[4] Sinclair Tousey was the company's first president, followed after his death by Harry Dexter, who was succeeded by Solomon Johnson.
[7] Two years after the company formed it added to its newspaper and magazine business a book jobbing department, under the supervision of a Mr. Dunham; this grew to be one of the largest in the country.
With the end of the Civil War, the firm grew rapidly along the expanding railroads as they opened up the West, with the commencement of coast-to-coast continental rail service in 1869.
Legislation passed by Congress required the railroads to transport newspapers and periodicals as second class bulk mail at a special low subsidized rate—one cent per pound for any distance between news agencies, so that a bundle of New York newspapers could be sent across the continent to Los Angeles for the same price that it could be shipped across the river to Newark—and ANC exploited the availability of cheap rail transport to expand their distribution network across the continent, so far ahead of the competition that they effectively shut any possible rivals out of the market, establishing their periodical depots by the hundreds in every city and large town on the rail system.
[8] In 1893, an article in The American Newsman summed up the company's success: "It is as the keeper of a thousand secrets involving the fortunes of publishers and authors that the American News Company surrounds its vast and intricate system with an atmosphere of mystery, so that few persons have any idea of its really astounding proportions.
This organization handles the bulk of the reading matter of the United States and supplies nearly nineteen thousand dealers.
It extended extensive credit to the firms it did business with and $800,000 was due at any given time in accounts receivable from dealers around the country.
The branches of the company at this time were located in Albany, Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Montreal, Newark, New Orleans, Omaha, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Providence, San Francisco, Springfield (Mass.
After World War II, headed by Henry Garfinkle, the company had over 300 branches blanketing the United States, and employed several thousand employees.
During the middle of the century, American News stood as the largest book wholesaler in the world, dominating the industry.
This change was largely the work of the refusal of American News and other distributors to carry the pulp magazines since they were no longer profitable.
[14] The 1950s boom in science fiction magazine publishing, with 30 new titles being launched, turned overnight into collapse with the failure of ANC.
When Collier's and Woman's Home Companion, two of their biggest-selling titles, folded in January 1957, it came as a serious blow to ANC at a time when the company was already on financially shaky ground.
One theory is that a speculator became aware that a bookkeeping peculiarity in American News' accounts could allow a large profit from liquidating the company.
[12]An alternative (but somewhat similar explanation) for the company's demise has been offered by comic book historian and author Gerard Jones.
This often forced the magazines to change from a digest size to a larger format, and to become monthly rather than bimonthly or quarterly.
Because of this, Atlas was constrained as to its publishing output for the next decade (including the early years of its successor, Marvel Comics).