It has a historical link with a company started in 1898 by Bernarr Macfadden that was one of the largest magazine publishers of the twentieth century.
In 1961, the Bartell Broadcasting Corporation bought a controlling share in Macfadden and merged with the company, forming Macfadden-Bartell.
Macfadden's women's magazines were spun off in 1975, and sold to the unit president, Peter J. Callahan.
[3] In 1998, the conglomerate's line of youth music publications was sold off to Primedia; the rest were bought by Dorchester Media in 2004.
Initially a way to group together stories from Macfadden's magazines into a book (as in Great Western Heroes, Great Pioneer Heroes),[15] the imprint expanded into first editions of new material after the purchase by the Bartell Group (Coffee, Tea or Me?, "Say ... Didn’t You Used to Be George Murphy?