, the psychedelic 60s and disco 70s, the maturation of the boomers and their children, the changing roles of women and the advance of technology, but still - new babies, wedding celebrations, birthdays and anniversaries remained. Relationships endured. The need for emotional connecting stayed consistent even while the means by which we connected – the images and editorial used in Hallmark’s greeting cards – changed to reflect the times. It is an American story preserved one card at a time in Hallmark’s vault.

To learn more about Hallmark’s 100 year story or to share your favorite Hallmark moment, please visit http://www.hallmark100years.com/.