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American Greetings Corporation, Inc. is the world's largest publicly-traded greeting card company. It is based in Cleveland, Ohio and sells paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products (such as wrapping papers and decorations), candles and electronic expressive content (e.g., ringtones and images for cellphones). In addition to the American Greetings brand, the company owns the Carlton Cards, Tender Thoughts and Gibson brands of greeting cards.
American Greetings is also famous for their toy design and licensing division, Those Characters From Cleveland. The most-popular copyrighted properties owned by this division include Strawberry Shortcake, the Care Bears, The Get-Along Gang and Holly Hobbie. American Greetings also holds an exclusive license for Nickelodeon characters.
History
Founded in 1906 by immigrant Jacob Sapirstein (1885-1987), who sold cards from a horse-drawn cart, American Greetings has been run by members of the family since its inception. Irving I. Stone (Sapirstein's oldest son, who changed his surname to Stone) was stuffing envelopes at age five, handling the business during his father's illness when he was nine, and worked for the company fulltime on leaving high school. He was succeeded as CEO by his son-in-law Morry Weiss in 1987, and took the title "Founder-Chairman" previously held by his father, when Weiss became chairman in 1992, before dying in 2000. In 2003 Morry Weiss's sons Zev and Jeffrey became CEO and President respectively; Morry Weiss remains Chairman.
American Greetings Business Information
American Greetings employs approximately 18,000 people around the world.
American Greetings Licences
- Care Bears
- Get-Along Gang
- Holly Hobbie
- Holly Hobbie & Friends
- Madballs
- Mary Oku Yummy
- My Pet Monster
- Paintbox Studios
- Popples
- Strawberry Shortcake
- Sugar Sonic
- Twisted Whiskers
American Greetings cartoonists
See also: cardmaking.