Curtis Publishing Company
Encyclopedia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, became one of the largest and most influential publishers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the early 20th century. The company's publications included the Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
and The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, The American Home
The American Home
The American Home was a monthly magazine published in the United States from 1928 to 1977. Its subjects included domestic architecture, interior design, landscape design, and gardening....
, Holiday
Holiday (magazine)
Holiday was an American travel magazine published from 1946 to 1977. Originally published by the Curtis Publishing Company, Holidays circulation grew to over one million subscribers at its height....
, Jack & Jill
Jack and Jill (magazine)
Jack and Jill is a bimonthly American magazine for children 7 to 10 years old which takes its title from the nursery rhyme of the same name. It features stories and educational activities....
, and Country Gentleman
Country Gentleman
Country Gentleman was an agricultural magazine founded in 1831 in Rochester, NY by Luther Tucker. The magazine was purchased by Curtis Publishing Company in 1911. Curtis redirected the magazine to address the business side of farming, which was largely ignored by the agricultural magazines of the...
. In the 1940s, Curtis also had a comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
imprint, Novelty Press
Novelty Press
Novelty Press was an American Golden Age comic-book publisher that operated from 1940–1949. It was the comic book imprint of Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of The Saturday Evening Post...
.
History
The company was formed in 1891 by publisher Cyrus CurtisCyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis
Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis was an American publisher of magazines and newspapers, including the Ladies' Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post.-Biography:...
, who published the People's Ledger, a news magazine he had begun in Boston in 1872 and moved to Philadelphia in 1876. He had also established the Tribune and Farmer in 1879, from the women's section of which he fashioned the Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal
Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...
under the editorship of his wife, Louisa Knapp in 1883. These publications were taken under the imprimatur of the new company.
In 1897, Curtis spent $1,000 to buy The Saturday Evening Post, which would become one of the nation's most popular periodicals, known for its timely articles and stories and frequent cover illustrations by Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell
Norman Percevel Rockwell was a 20th-century American painter and illustrator. His works enjoy a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of American culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life scenarios he created for The Saturday Evening...
. The advent of television in the late 1940s and early 1950s encroached upon the popularity of general interest periodicals like the Post and the Journal, and in March, 1962, Curtis Publishing's president Robert A. MacNeal announced that the company had lost money for the first time since its incorporation, more than 70 years before.
Perfect Film
Cadence Industries
Cadence Industries Corporation, formerly Perfect Film & Chemical Corporation, was an American conglomerate owned by Martin "Marty" S. Ackerman. From 1968 through 1986, Perfect/Cadence was the parent company of the publisher of Marvel Comics....
loaned $5 million into Curtis Publishing in 1968 at the request of Curtis' primary loan holder, First National Bank of Boston to exend its loans. Curtis sells for $7.3 million its Philadelphia headquarters to a real estate developer, John W. Merriam, and lease half the buildings back to pay off most of the First National loan. Perfect's owner, Martin S. Ackerman
Martin S. Ackerman
Martin S. Ackerman was a lawyer and businessman known for mergers and acquisitions.-Legal career:Raised in Rochester, NY, Ackerman then attended and graduated from Syracuse University. He then move on to law at Rutgers Law School. With his law degree he in 1957 became a partner in the Cooper,...
was appointed president. In 1968, Curtis Publishing sold the Ladies' Home Journal, along with The American Home, to Downe Communications
Downe Communications
Downe Communications was a publishing company founded by Edward Downe, Jr. that produced several popular magazines and provided subscription fulfillment services from 1967 to 1978....
for $5.4 million in stock. Ackerman has Curtis sell the Downe stock for operating cash. 6 million Post subscribers are sold to Life for cash, a 2.5 million dollar loan and become a customer of Curtis' subsidaries for circulation and printing services. With all these attempts to revive the Post and lack of a purchaser, Curtis Publishing shut down the Evening Post in 1969. In March 1969, the Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1914 by the Federal Trade Commission Act...
directs Curtis to offer cash refunds for unfulfilled portions of Evening Post subscriptions. Perfect Film purchased Curtis Circulation Company
Curtis Circulation
Curtis Circulation Company, LLC is a company that is in the magazines distribution business. It is also known for lending its name to an affiliated company, Marvel Comics Group, for a line of magazines, Curtis Magazines.-History:...
that same year. Curtis sold The Saturday Evening Post, the last of its magazines, in 1982.
Curtis Center
Georgian architecture
Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...
architecture.
Dream Garden
It holds a famous Tiffany glassTiffany glass
Tiffany glass refers to the many and varied types of glass developed and produced from 1878 to 1933 at the Tiffany Studios, by Louis Comfort Tiffany....
mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic is the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It may be a technique of decorative art, an aspect of interior decoration, or of cultural and spiritual significance as in a cathedral...
, "The Dream Garden," made for Curtis by the Louis C. Tiffany Studios. The 260-color mosaic was based on a painting by Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the twentieth century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery.-Life:...
. In 1998, the mosaic was sold to casino owner Steve Wynn, who planned to move it to one of his casinos. This was blocked by local historians and art lovers who raised $3.5 million to prevent the move.
Janitors
In 2006, the building's owner, Arthur Jackson, fired the building's 40 unionizedTeamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
janitors so they could hire other workers more cheaply.
See also
- Curtis Hall ArboretumCurtis Hall ArboretumThe Curtis Hall Arboretum, sometimes called Curtis Arboretum, is a forty-five-acre arboretum that is located at 1250 Church Road , Wyncote, Pennsylvania. The arboretum was founded by Mary Louise Curtis Bok, in honor of her father, Cyrus Curtis. The landscaping was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted...
, Curtis family estate in Wyncote, PennsylvaniaWyncote, PennsylvaniaWyncote is a census-designated place in Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,044 at the 2010 census...
External links
- Curtis Publishing Company website
- Listing and photographs at the Historic American Buildings SurveyHistoric American Buildings SurveyThe Historic American Buildings Survey , Historic American Engineering Record , and Historic American Landscapes Survey are programs of the National Park Service established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consists of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written...
- The Curtis Publishing Company Records, including financial records, advertising standards, magazines and newspaper clippings, are available for research use at the Historical Society of PennsylvaniaHistorical Society of PennsylvaniaThe Historical Society of Pennsylvania is a historical society founded in 1824 and based in Philadelphia. The Society's building, designed by Addison Hutton and listed on Philadelphia's Register of Historical Places, houses some 600,000 printed items and over 19 million manuscript and graphic items...
. - http://www.ushistory.org/districts/washingtonsquare/curti.htm
- Flickr photos of the Curtis Building
- Old postcards of the Curtis Building
- Curtis Institute of Music website