J. B. Lippincott & Co. was an American

publishing house Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

founded in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in 1836 by Joshua Ballinger Lippincott. It was incorporated in 1885 as J. B. Lippincott Company.

History

1836–1977

Portrait of Joshua Ballinger Lippincott G268

Joshua Ballinger Lippincott (March 18, 1813 – January 5, 1886) founded the publishing company in

when he was 23 years old. J. B. Lippincott & Co. began business publishing Bibles and prayer books before expanding into history, biography, fiction, poetry, and gift books. The company later added almanacs, medicine and law, school textbooks, and dictionaries. In 1849, Lippincott acquired Grigg, Elliot & Co., a significant publisher and wholesaler whose origins dated back to printer and bookseller Benjamin and Jacob Johnson in 1792. In 1850 J. B. Lippincott & Co. became Lippincott, Grambo & Co. but reverted to its former name in 1855. The company was incorporated in 1878 as J. B. Lippincott Company. Lippincott published the first textbook of nursing in the U.S. in 1878 and the first issue of the ''

American Journal of Nursing The ''American Journal of Nursing'' (AJN) is a monthly peer-reviewed nursing journal established in 1900. the editor-in-chief is Carl Kirton and it is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. In 2009 the journal was selected as one of the "10 ...

'' in 1900. By the end of the 19th century, Lippincott was one of the largest and best-known publishers in the world. ''

Lippincott's Monthly Magazine ''Lippincott's Monthly Magazine'' was a 19th-century literary magazine published in Philadelphia from 1868 to 1915, when it relocated to New York to become ''Robert M. McBride, McBride's Magazine''. It merged with ''Scribner's Magazine'' in 1916. ...

'', a popular periodical containing a complete novel, short stories, poetry, and opinion, was published in the U.S. and the UK from 1868 to 1914. During the 20th century Lippincott also became a major publisher of schoolbooks for elementary and high school education and of references, textbooks, and journals in medicine and nursing. In 1961, Lippincott acquired the religious publisher A. J. Holman, which was headquartered in the A.J. Holman and Company building.

1978–1995

In 1978, J. B. Lippincott Company was acquired by

Harper & Row Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins, based in New York City. Founded in New York in 1817 by James Harper and his brother John, the company operated as J. & J. Harper until 1833, when ...

Publishers, Inc. A. J. Holman was sold to the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1979. Lippincott's trade, juvenile and elementary and high school divisions were merged into Harper's. The remaining publishing activities, in medicine, nursing, and allied health, were combined with Harper's programs to form "J.B. Lippincott—the Health Professions Publisher of Harper & Row". In 1990, Lippincott was acquired by

Wolters Kluwer Wolters Kluwer N.V. is a Dutch information services company. The company serves legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance, and healthcare markets. Wolters Kluwer in its current form was founded in 1987 with a merger bet ...

N.V. of The Netherlands. J. B. Lippincott Company celebrated its 200th anniversary in 1992.

1996–present

Wolters Kluwer merged Lippincott with its other medical publisher, Raven Press, in 1996 to form Lippincott-Raven Publishers. In 1998 Wolters Kluwer acquired medical publisher Williams & Wilkins and combined it with Lippincott-Raven to form

Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (LWW) is an American imprint (trade name), imprint of the American Dutch publishing conglomerate Wolters Kluwer. It was established by the acquisition of Williams & Wilkins and its merger with J.B. Lippincott Company ...

. After further internal reorganization at Wolters Kluwer in 2002, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins ceased to exist as an operational entity; instead, the names Lippincott Williams & Wilkins and Lippincott are now used solely as publishing imprints of Wolters Kluwer Health.

Leadership

Presidents of J. B. Lippincott Company * Joshua Ballinger Lippincott (1885–1886) * Craige Lippincott (1886–1911) * J. Bertram Lippincott (1911–1926), (Chairman, 1926–1940) * Joseph Wharton Lippincott (1926–1949), (Chairman, 1949–1958) * Howard K. Bauernfeind (1949–1958), (Chairman, 1958–1973) * Joseph W. Lippincott Jr. (1958–1978), (Chairman 1974–1978) * Barton H. Lippincott (1978–1981), (Chairman, 1981–1987) * Edward B. Hutton Jr. (1981–1983) * Lewis Reines (1985–1986) * Peter D. Nalle (1987–1990) * Alan M. Edelson (1990–1994) * Mary Martin Rogers (1995–1996) Co-Presidents of Lippincott-Raven Publishers * Mary Martin Rogers and Joseph W. Lippincott III (1996–1998) Co-Presidents of

* Edward B. Hutton Jr. and Joseph W. Lippincott III (1998–2000) * Jeffrey Smith and Tim Satterfield (2000–2002)

Notable authors

Edward Abbey Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the nov ...

