Western Publishing
Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company, was an American company founded in 1907 in Racine, Wisconsin, best known for publishing the Little Golden Books. Its Golden Books Family Entertainment division also produced children's books and family-related entertainment products. The company had editorial offices in New York City and Los Angeles, California. Western Publishing became Golden Books Family Entertainment in 1996.
Golden Books Family Entertainment was eventually acquired jointly by Classic Media, owner of the catalog of United Productions of America, and book publisher Random House in a bankruptcy auction in 2001. Little Golden Books remains as an imprint of Penguin Random House. Golden Guides and Golden Field Guides are published by St. Martin's Press.
History
Early years
Edward Henry Wadewitz, the 30-year-old son of German immigrants, worked at the West Side Printing Company in Racine, Wisconsin. When the owner of that company was unable to pay Wadewitz his wages, Wadewitz took the opportunity in 1907 to purchase the company for $2,504, with some of the funds provided by his brother Albert. Knowing that the company needed staff with more knowledge of the business than he had, Wadewitz hired Roy A. Spencer, a printer at the Racine Journal Company.At the end of its first year sales were $5,000 and the company increased its staff of four to handle a growing number of commercial jobs. It installed a cylinder press, two smaller presses, and an automatic power cutter. In 1910, the company changed its name to Western Printing and Lithographing Company after the purchase of its first lithographic press. By 1914, sales were more than $127,000. The company installed a larger offset press and added electrotyping and engraving departments. Wadewitz was approached by the Hamming-Whitman Publishing Company of Chicago to print its line of children's books. Unable to pay its bills, Hamming-Whitman left Western with thousands of books. As a result, Western acquired Hamming-Whitman on February 9, 1916, and formed a subsidiary corporation, Whitman Publishing Company. It employed two salesmen and, in the first year, grossed more than $43,500 liquidating the remaining Hamming-Whitman books. In 1916, Sam Lowe joined Western. He convinced Western and Whitman to publish a 10-cent children's book in 1918 and convinced retailers that children's books could be sold year-round.
1920s
Western introduced boxed games and jigsaw puzzles in 1923 after purchasing a 38-inch by 52-inch Potter offset press. By 1925, sales exceeded $1 million. Western added another subsidiary, the Western Playing Card Company after purchasing the Sheffer Playing Card Company. In 1929, Western purchased a Chicago stationery and greeting card manufacturer, Stationer's Engraving Company. Another subsidiary was K.K. Publications, named after Kay Kamen, manager of character merchandising at Walt Disney Studios from 1933 to 1949. K.K. Publications became defunct during the mid/late 1960s.1930s
During the Great Depression between 1929 and 1933, Western introduced new products: The Whitman jigsaw puzzle became very popular during this period as did a new series of books called Big Little Books. Brought out in 1932, the 10-cent Big Little Books became very popular with people looking for inexpensive entertainment. The first Big Little Book was The Adventures of Dick Tracy. Western won exclusive book rights to all Walt Disney licensed characters in 1933, and in 1934 established an eastern printing plant at the former Fiat factory site in Poughkeepsie, New York.The printing plant allowed a close relationship to develop with the publishers Dell Publishing Company and Simon & Schuster, Inc. From 1938 to 1962 Dell Publishing and Western produced color comic books featuring many of Western's licensed characters. In 1938, the first joint effort between Western and Simon & Schuster, A Children's History, was published. In the 1930s, Western formed the Artists and Writers Guild Inc., located in New York City, to develop new children's books. Western expanded to the West Coast in the early 1940s, opening an office in Beverly Hills to make it easier to do business with studios that owned the characters the company licensed.
1940s
Georges Duplaix replaced Sam Lowe as head of the Artists and Writers Guild in 1940 when Lowe left the company. Dick Simon, then head of Simon & Schuster, mentioned to Duplaix that he was interested in any new ideas for children's books. Duplaix had the idea to produce a colorful, more durable and affordable children's book than those being published at that time which sold for $2 to $3. With the help of Lucile Ogle, also working at the Guild, Duplaix contacted Albert Leventhal, a vice president and sales manager at Simon & Schuster, and Leon Shimkin, also at Simon & Schuster, with his idea. The group decided to publish twelve titles for simultaneous release in what was to be called the Little Golden Books Series. Each book would have forty-two pages, twenty-eight printed in two-color, and fourteen in four-color. The books would be staple-bound. The group originally discussed a 50-cent price for the books, but Western did not want to compete with other 50-cent books already on the market. The group calculated that if the print run for each title was 50,000 copies instead of 25,000, the books could be sold for 25 cents each. In September 1942, the first 12 titles were printed and released to stores in October. Three editions totaling 1.5 million books sold out within five months of publication in 1942.During World War II, Western had a contract with the U.S. Army Map Service to produce maps for soldiers in the field and it also manufactured books and playing cards which were sent overseas. In 1945, Western acquired another major printing plant, Wolff Printing Company of St. Louis.
