Product Details

Historical Context

Thomas Y. Crowell founded his own book binder in 1834. In 1876 he began publishing books. His son, T. Irving Crowell, joined the business in 1882. Another son, Jeremiah Osborne Crowell, was sales manager. The family issued a profitable line of reference works: Roget's International Thesaurus; Dictionary of Business and Finance; Social Science Series. They also published a variety of fiction titles: Frank Heller detective/mystery series; children's books and gift volumes.

He died in 1909 and was succeeded by T. Irving Crowell. In 1919, Crowell purchased Collier Publishing. Irving Crowell retired in 1937, replaced by third generation Robert L. Crowell, who moved the firm more toward trade books and biographies. In 1938, Elizabeth Riley joined the firm to develop a children's book division. She became one of the first women in the field. 1939 the name was changed to the Crowell-Collier Publishing Company.

After World War II, the company went into decline, especially the magazine division (which included Collier’s Weekly). By 1956, the magazines were shut down. The firm now found itself with nothing but the Harvard Classics and Collier's Encyclopedia. The company decided to expand into radio and textbooks. In 1960, the company suffered a hostile take-over by MacMillan. The company was later renamed Crowell-Collier and Macmillan, before finally simply being called Macmillan Publishing.

Related Collections