Status | Defunct |
---|---|
Founded | 1900 |
Founder | Arthur J. Saalfield |
Defunct | 1977 |
Country of origin | United States |
Headquarters location | Akron, Ohio, U.S. |
Publication types | Books |
Fiction genres | children's books |
The Saalfield Publishing Company published children's books and other products from 1900 to 1977. It was once one of the largest publishers of children's materials in the world.
The company was founded in 1900 in Akron, Ohio, by Arthur J. Saalfield who had come to take charge of the Werner Company's publishing department. During its flourishing, the company published the works of authors including Louisa May Alcott, Lewis Carroll, Horatio Alger, P. T. Barnum, Daniel Defoe, Colonel George Durston, Laura Lee Hope, Herman Melville, Dr. Seuss, Anna Sewell, Shirley Temple, Johanna Spyri, Mark Twain, Johann Rudolf Wyss, and Robert Sidney Bowen.
Saalfield published the New Americanized Encyclopædia Britannica in 1903, and was sued for copyright violation.
The company also published educational toys and games, including the game Blockhead!.
Among the artists employed by Saalfield was noted illustrator Ethel Hays. She worked on a variety of the company's juvenile titles, including Peter Rabbit, The Night Before Christmas, and The Little Red Hen. Her most notable work came after Saalfield had secured the license from the Johnny Gruelle Company in 1944 to produce Raggedy Ann and Andy material. Storybooks, coloring books, and paper doll [1] booklets soon followed. Most of the artwork fell to Hays, "whose exuberant, curvilinear style perfectly captured the whimsy and energy of Gruelle's characters." [2] Another artist/illustrator who did work for Saalfield was Frances Brundage (1854 - 1937). Brundage, who also did work for Raphael Tuck & Sons, the Samuel Gabriel Company, and other publishers, illustrated many classic works for children, and had widespread popularity; books with her illustrations are actively collected.
In April 1977 Saalfield Publishing Company shut down, and its library and archives were purchased by Kent State University.
Saalfield published the Americanized Encyclopædia Britannica in 8 volumes with a 4 volume supplement (when the British edition had 24 volumes). The Encyclopædia Britannica Company had acquired all the rights to the encyclopedia in America. In addition, D. Appleton & Company claimed that the 4 volume supplement used material from Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography .
To avoid further litigation, the suit against Saalfield Publishing was settled in court "by a stipulation in which the defendants agree not to print or sell any further copies of the offending work, to destroy all printed sheets, to destroy or melt the portions of the plates from which the infringing matter in the Supplement as it appears in the Americanized Encyclopædia Britannica has been printed, and to pay D. Appleton & Co. the sum of $2000 damages." [3]
In the early 1960s, the Saalfield Publishing Company competed directly with rival publisher Grosset & Dunlap by issuing their own series of science books for children. Similar in format to their competitor's then highly popular How and Why Wonder Book series, the Saalfield Science Series consisted of a set of soft-cover books on diverse science topics, aimed at capturing a share of the lucrative children's non-fiction book market.
Identical to How and Why Wonder Books, the Saalfield Science Series consisted of a list of unique titles printed in the classic 8 1/2 X 11 inch page format, with a standard book length of 48 pages each. These books were also generously illustrated with many color and black and white drawings depicting a wide range of scientific concepts. There were only six volumes published in the short-lived series. They were:
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Raggedy Ann is a character created by American writer Johnny Gruelle (1880–1938) that appeared in a series of books he wrote and illustrated for young children. Raggedy Ann is a rag doll with red yarn for hair and a triangle nose. Gruelle received US Patent D47789 for his Raggedy Ann doll on September 7, 1915. The character was created in 1915, as a doll, and was introduced to the public in the 1918 book Raggedy Ann Stories. When a doll was marketed with the book, the concept had great success. A sequel, Raggedy Andy Stories (1920), introduced the character of her brother, Raggedy Andy. Further characters such as Beloved Belindy, a black mammy doll, were featured as dolls and characters in books.
John Barton Gruelle was an American artist, political cartoonist, children's book and comics author, illustrator, and storyteller. He is best known as the creator of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls and as the author/illustrator of dozens of books. He also created the Beloved Belindy doll. Gruelle also contributed cartoons and illustrations to at least ten newspapers, four major news syndicates, and more than a dozen national magazines. He was the son of Hoosier Group painter Richard Gruelle.
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Judith A. Hunt is an American illustrator, painter, cartoonist, and designer, who has produced a diverse array of artwork for books, magazines, television, comics, videos, and toys. She has worked as an art director and staff illustrator/designer for magazine companies. As of 2018, she illustrates educational texts and children's books from her studio in Kennebunk, Maine, and showcases her fine art in local art shows.
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Richard Buckner Gruelle was an American Impressionist painter, illustrator, and author, who is best known as one of the five Hoosier Group artists. Gruelle's masterwork is The Canal—Morning Effect (1894), a painting of the Indianapolis, Indiana skyline, but he is also known for his watercolors and marine landscapes of the Gloucester, Massachusetts, area. In 1891 Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley commissioned Gruelle to illustrate two of his more notable poems, "When the Frost is on the Punkin'" and "The Old Swimmin' Hole," which were published in Neighborly Poems (1891). Gruelle is also the author of Notes, Critical and Biographical: Collection of W. T. Walters (1895), which provides a detailed description of Baltimore industrialist William Thompson Walters's extensive art collection.
How and Why Wonder Books were a series of American illustrated books published in the 1960s and 1970s that were designed to teach science and history to children and young teenagers. The series began in 1960 and was edited under the supervision of Paul E. Blackwood of the Office of Education at the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The series was published by Wonder Books, Inc., a division of Grosset & Dunlap.
Ethel Hays was an American syndicated cartoonist specializing in flapper-themed comic strips in the 1920s and 1930s. She drew in Art Deco style. In the later part of her career, during the 1940s and 1950s, she became one of the country's most accomplished children's book illustrators.
Frances Isabelle Lockwood Brundage (1854–1937) was an American illustrator best known for her depictions of attractive and endearing children on postcards, valentines, calendars, and other ephemera published by Raphael Tuck & Sons, Samuel Gabriel Company, and Saalfield Publishing. She received an education in art at an early age from her father, Rembrandt Lockwood. Her professional career in illustration began at seventeen when her father abandoned his family and she was forced to seek a livelihood.
Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy is a two-reel cartoon produced by Fleischer Studios and released on April 11, 1941. It was co-written by Johnny Gruelle's son, Worth. It was the first Paramount cartoon to feature Raggedy Ann. This cartoon marks the only appearances of her brother Raggedy Andy and The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees. The cartoon depicts Raggedy Ann and Andy as sweethearts as opposed to siblings in the books.
Cupples & Leon was an American publishing company founded in 1902 by Victor I. Cupples (1864–1941) and Arthur T. Leon (1867–1943). They published juvenile fiction and children's books but are mainly remembered today as the major publisher of books collecting comic strips during the early decades of the 20th century.