Joyce Hall

Joyce Clyde Hall (August 29, 1891 – October 29, 1982), an American businessman, was the founder of Hallmark Cards.

Biography

Born in 1891 in David City, Nebraska, the son of Nancy Dudley Houston and George Nelson Hall, a traveling Methodist minister who provided sparingly for his wife and children. When Hall was seven, his father abandoned the family. Hall worked odd jobs, mostly involving sales, from age 8 on. Hall's response to his father's mantra, "the Lord will provide," was, "It's a good idea to give the Lord a little help." In 1905, Hall and his brothers invested US$540 to buy picture postcards to sell to store owners and other dealers around their area. They also convinced some of the traveling salesmen who came into the Halls' bookstore, which Joyce Hall's older brothers bought with a partner in 1902, to add the postcards to their sales territories. Hall conceived the Norfolk Post Card Company in 1908 in Norfolk, Nebraska.

In 1910, Hall moved to Kansas City, Missouri, with little more than two shoe boxes of postcards. By 1913, he and his brothers were operating a store (which would eventually evolve into Kansas City's Halls department store) selling not only postcards but also greeting cards. The store burned in 1915, and a year later, Hall bought an engraving business and began printing his own cards. It turned into a bigger business than he had had before. In 1928, he began marketing his cards under the Hallmark brand name.