The company began as a bookbindery founded by Benjamin Bradley in 1834.
[1] The company began publishing books in 1876, and in 1882 T. Irving Crowell joined his father in the business.
[2] In 1978, the company was sold to Harper & Row, which bought Lippincott and briefly combined the two as Lippincott & Crowell in 1979 before consolidating them into Harper & Row in 1980.
[3] The Thomas Y. Crowell Publishers Records are housed in the Syracuse University Library's Special Collections Research Center.
The records are composed mainly of correspondence with authors, agents, other publishing firms and interested persons.