Joyce C. Hall

Halls, Hallmark Cards, Crown Center Plaza

 

 

A man whose name effects a bit more emphasis when completed with “-mark,” Joyce Hall moved to Kansas City in 1910 to open a postcard shop that would evolve into the greeting card empire it is today.  The Nebraska native, born to a traveling minister, learned young about family values and the value of a dollar, selling perfume and postcards around the region with his brothers before the age of 18.  As corporate lore goes: Joyce brought just two shoeboxes of postcards with him to Kansas City, opening a store which would burn down in 1915. He, with his brother, purchased an engraver to print their own Hall-made cards.  In 1928 Joyce introduced the name Hallmark, a brand that anyone with a grandma has loved or loved-to-hate ever since.   His legacy might suggest a fanatical climb for power, but Hall is remembered as being a soft-spoken, mild-mannered Midwesterner—and the Walt Disney of greeting cards.