ABSTRACT
Trade Organization Faced with a nation that was expanding both demographically and geographically
during these years, the challenge of reaching a national, and extensive, market forced the book trade to organize itself in modern business ways. Many of he major American trade publishers had been founded before the Civil War as family enterprises or limited partnerships and were run on a very much ad hoc basis. As the second, and in a few cases the third, generation of proprietors took charge of these firms, mosi: were expanded and structured in more rational fashion. Growth brought a need for increased capital to what had traditionally been an undercapitalized business, and many firms were reorganized as private corporations during these years: J.B. Lippincott in 1885, the Harper Brothers in 1896 and again in 1900, D. Appleton in 1900, Charles Scribner in 1904, and Houghton Miffiin in 1908. With growth and incorporation, these firms also became structured int~rnally with separate departments overseeing such functions as editorial, production, distribution, and advertising, or such special branches of the trade such as school books. These departments were overseen by a new class of professionals who acted as managers to their specialized staffs.2