1950s
Guild Press, Inc., a publisher of Catholic books, religious greeting cards, and gift wrap, was purchased in the early 1950s. In 1955, a new specialty printing plant was built in Hannibal, Missouri. Western achieved sales of $63 million in 1957, the year of its 50th anniversary. In the same year the company acquired Kable Printing Company, a large rotogravure magazine printer.With partners Dell and Simon & Schuster, the company sponsored the Story Book Shop on Main Street, U.S.A., in Disneyland which opened on July 17, 1955, and closed April 1, 1995. In addition it was one of the initial investors in the park by virtue of being a part-owner of Disneyland, Inc.
Western and Pocket Books, Inc. formed Golden Press, Inc. at the end of 1958 following their joint purchase of all Golden Book properties from Simon and Schuster. The arrangement called for Western to continue to create and manufacture Golden Books which Pocket Books would promote, sell, and distribute. By 1959, over 150 Little Golden Book titles had sold at least a million copies, and more than 400 of the 1,000-plus Golden Book titles were in print in thirteen languages.
1960s
The 16-volume Golden Book Encyclopedia, published in 1960, enjoyed sales of 60 million copies in two years, while sales of Golden Press books reached almost $39 million in 1960. In the same year, the name Western Publishing Company was adopted and common stock was issued with some eighty percent owned by management or employees. At this point Western had the distinction of being the largest creator and publisher of children's books, the largest producer/distributor of children's games made from paper or paper products, and the largest creator/producer of comic books. Western had operated at a profit every year since 1907, paid a dividend every year since 1934, and seen net sales increase from $40.5 million in 1950 to $123.8 million in 1960. During the same period, net profit had increased from $3.1 million to $7.4 million. In 1961, Western opened another printing plant, in Cambridge, Maryland, and in 1970 acquired several companies, including Odyssey Press, a high school and college textbook publisher.By 1963, 65 percent of Western's total revenues derived from juvenile literature, 25 percent from commercial printing, and 10 percent from books produced for other publishers and miscellaneous activities. Whitman accounted for 35 percent of the company's revenue. The company's half-share in Golden Press, Inc. was a problem. It lost money in 1961 and 1962, and, in 1963, its sales sagged from $32.9 million the previous year to $22.5 million. Western bought Pocket Books' half-share in Golden Press in 1964 with 276,750 shares of its common stock valued at nearly $7.4 million. Odyssey took over the sales and distribution of adult Golden Books; Western did the same for children's titles.
Western Printing & Lithographing, the largest company unit, accounted for about 40 percent of sales in 1965. Artists & Writers Press, Inc., one of fourteen active subsidiaries, created books for publishers and commercial customers including Golden Books, Betty Crocker cookbooks, the Arts of Mankind series for Golden Press, and the four-volume Harper Encyclopedia of Science for Harper & Row. Capitol Publishing, purchased in 1961, originated and produced educational materials and games for children, as well as toys and novelty products. The Kable Printing division produced over 125,000 monthly magazines, other periodicals, and catalogs. The Watkins-Strathmore Co., acquired in 1957, produced children's books and games, including Magic Slate. Meanwhile, Whitman published nearly every type of juvenile and adolescent books, numismatic books, coin cards, a wide variety of games, playing cards, crayons, and gift wrap. Western also had a Canadian subsidiary and a French company.
In 1967, the Justice Department charged Golden Press and seventeen other publishers with illegally fixing prices of library editions of children's books. Each agreed to the terms of a consent judgment forbidding them from submitting rigged bids or conspiring with wholesalers to fix prices of sales to schools, libraries, or government agencies. Western purchased Skil-Craft Playthings, Inc., a leader in craft kits and a manufacturer of laboratory science sets for children based in Chicago, for 100,000 shares of common stock in 1968.