In 1932, Hallmark signed a licensing agreement with Walt Disney to display their cards on racks so customers could browse on their own. Before then, greeting cards were kept inside drawers and only pulled out by shopkeepers. The slogan “When you care enough to send the very best” appeared in 1944. In 1951, the company sponsored the opera “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” shown on NBC on Christmas Eve, which later became television’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame” and continues to be broadcast today. Read about how other greeting card manufacturers tried to compete with Hallmark’s dominance in the last century in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
