Joseph Wharton Lippincott Jr., (1914–2003) [1] was Chairman and President of Philadelphia publisher J.
[2] During his years as president, Lippincott oversaw the rapid expansion of the company in the 1950s and 1960s, the transformation of Lippincott into a public company in 1972, and its eventual acquisition by Harper & Row (now called “HarperCollins”) in 1978.
B. Lippincott Company's well-known elementary and high school educational products were launched during his presidency, including Basic Keys to Spelling, Lippincott's Basic Reading, and Beginning to Read, Write and Listen.
Mr. Lippincott was also responsible for expanding the company’s business outside of the United States, and made frequent trips to Europe and across the Pacific to Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines.
[3] He regularly attended the annual meeting of the American Library Association (ALA) to present the Joseph W. Lippincott Award for Outstanding Achievement in Librarianship, which was named for and founded by his father in 1938.