CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
—The business was founded in 1846 by Isaac D. Baker and Charles Scribner, under the firm name of Baker & Scribner. Later the organization became a partnership under the different names of Charles Scribner & Company, and Scribner & Armstrong. Mr. Charles Scribner died in 1871, and was succeeded by his eldest son, John Blair Scribner. Mr. Armstrong retired in 1878 and the business was then reorganized as a partnership under the firm name of Charles Scribner’s Sons, with John Blair Scribner as the head, the other partners being Charles Scribner and Arthur H. Scribner, sons of the founder. When John Blair Scribner died in 1879, Charles Scribner became the head of the business. In 1904, the corporation of Charles Scribner’s Sons was formed with Charles Scribner, President, and Arthur H. Scribner, Vice President, and that organization remains the same in 1921.
Among the earliest educational publications of the house are a treatise in physical geography entitled The Earth and Man, by A. Guyot, translated by C. C. Felton and published in 1849; Felter’s Arithmetics, 1864; Guyot’s Wall Maps, 1865; Perry’s Elements of Political Economy, 1865; Guyot’s Geographies, 1866; Porter’s Human Intellect, 1868; Cooley’s Chemistry, 1869; Cooley’s Natural Philosophy, 1871; Cooley’s Physics Experiments, 1871; Hopkins’ Outline Study of Man, 1873.
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
—This firm originally was Lippincott, Grambo & Company, founded in 1850, and later became J. B. Lippincott Company. The present Lippincott who is the head of the concern is the son of the original founder, J. B. Lippincott.
Some of the old-time schoolbooks published by J. B. Lippincott Company were Comly’s Speller, Sanford’s Arithmetic, Cutter’s Anatomy, Wilson’s Readers, and Webster’s Speller. In 1876, the firm purchased from Brewer & Tileston of Boston the entire rights in Worcester’s Dictionary. The House has published in this country Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Hume’s and Macaulay’s Histories of England. It also projected Lippincott’s Magazine in 1867, issuing the first number in January, 1868. Its first editor was Lloyd Smith, the librarian of the Philadelphia library.
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD COMPANY.
—In 1850, Daniel Lothrop and his brothers, John and Henry, formed a partnership known as D. Lothrop & Company for the publishing of books in Dover, N. H. Their early publications were mostly juvenile, and largely for use in Sunday School libraries. A little more than ten years later, the business was removed to Boston, and later incorporated as D. Lothrop Company. After the death of Daniel Lothrop, the business was reorganized in 1891 as the Lothrop Publishing Company, and so continued until 1904, when all its assets were purchased by Lee & Shepard.
The Lothrop house published a great many books of educational value, like Gilman’s Historical Readers, in three volumes, and Miss Cyr’s Interstate Primer and First Reader. Their most important educational book was Finger Plays, by Emilie Poulsson, of which 110,000 copies have been sold.
The firm of Lee & Shepard was founded in Boston in 1861 by William Lee, who had previously been a partner of Phillips Sampson & Company, a Boston publishing house which went out of existence in the 50’s, and Charles A. B. Shepard. Mr. Shepard died in 1889, and Mr. Lee continued as sole partner until June, 1898, when he transferred his entire business to E. Fleming & Company, book binders, who continued the business by placing it in charge of Warren F. Gregory.