Western & Friends

[germund]

Hi all,
I wonder if anybody here could describe the relationship between Western and some of the subsidiaries/labels publishing books by some of the same artists. I don't know that much about Little Golden Books etc but would like to know in some detail how especially Simon & Shuster, Golden Press and Whitman were related to Western (if at all). I tried searching Mark Evanier's webpages but did not find the right information. Evanier has published an excellent informative text about the DELL/Western/Gold Key relationship but not the others.

Is there a good webpage out there that's still eluded me?

[Dell Comics Fan]

Sorry that I can't recommend a website, but I have two books in my library
that might be helpful: COLLECTING LITTLE GOLDEN BOOKS, by Steve Santi
(which contains a lengthy history of Western Publishing Co.) and WHITMAN
JUVENILE BOOKS, by David & Virginia Brown (which has a history of Whitman Publishing). I'll try to offer a brief summary of each.

Western Publishing Company, Inc., one of the largest printers of children's
books in the world, began in the basement of 618 State Street in Racine,
Wisconsin. Edward H. Wadewitz was the son of German immigrants and he
purchased the West Side Printing Company in 1907. With only four employees, the company showed sales of $5,000 at the end of the first year. In 1908 with commercial job sales increasing, they hired more employees and moved into a larger building. In 1910 after the purchase of the company's first lithographic press, the name was changed to Western Printing & Lithographing Co.

Wadewitz was approached by the Hamming-Whitman Publishing Company
of Chicago to print their line of children's books. What Wadewitz did not
foresee was that Hamming-Whitman would soon be going out of business.
Unable to pay their bills, Hamming-Whitman left Western with thousands
of books in their warehouse and in production. Trying to cut thieir losses,
Wadewitz entered Western into the retail book market for the first time.
This was to prove so successful that the remaining Hamming-Whitman
books were liquidated. After acquiring Hamming-Whitman on Feb. 9, 1916,
Western formed a subsidiary corporation which they called Whitman
Publishing Company. Whitman employed two salesmen the first year and
grossed over $43,500 in children's book sales.

Sam Lowe joined the Western team in 1916 and sold Western and Whitman
on the idea of bringing out a 10 cent children's book in 1918. During the
depression years (1929-1933), Western introduced jigsaw puzzles and
a new series of books called Big Little Books.

By the end of 1933, the depression was nearing an end; and Western and
Walt Disney signed their first contract giving Western exclusive rights to
Disney's major characters. Western, seeing a problem having their plants
and offices so far away from the rest of the publishing industry, purchased
a plant in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 1934. This event marked the beginning of
a close relationship with Dell Publishing Company and Simon & Schuster,
Inc. Dell and Western produced "Four Color Comics" from 1939-1962, containing many of Western's licensed characters.

Meanwhile, Little Golden Books became so popular with children that by the
end of 1945 most of the first 12 books ("Three Little Kittens," "The Poky
Little Puppy," etc.) had been printed seven times. Simon & Schuster, Inc.
published Little Golden Books while the Artists & Writers Guild produced
them and Western did the printing. In 1958 Western and Pocket Books Inc.
became joint publishers and the company name was changed to Golden
Press, Inc.

Besides Little Golden Books, jigsaw puzzles, Big Little Books, and comic books (first distributed by Dell and later by Western itself under the Gold Key/Whitman imprint), the company also produced juvenile books ("Tom
Swift," "Little Women," "Bobbsey Twins," and many, many movie & TV
titles), board games, paper doll books, coloring books, etc. Although
Western had the lion's share of licensed characters, there was still some
competition for the youth market from such publishers as Saalfield,
Grossett & Dunlap, and Cupples & Leon.

[Dave Bennett]

Hey! --- Thanks for sharing that most interesting little history lesson, Dell!

I was familiar with the latter-day permutations of Western's comic book publishing/distribution, but was unaware of their early history. Neat stuff to know!

[germund]

THANKS! This was perfect! Just the information I needed. I know loads of stuff about old Disney comics etc but I have wondered a lot about the different labels and publishing companies over the years. Two more books to add to my boookshelves! I am currently writing a text aboutTony Strobl and he has illustrated comics, childrens' books etc for just about every related label/company I can think of.

[Dell Comics Fan]

By the way, I forgot to mention Random House acquired Golden Books (as
reported in the magazine COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE #1453, Sept. 14, 2001).
Random House Inc. (and Classic Media Inc.) won a Delaware bankruptcy court
auction for the assets of Golden Books Family Entertainment Inc. The two
companies bid a combined amount of $84.4 million.

Golden's library consisted of more than 500,000 book titles, its comic-book
backlog, and 3,000 movies, TV specials and cartoons.

Consequently, Random House now owns all the book-publishing properties;
Classic owns the entertainment division, incl. movie, TV and home video
products along with production, licensing and merchandising rights for the
company's characters (Poky Little Puppy, etc.).

Just an interesting post script to the Western Publishing history