Vanguard Press

This article is about the former publishing house. For the current imprint, see Perseus Book Group.
Vanguard Press
Status Defunct since 1988
Founded March 1926 (March 1926)
Founder Roger Baldwin
Scott Nearing
Trustees of the Garland Fund
Successor Random House
Headquarters location New York, N.Y.
Key people Rex Stout (1926–1928)
James Henle (1928–1952)
Evelyn Shrifte (1952–1988)
Publication types Books

The Vanguard Press (1926–1988) was a United States publishing house established with a $100,000 grant from the left wing American Fund for Public Service, better known as the Garland Fund. Throughout the 1920s, Vanguard Press issued an array of books on radical topics, including studies of the Soviet Union, socialist theory, and politically oriented fiction by a range of writers. The press ultimately received a total of $155,000 from the Garland Fund, which separated itself and turned the press over to its publisher, James Henle. Henle became sole owner in February 1932.[1]

The Vanguard Press operated as a respected independent literary house for 62 years. Its catalog of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children's literature included the first books of Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, Marshall McLuhan, Joyce Carol Oates and Dr. Seuss. With a valuable backlist of 500 titles, the company was sold to Random House in October 1988.[2]

In his history of book publishing, Between Covers (1987), John Tebbel wrote, "Vanguard never became a large and important house, but it continued to publish quality books year after year.[3]

Institutional history

Establishment

The May 1926 meeting of the directors of the American Fund for Public Service, better known as the Garland Fund, allocated $100,000 to establish the Vanguard Press.[4] The new publisher was intended to reissue left-wing classics at an affordable cost and to provide an outlet for the publication of new titles otherwise deemed "unpublishable" by the commercial press of the day.[4] The initial officers and directors of the new publishing house included Jacob Baker, Roger Baldwin, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Clinton Golden, Louis Kopelin, Bertha Mailly, Scott Nearing and Rex Stout.[4] Stout accepted the post of president and held it until 1928, when the Garland Fund ended its subsidy and James Henle became president.[5]

The Vanguard Press emulated the Little Leather Library, the first company to mass-market inexpensive books in the United States, and the Little Blue Books of Emanuel Haldeman-Julius. Vanguard depicted itself in promotional advertising as "destined to be the Ford of Book Publishing" through its inexpensive offerings of "all the grand old idol breakers."[6]

In June 1926, the new publisher made an offer to sundry "labor and liberal organizations", offering to finance half the cost of publishing any book of "permanent educational value", whether it be an original manuscript or a reprint of an existing title. Vanguard Press would print a run of 2,000 copies, with the issuing organization paying for only 1,000 at 25 cents a copy, leaving Vanguard to sell the other 1,000.[4]

Vanguard raised its prices over time but still remained an economical source of hardcover books. By 1928 the standard price for Vanguard titles, such as the books of the series entitled "Studies of Soviet Russia" and "Current Questions", was 75 cents per copy. The series on "American Imperialism" edited by Harry Elmer Barnes and launched in 1928 bore a cover price of $1.00 per copy. In 1927 Vanguard published a collection of H.G. Wells's writings (Wells' Social Anticipations), edited by Harry W. Laidler. Vanguard also published the 1927 edition of the American Labor Year Book on behalf of the Socialist Party-affiliated Rand School of Social Science, which sold for $1.50.[7]

The Garland Fund ultimately supported Vanguard Press to the extent of $155,000.[4]

The publishing house of Macy-Masius was merged into the Vanguard Press in June 1928. For a short time the company operated under the joint direction of George Macy, president of Macy-Masius, and Jacob Baker, Vanguard's managing director.[8]

With the coming of the downturn of the economy in 1929, Vanguard Press steadily moved away from radical political publications and toward more mainstream literary titles as well as apolitical titles of topical interest, such as studies of Charles Lindbergh and organized crime in Chicago.

Vanguard maintained its offices on Fifth Avenue in New York City, initially occupying space at 80 Fifth Avenue before moving to 100 Fifth Avenue in 1928.[9] In the mid-1930s the firm moved to a new building in New York City, located at 424 Madison Avenue.[10]

Sale to James Henle

In February 1932, James Henle, president of Vanguard Press for three years, became sole owner of the publishing house.[1] A former labor reporter for the New York World, Henle signed a number of muckraking journalists. One of Vanguard's greatest successes was 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs (1933), an exposé about dangerous consumer products written by Arthur Kallet, who three years later would found the Consumers Union and Consumer Reports magazine.[2] It was followed by a sequel nearly as successful called 'Counterfeit', in which the author called for the end of production for profit, and identified himself as a Communist.

Among many novels of social realism, Vanguard published more than 30 books by James T. Farrell. Those comprising his Studs Lonigan trilogy (collected in a single volume in 1935) and Donald Henderson Clarke's Female (1933) were the subject of bitter court fights on obscenity charges.[11]

"Vanguard was singled out in the censorship controversies," wrote media historian John Tebbel, "not only because it published Our Fair City, edited by Robert Allen, a collection of essays demonstrating that civic corruption had not changed since the days of Lincoln Steffens, but because it had issued Calder Willingham's End as a Man, an indictment of military school life, and James Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy. Vanguard was also under investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee on the ground that in the twenties and thirties it had published some books by Communist and left-wing writers. HUAC later apologized for the investigation."[12] It was discovered it had purged its membership of communists in the late 1940s, including founder Arthur Kallet.