Henry Adams Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 – March 27, 1918) was an American historian and a member of the Adams political family, descended from two U.S. presidents. As a young Harvard graduate, he served as secretary to his father, Charles Fran ...

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'' has been ranked ...

Hall Caine Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine (14 May 1853 – 31 August 1931), usually known as Hall Caine, was a British novelist, dramatist, short story writer, poet and critic of the late 19th and early 20th century. Caine's popularity during his lifetim ...

Harper Lee Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016) was an American novelist whose 1960 novel ''To Kill a Mockingbird'' won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman ...

Vincent T. DeVita Vincent Theodore DeVita Jr. (born March 7, 1935) is the Amy and Joseph Perella Professor of Medicine at Yale Cancer Center, and a Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health. He directed the Yale Cancer Center from 1993 to 2003. He has been pre ...

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

Mary Henderson Eastman Mary Henderson Eastman (February 24, 1818February 24, 1887) was an American historian and novelist who is noted for her works about Native Americans in the United States, Native American life. She was also an advocate of Slavery in the United Sta ...

Leon Edel Joseph Leon Edel (1907 – 1997) was an American/Canadian literary critic and biographer. He was the elder brother of North American philosopher Abraham Edel. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' calls Edel "the foremost 20th-century authority ...

Nikki Giovanni Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. (June 7, 1943 – December 9, 2024) was an American poet, writer, commentator, activist and educator. One of the world's best-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recor ...

Gwethalyn Graham Gwethalyn Graham (January 18, 1913 – November 25, 1965) was a Canadian writer and activist, whose 1944 novel ''Earth and High Heaven'' was the first Canadian book to reach number one on the ''New York Times'' Best Seller list."Gwethalyn Graham: ...

* Grace Livingston Hill *

Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo ...

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

L. L. Langstroth Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth (December 25, 1810 – October 6, 1895) was an American apiarist, clergyman, and teacher, who has been called the father of American beekeeping. He recognized the concept of bee-space, a minimum distance that bees a ...

Jack London John Griffith London (; January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors t ...

Stanley Loomis Stanley Loomis (21 December 1922 – 19 December 1972) was the author of four books on French history: ''Du Barry'' (1959), ''Paris in the Terror'' (1964), ''A Crime of Passion'' (1967), and ''The Fatal Friendship'' (1972). His books have bee ...

Betty MacDonald Betty MacDonald (born Anne Elizabeth Campbell Bard; March 26, 1907 – February 7, 1958) was an American author who specialized in humorous autobiographical tales, and is best known for her book ''The Egg and I''. She also wrote the '' Mrs. Piggl ...

* John D. MacDonald * L. M. Montgomery *

Christopher Morley Christopher Darlington Morley (May 5, 1890 – March 28, 1957) was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet. He also produced stage productions for a few years and gave college lectures.

Alfred Noyes Alfred Noyes Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (16 September 188025 June 1958) was an English poet, short-story writer and playwright. Early years Noyes was born in Wolverhampton, England the son of Alfred and Amelia Adams No ...

Mary O'Hara Mary O'Hara (born 12 May 1935) is an Irish soprano and harpist from County Sligo. She gained attention on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Her recordings of that period influenced a generation of Irish female singer ...

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), th ...

Piers Paul Read Piers Paul Read FRSL (born 7 March 1941) is a British novelist, historian and biographer. He was first noted in 1974 for a book of reportage, '' Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors'', later adapted as a feature film and a documentary. Read ...

Steven Rosenberg Steven A. Rosenberg (born 2 August 1940) is an American cancer researcher and surgeon, chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland and a Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences a ...

* Alvin Schwartz * Amélie Rives Troubetzkoy *

Dalton Trumbo James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including ''Roman Holiday'' (1953), '' Exodus'', ''Spartacus'' (both 1960), and '' Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'' (194 ...

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

* Forrest Wilson *

Sir Samuel White Baker Sir Samuel White Baker (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. He also held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. ...

References

External links

Brief history of J. B. Lippincott Company
at Lippincott Williams & Wilkins (archived)
"Joseph Wharton Lippincott, Jr."
– ()—Princeton University memorial
J. B. Lippincott Company Records

Historical Society of Pennsylvania The Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historic research facility headquartered on Locust Street in Center City Philadelphia. It is a repository for millions of historic items ranging across rare books, scholarly monographs, family chron ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lippincott, J. B. and Co. 1836 establishments in Pennsylvania American companies disestablished in 1990 American companies established in 1836 Book publishing companies based in Pennsylvania Companies based in Philadelphia Defunct book publishing companies of the United States Publishing companies established in 1836