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ny’s operation, was produced by Bullseye Productions, a unit of Gibson Greetings Inc. The Gibson company’s general manager for Bullseye, George White, oversaw this project, for which 48 reproductions of vintage greeting cards from the Gibson company’s archives were selected. Later in 2000, American Greetings closed the Gibson company’s corporate offices at Amberley Village and at Covington, as well as the distribution plant in South Covington. Greeting cards produced by the Gibson company are kept in the American Greetings Corporation’s archives. “American Greetings Corp. to Acquire Gibson Greetings, Inc. for 0.40 Times Revenue,” Weekly Corporate Growth Report, November 15, 1999, 10470. “Business Brief: Gibson Greetings, Inc. Headquarters to be Moved to Kentucky by Next Year,” Wall Street Journal, Aug. 14, 1998, 1. C. R. Gibson. www.crgibson.com (accessed April 4, 2006). Driehaus, Bob. “Beginning of End for Gibson Greeting: Office Jobs Cut; Ky. Plant Remains,” CP, March 10, 2000, 10C. Gibson Greeting Cards Inc. Gibson 1850–1975: Our 125th Anniversary. Cincinnati: Gibson Greeting Cards, 1975. “Gibson Jobs Leave,” CP, June 3, 2000, 9A. Luken, Charles, and Mark Brown. Gibson Greetings, Inc. Memphis, Tenn.: Towery, 1996. Murray, Matt. “Gibson Rejects $292 Million Bid from Big Rival,” Wall Street Journal, March 6, 1996, A3.
Margaret Prentice Hecker
GIBSON WINE COMPANY. The Gibson Wine Company operated in Covington from 1934 until 1971. When Robert H. Gibson and Louis W. Schultz founded the company in 1933, Prohibition was in force, but rabbis could produce sacramental wines legally. By 1941 William A. Schneider was also a partner in the firm. In 1944 the Gibson Wine Company moved its headquarters to Elk Grove, Calif., near Sacramento, but a small operation remained in Covington at 235 Scott St. Although the firm had moved west, the Cincinnati area remained its top market, and a branch office remained in Cincinnati at 218 W. McMicken Ave., in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood. In late 1961 the company had plants in both Cincinnati and Covington, employing roughly 150 workers. That year, the firm was acquired by Sanger Winery Associates of Sanger, Calif., and became a part of a wine cooperative owned collectively by 150 California grape growers. The Sanger cooperative’s motivation was to ensure the distribution of its product through the Gibson Wine Company’s network of outlets. Before the sale, Gibson Wine Company had purchased all of the grapes produced by the Sanger wine cooperative during the previous 10 years. Later, the Gibson Wine Company operated out of 20 W. 18th St. in Covington, in 1962 under vice president Schneider and in 1970, at the same address, under president Schulze. Its Covington plant, a bottling-finishing and warehouse facility, distributed wines throughout Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia. Gibson Wine Company made fruit wines, rather than table wines. The company was one of the first U.S. wine producers to attempt to quench the thirst
of Americans, challenging things cold and sweet such as Coca-Cola. In the late 1950s, “pop” wines such as those produced by the Gibson Wine Company began to be served much as soft drinks were among young people. The emerging popularity of Riunite wines during the 1950s is perhaps the best example of this trend. Gibson’s wines were aimed for the middle-line, price-conscious consumer and the everyday drinker who keeps a jug of wine in the refrigerator for sipping. The company’s products were sold mainly in supermarkets, where they competed with inexpensive wines produced by Gallo and Almaden. The Gibson Wine Company also produced several private labels, for supermarkets and liquor stores. In 1981 it had estimated annual sales of $20 million and 9 million gallons of product in storage, making it the nation’s 18th-largest winery. The Gibson Wine Company’s Covington operation was not without labor problems. In 1941 the company pled guilty to violating the Kentucky statute regulating the number of hours women were allowed to work. In 1956 there was a vote to determine whether the employees of the plant in Covington wished to be represented by the International Union, Allied Industrial Workers of America, AFL-CIO. Fields, Gregg. “Gibson Thinks Fruit Wines Are Ripe,” CE, October 16, 1981, C9. “Firm Officials Fined on Hours Act Charges,” KP, June 24, 1941, 1. “Gibson Wine Acquired by Association,” CP, November 3, 1961, 4. “Sanger Acquired Gibson Wine Co.,” CE, November 3, 1961, 1. “Union Ballot at Gibson Wine,” KTS, October 10, 1956. 6A.
GILLESPIE, HAVEN (b. February 6, 1888, Covington, Ky.; d. March 14, 1975, Las Vegas, Nev.). “You better watch out, you better not cry, better not pout, I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is comin’ to town.” This is the oft-sung lyrical advice that songwriter Haven Gillespie gives children in his classic song “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town,” one of the 10 most popu lar Christmas songs of all time. James Haven Gillespie was the sixth of nine children born to William “Will” and Anna Riley Gillespie. The family was poor and lived in the basement of a house on Third St. and Madison Ave. in Covington. Haven’s father was a painter and musician with a penchant for the whiskey bottle and a good ear for music, who had once studied for the priesthood. Haven’s mother worked as a servant. Later in life, Haven said his most vivid memory of childhood was seeing his father’s empty whiskey bottles spread all over the house. The young Haven dropped out of Covington’s Third District School in the fourth grade after a composition he wrote won second rather than first prize. He later explained that he had dropped out of school because “he felt he was lacking.” In 1902, at age 14, Haven moved to Chicago to live with relatives and found a job as a “printer’s dev il,” which entailed cleaning printing presses and running errands. At the time Chicago was the second-largest
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Haven Gillespie, ca. 1949.
city in the United States, and Haven reveled in the city’s whirlwind of activity and quick-paced life. As his work as a printer’s dev il progressed, he focused on words and their arrangement, developing an understanding of the English language that served him well later as a lyricist. Gillespie remained, throughout his life, first of all a printer and secondly a songsmith. As he put it, “I have ink in my blood.” By 1907, having become a qualified compositor and printing journeyman, Gillespie returned to Covington and joined the International Typographic Union; he continued as a union member for 67 years. His timing was poor in 1907, however, since that year a strike in the printing trades left him out of work. By 1909 the strike had ended, Haven had returned to his job in the printing industry in Chicago, and he had married his childhood sweetheart from Kentucky, Corene Parker. The couple began married life with a grand total of $16 between them. Gillespie initially could not read or write music, and all his early composing attempts failed. By 1911, therefore, he and his now pregnant wife had returned to Covington. The same year, he took a newspaper printing job with the Cincinnati Times Star. Louis Mentel, a ragtime musician and president of the Associated Music Company in Cincinnati, helped launch Gillespie’s career as a songwriter by publishing eight songs, none of which met with success. Not until 1917, with the publication of his 46th song, “The Harbor of Love,” did the young songwriter make a mark in the music industry. Becoming one of the many passing sentimental hits during war time, this song reached number three on the music charts and initially earned Gillespie $12,000 in royalties. It was the first big break for Gillespie, who was by then working at the New York Times, living in New York City, and trying to become a songwriter in the city’s famed Tin Pan Alley. An outbreak of polio that year in the city worried Gillespie’s wife so much that the couple returned with their seven-year-old son, Lamont, to Chicago. Gillespie went back to his work in the