The Vanguard Press earned a reputation for publishing promising new fiction, poetry, literature for children and young adults, and non-fiction. Vanguard published the first two books of Dr. Seuss and Saul Bellow, and the first books of Nelson Algren, Calder Willingham and Marshall McLuhan. It published Auntie Mame (1955), a comic novel rejected by a dozen publishers before it became a runaway bestseller.[13] Vanguard published Pierre Boulle's The Bridge over the River Kwai (1954) and Planet of the Apes (1963). It published Joyce Carol Oates' first book, and 20 more — including her novel, Them, winner of the National Book Award in 1970.

Evelyn Shrifte, an editor who had joined the Vanguard Press in the early 1930s, became its president in 1952. She was one of the first women to head a book publishing company.[14]

Sale to Random House

Evelyn Shrifte had been president of the Vanguard Press for 36 years when, in October 1988, the company was sold to Random House. She told The New York Times that the sale of the 62-year-old independent publishing house was prompted by the poor health of some of Vanguard's investors. The valuable 500-title backlist of the Vanguard Press was merged into that of Random House, although for 10 years they were to be identified on the title page as Vanguard Press books.

"Random House will take good care of our books and authors," Shrifte said. "But it's as if all my children were being sent to a foster home. I'm trying not to cry while I break the news to our authors."[2]

The archives of the Vanguard Press from its conceptual origins in 1925 through approximately 1985, including over 129,000 documents, was donated by Random House to Columbia University in New York City in 1989.[15] Evelyn Shrifte's papers are in the collection of Syracuse University.[16]

Perseus Book Group

An unrelated imprint, Vanguard Press, was established in 2007 by publisher Roger Cooper. The new Vanguard Press is an imprint of Perseus Books Group.[17]

Authors

Authors' names are followed by their known dates of association with the Vanguard Press.[18]

Bibliography of titles published in the Garland Fund period (1926–1931)

Note: Dates of first edition included in parentheses when known, per direct observation of title pages, ABEBooks.com, and WorldCat.

Social Science Classics

Social Philosophies

Note: Although in 1928 Vanguard Press was announcing the title What is Communism? as "in preparation", it was not until 1936 that Vanguard published a mass market paperback by that title written by the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA, Earl Browder.

Current Questions

Studies of Soviet Russia

Note: Launched on the 10th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Series Editor was Jerome Davis.

Fiction and Biography

Great Books Made Easy

Educational Outlines

American Imperialism

Miscellaneous titles

Unnumbered 1929 publications by author

Unnumbered 1930 publications by author

Unnumbered 1931 publications by author

References

  1. 1 2 "Book Notes," The New York Times, February 16, 1932
  2. 1 2 3 McDowell, Edwin, "Vanguard Will Merge with Random House"; The New York Times, October 25, 1988
  3. ↑ Tebbel, John, Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of Book Publishing in America. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 269
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Gloria Garrett Samson, The American Fund for Public Service: Charles Garland and Radical Philanthropy, 1922-1941. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996; pg. 167.
  5. ↑ McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977 (ISBN 0-316-55340-9), p. 197. "But really, in the early years, the person who ran Vanguard was Jacob 'Jake' Baker, Rex's vice president," McAleer wrote.
  6. ↑ Samson, The American Fund for Public Service, pg. 168.
  7. ↑ Pricing information from the dust jacket of Anna J. Haines, Health Work in Soviet Russia. New York: Vanguard Press, 1928.
  8. ↑ "Books and Authors"; The New York Times, June 17, 1928
  9. ↑ Addresses derived from the dust jackets of Vanguard Press publications, specifically John Haldan Blackie, The ABC of Art (1927) and Anna J. Haines Health Work in Soviet Russia (1928).
  10. ↑ Dust jacket of Bertram B. Fowler, Consumer Cooperation in America: Democracy's Way Out. (Vanguard: 1936).
  11. ↑ "Book Found Obscene"; The New York Times, August 25, 1933. "Berg Conviction Upheld"; The New York Times, November 20, 1935
  12. ↑ Tebbel, John, Between Covers: The Rise and Transformation of Book Publishing in America. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987, p. 454
  13. ↑ "James Henle, 81, Former Head of the Vanguard Press, Is Dead"; The New York Times, January 11, 1973
  14. ↑ Woo, Elaine, "Obituaries: Evelyn Shrifte, Longtime Head of Vanguard Press"; Los Angeles Times, September 8, 1999
  15. ↑ "Vanguard Press. Records, ca.1925-ca.1985.". Columbia University Libraries online catalog of archival collections.
  16. ↑ Evelyn Shrifte Collection Relating to Vanguard Press, Syracuse University Library
  17. ↑ Roger Cooper, Publisher, Vanguard Press; Early Word; retrieved January 16, 2011
  18. ↑ "Advanced Search — Vanguard Press 1926–1988". AbeBooks. Retrieved 2014-02-25.
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