American Greetings

American Greetings helps people everywhere express their innermost thoughts and feelings, enhance meaningful relationships and celebrate life's milestones and special occasions. Jacob Sapirstein begins a card wholesaling business in Cleveland, calling it Sapirstein Greeting Card Company. The company becomes the first in the industry to use self-serve display cabinets for its greeting cards. The first overseas licensing deal is reached, with John Sands Pty. Ltd. of Australia. Holly Hobbie first appears on a greeting card; the popularity of the character leads American Greetings into character licensing. Two new subsidiaries are formed: Plus Mark, Inc., maker of gift wrap, boxed cards, and accessories; and A.G. Industries, Inc., the nation's largest maker of display fixtures. John Sands, leading greeting card company in both Australia and New Zealand, is acquired; a party goods line is relaunched under the name DesignWare; the company enters the e-commerce realm with launch of a company web site. Gibson Greetings, Inc. is acquired for $163 million; the company launches a major restructuring. Founded in 1906 as a small Cleveland jobber's shop, American Greetings Corporation, which advertises itself as "the world's largest publicly owned creator, manufacturer, and distributor of social expression products," is second only to Hallmark Cards, Inc. (a privately held corporation) in the increasingly competitive and tight-margin greeting card industry. The company's main U.S. greeting card brands are Carlton Cards, American Greetings, and Gibson, the latter having been acquired in 2000; the sale of everyday and seasonal greeting cards generates more than 55 percent of total revenues. Other product lines include DesignWare party goods, GuildHouse candles, and Designers' Collection stationery. Among the firm's domestic subsidiaries are Plus Mark, Inc. (gift wrap), Magnivision, Inc. (reading glasses), Learning Horizons, Inc. (supplemental educational products), and A.G. Industries, Inc. (display fixtures). Another subsidiary, Carlton Cards Retail, Inc., owns and operates about 600 card and gifts shops in the United States and Canada. The majority-owned AmericanGreetings.com, Inc. subsidiary markets online greeting cards and related products through several web sites and Internet services. American Greetings also creates, markets, and licenses characters, including the Care Bears, Holly Hobbie, and Strawberry Shortcake. Non-U.S. subsidiaries operate in Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia, and American Greetings distributes its products through a network of more than 125,000 retail outlets in more than 70 countries. About 18 percent of sales originate outside the United States. The birth of American Greetings roughly coincides with the birth of the U.S. greeting card industry, which was marked by the advent of occasional cards to complement the seasonal Christmas card trade. A Polish émigré named Jacob Sapirstein entered the fledgling industry in 1906 as an independent salesman. Sapirstein (known as "J.S.") had had some experience working with relatives in a hotel card shop. When the shop closed he established his own business, which consisted of buying picture postcards and reselling them to local outlets such as novelty shops, candy stores, and drugstores. Conducting his wholesaling enterprise from a horse-drawn wagon, J.S. enjoyed modest success and by 1918 welcomed his eldest son, nine-year-old Irving, as the first partner. In 1926 the Sapirstein Greeting Card Company solidified itself as a family business with the additional employment of Irving's brother Morris. Two years later, through the sales efforts of Morris and Irving, the company received its largest order since inception, a postcard contract worth $24,000. During 1929, a year after the Hall Brothers Company (Hallmark) had begun to advertise nationally, the Sapirsteins greatly furthered their eventual position as a ma