It was founded by Irving Louis Horowitz, who served as Transaction's chairman of the board and editorial director until his death in 2012.

[4][5][6] Transaction began on July 1, 1962, as part of a multiplex grant sponsored by the Ford Foundation at Washington University in St. Louis.

It acquired book lists from Precedent Publishers in 2009 and the Rutgers Center for Urban Policy Research (CUPR) in 2011.

[9] In 2010, Penn State University announced the "Irving Louis Horowitz–Transaction Publishers Archives, 1939–2009" open for public research at Penn State's Historical Collections and Labor Archives (HCLA) of The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, University Libraries.

[10] The archive documents the expansion of social science research over the past half century.