Whitman Publishing is an American book publishing company which started as a subsidiary of the Western Printing & Lithographing Company of

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River. Racine is situated 22 miles (35 km) south of Milwaukee and approximately 60 ...

. In about 1915, Western began printing and binding a line of juvenile books for the Hamming-Whitman Publishing Company of Chicago. A few years later Hamming-Whitman went bankrupt, and Western took over the company, found success in selling the inventory of low-cost juvenile books, and formed the Whitman Publishing Company. Whitman now primarily produces

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order ...

and

stamp Stamp or Stamps or Stamping may refer to: Official documents and related impressions * Postage stamp, used to indicate prepayment of fees for public mail * Ration stamp, indicating the right to rationed goods * Revenue stamp, used on documents ...

collecting books and materials. The company is owned by Anderson Press.

Children's book publisher

From the early 1900s to the mid 1980s, Whitman was a popular

children's book Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

publisher. For decades it was a subsidiary of

Western Publishing Company Western Publishing, also known as Western Printing and Lithographing Company, was a Racine, Wisconsin, firm responsible for publishing the Little Golden Books. Its Golden Books Family Entertainment division also produced children's books and ...

. In 1933 the company signed a licensing contract with

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

to produce books based on Disney cartoon characters, such as

Mickey Mouse Mickey Mouse is an animated cartoon Character (arts), character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime mascot of The Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red sho ...

Donald Duck Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is known fo ...

, and

Goofy Goofy is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. He is a tall, Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic dog who typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled f ...

.Ridgely Hunt, Joy is a Fuzzy Fuzzy Santa Claus, ''Chicago Tribune Magazine'', November 22, 1964, page 234
/ref> Whitman also published Whitman Authorized Editions with stories featuring fictionalized versions of popular actresses of the 1940s and, later, novels based upon popular television shows, such as

Captain Kangaroo ''Captain Kangaroo'' is an American children's television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television progra ...

, ''

the Patty Duke Show ''The Patty Duke Show'' is an American television sitcom created by Sidney Sheldon and William Asher. The series ran on ABC from September 18, 1963, to April 27, 1966. The series was developed as a vehicle for teenage star Patty Duke, who h ...

'', and ''

The Beverly Hillbillies ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' is an American television sitcom that was broadcast on CBS from 1962 to 1971. It had an ensemble cast featuring Buddy Ebsen, Irene Ryan, Donna Douglas, and Max Baer Jr. as the Clampetts, a poor, backwoods family f ...

''. One of Whitman's most popular mystery series was Trixie Belden. In 1977 they launched the Trixie Belden Fan Club, and issued a lower-priced paperback book format of the series. At the time some booksellers stated that the Trixie Belden books were more popular than

Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Cre ...

and

The Hardy Boys The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens. The series revolves around teenagers who are amateur sleuths, solving cases that stumped their adult counterp ...

books. Whitman published the popular

Big Little Books The Big Little Books, first published during 1932 by the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin, were small, compact books designed with a captioned illustration opposite each page of text. Other publishers, notably Saalfield, adopted ...

and Better Little Books. The early Big Little Books had print runs of 250,000 to 350,000 for each title, with no reprints. They also published illustrated card games including

War War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

, Hearts,

Fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...

Old Maid An old maid is a spinster. Old maid or Old Maid may also refer to: Games *Old maid (card game), a simple game popular around the world, existing in many variants *, a German card game (variant of ) whose name translates as 'old maid' Film * ' ...

, and

Crazy Eights Crazy Eights is a shedding-type card game for two to seven players and the best known American member of the Eights Group which also includes Pig and Spoons. The object of the game is to be the first player to discard all of their cards. The ga ...

Coin and stamp collecting products

By the mid-1930s Whitman began a line of “coin boards” that helped popularize the coin collecting hobby. ''Whitman’s Handbook of United States Coins'' was first published in 1942. The first edition of ''Whitman’s Guide Book of United States Coins'' (the “Red Book”) was published in 1946. This started an expanding line of books aimed at

numismatist A numismatist is a specialist in numismatics ("of coins"; from Late Latin ''numismatis'', genitive of ''numisma''). Numismatists include collectors, specialist dealers, and scholars who use coins and other currency in object-based research. Altho ...

s. The line continued as Western was sold to

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in mor ...

in 1982, then was spun off and renamed Golden Books Family Entertainment. The new company sold Whitman Coin Products and other adult lines to St. Martin's Press. St. Martin's, in turn, sold Whitman Coin Products to the H.E. Harris company, another publisher that specialized in coin and postage stamp collecting materials. H.E. Harris was then renamed Whitman Publishing, which continues to produce primarily coin and postage stamp collecting books materials. Whitman operates the websites ''Coin Update'', ''Mint News Blog'' and ''World Mint News Blog''. Today, Whitman Publishing is owned by Anderson Press. As of 2017, Whitman was also publishing books on other topics in addition to the coin and postage stamp collecting materials and books.

Gallery

References

External links

* {{Authority control Book publishing companies of the United States Numismatics