Crowell-Collier Publishing Company
[2] In 1883, they purchased the Home Companion magazine from a Harvey & Finn of Cleveland, Ohio to meet the growing demand for content aimed at women.
[4] They bought Youth's Home Library, a similar paper that had been published in Boston, and merged it with their youth-oriented publication Our Young People.
They then changed the name of the three merged periodicals back to the title Home Companion, a general family magazine.
[6] Crowell Publishing Company lost a 1908 appeal before the Board of United States General Appraisers and was assessed countervailing duties on paper imported from Canada.
[2] However, an article in the New York Times noted that "the purchase of the American Magazine by Crowell Publishing Company meant that 'the interests' were bent on swallowing up the muckrakers..."[9] They pointed to the fact that one of the heavy stockholders in the Crowell firm was Thomas W. Lamont who was also a partner of the newly formed J. P. Morgan & Company.
"[9] However, a second New York Times article about the acquisition stated that writers such as Ida Tarbell, Peter F. Dunne, and William Allen White were pleased with the opportunity.
[11] Crowell moved its print operations to Springfield, Ohio, because of "excessive postage involved in mailing from a seaboard city under wartime postal rates".
[14][15] In 1940, the FTC charged the publishing company and its officers and directors of the corporation with misleading sale methods and representations.
[16] During World War II, Crowell-Collier sponsored publication of a magazine for servicemen called Victory.
[20] In the late 1940s and up to the mid-1950s, Crowell-Collier's magazines enjoyed healthy subscription numbers, over 4 million subscribers for both Collier’s and Woman’s Home Companion.
In 1953, Crowell-Collier named a former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, Paul C. Smith, as its president, and later, as chairman, with a mission to save the ailing magazines.
[27][28][29] In 1957, outside investors seized full control of Crowell-Collier and installed a new chairman, a paper bag company executive with no prior publishing experience.
[32] John G. Ryan demurred at abandoning his successful business model and continued generating record profits, including a 20% increase in the first quarter of 1959.
At a highly publicized April 1959 meeting with Crowell-Collier shareholders, the chairman proved unable to comment on any aspect of company operations.
Crowell-Collier assumed the liquidated firm's publishing, editorial, and highly profitable sales financing activities.
[38] With profits from sales of Collier’s Encyclopedia enabling Crowell-Collier to recover financially from its magazine losses, new opportunities arose.
[39] Leaving behind its roots in magazine publishing, it now focused on the growing market for education produced by the baby boom in the United States.
[46] Macmillan published some notable authors including Jack London, Margaret Mitchell, and Winston Churchill.
Raymond C. Hagel, who became Crowell-Collier's chairman in 1964,[53] said, "We envision our major role as that of a developer of complete educational systems."
[55] But, as one analyst wrote of the company, “it takes one kind of talent to buy everything in sight with easy money and another kind to operate the creation when the financial momentum shifts into reverse.”[56] Prodded by Armand G. Erpf and other investment advisors, Crowell Collier & Macmillan's management had the talent to buy businesses, but questionable skill at operating them.
[42] The company continued to publish the Harvard Classics and expanded its line of encyclopedias by beginning work on a new multi-volume set on social sciences.
The agency charged the company with "Implying through promotional literature and door-to-door salesmen that a set of the encyclopedias would be given free or at a reduced price if yearly supplements were purchased.
[60][61] Crowell-Collier Press was a hardcover publisher started in 1962 with a focus on adult nonfiction and children's books.
At the time bookstores were heavily competing with department stores and discount houses offering reduced rates for bestsellers.
[84][85] In 1969, Crowell filed a lawsuit against National Home Study Council of Washington which was a private accrediting agency.
The suit said that National Home was a monopoly and had denied re-accreditation to the U.S. School of Music, Inc. and La Salle Extension University.
[89] By 1969, Crowell made the decision to shut down the This Week magazine which had a circulation of 9 million as a weekend supplement for papers such as The Providence Journal and the Kansas City Star.
[100] The Justice Department filed a civil anti-trust suit against Crowell, Collier & Macmillan, Inc. in 1970 and requested that it divest itself from C.G.
Crowell responded that they had already discontinued The Harvard Classics "continuity" program and that any "isolated" occurrences or procedures had been changed.
They were also accused of advertising positions for encyclopedia salesman as "administrative assistant trainees" and "marketing and public relations personnel".
