Gibson Greeting's history can be traced to 1850, when George Gibson and his family emigrated to the United States from Scotland, where Gibson had operated a lithographic and copperplate engraving business. The family journeyed to the "land of opportunity" with a small French-made lithography press. While Gibson, his wife, and daughters eventually settled in St. Louis, one of Gibson's five sons found work with a canal system that led him to Cincinnati. His three brothers followed and decided they would go into business using the small press. In 1850, the Gibson brothers, Stephen, 34, Robert, 18, George, 14, and Samuel, 12, founded Gibson & Company, Lithographers.

Together, the brothers printed bonds, stock certificates, checks, business cards, and labels. From the start, the Gibsons preferred to produce their own goods for sale at retail stores, rather than hiring out their printing services for commercial purposes. Gibson & Co. sold such products as patriotically decorated stationery, Civil War prints, honor and reward cards for schools and Sunday schools, and Valentine novelties, which were marketed through stationery, novelty, and art stores.

During the 1870s, the brothers began "jobbing" other artists' products, such as the popular chromo-litho Currier and Ives prints. The company also jobbed imported German lithographed Christmas cards and oversaw production of the first American line of Christmas, New Year, and Valentine greeting cards, developed by L. Prang & Co., a Boston lithographer, in about 1866. Five years later, Prang had achieved sales of five million such cards a year, and the Gibson brothers were soon designing and making their own line of Christmas cards, Valentines, and Easter novelties.

In 1883, Robert Gibson, the business manager of the four, purchased his brothers' interest in the company, becoming the sole owner of the company until his death two years later. At that time, Robert's will dictated that the business was to be incorporated as The Gibson Art Company, with shares distributed equally to his four children: Charles, Arabella, William, and Edwin.

As Americans communicated with their loved ones overseas, World War I prompted an increase in greeting card popularity. During this time, many new companies entered the market, and competition led to the refining of printing processes, art techniques, and decorative finishing treatments. Gibson was credited with popularizing the "French Fold" card--one sheet of paper folded in half twice--which became the best-selling greeting card form and an industry standard.

In the 1930s Gibson began to focus on helping its retail customers market Gibson products. The company developed new merchandising methods and created display fixtures to help control inventory and improve retail sales. Gibson was the first in the industry to develop an electronic reorder system which allowed stores to maintain a profitable product mix.

The greeting card business weathered the Great Depression better than most industries, primarily because while most people couldn't afford expensive gifts on special occasions, they could still afford to give greeting cards. The period after World War II brought an improved economic climate as well as increasingly sophisticated printing, embossing, and finishing techniques, with better greeting cards produced each year.

In 1960 the company's name was changed to Gibson Greeting Cards, Inc., and by 1963, Gibson was reporting sales of more than $26 million, with net earnings of $1.8 million. As the country's third largest greeting card company, Gibson was involved in the production of conventional lines of greeting cards for all seasons, as well as foreign language cards, special designs of cards for supermarkets and discount stores, and a full line of gift wrappings. Gibson common stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1962.Two years later, however, Gibson's private ownership ended when the company's assets were purchased by CIT Financial Corporation, as part of that company's plans to expand the scope of its operations. Later that year, CIT also acquired the Memphis-based Cleo Wrap Corporation, which bolstered Gibson's product line significantly. Under CIT's parentage, Gibson's product lines and facilities were enhanced, as CIT funded several plant expansions and continued to improve the company's production equipment.

In 1980, when the RCA Corporation acquired CIT, Gibson became a subsidiary of RCA. Two years later, however, a group of Gibson executives and The Wesray Corporation purchased Gibson from RCA. In 1983, Gibson's name was changed to Gibson Greetings, Inc. and it once again became a publicly owned company, trading shares on the NASDAQ exchange.