George Stinson & Company, Publisher

Here is a nice advertising cover for a publisher previously unknown to me.

George Stinson and Co. was among the first of the art publishing firms in the United States. It was active between 1873 and 1894. This Portland, Maine publisher printed huge numbers of chromolithographs and prints. One article states that it sold more than "four million pictures of all descriptions" in 1878 alone. Numerous contemporaneous advertisements can be found in which Stinson was looking for salesman to sell these prints.

In addition to the prints Stinson published a number of periodicals. Examples are Farm and Housekeeper, The Thrifty Farmer and Fireside magazine, The People's Illustrated Journal, Illustrated Household Magazine and others. These were started mainly in the late 1870's.

Although not a significant part of its business, Stinson did publish a few books including  of The Life, Speeches and Public Service of James A. Garfield by Russell Conwell. and The History of Christianity by John S. C. Abbott (Jacob Abbott's brother)

A. L. Bancroft S.F. Publisher Advertising Cover

Generally, when I think of the locations of 19th century book publishers I think of Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Even Chicago and Cincinnati make my short list. Publishers west of the Mississippi just do not appear on my radar.

In about 1870 Albert Little Bancroft succeeded his brother's publishing firm. The latter, H. H. Bancroft , founded by Hubert Howe Bancroft, was an active publishing house from 1856-1870. In 1870, Hubert wanted to concentrate on his writing (especially historical works relating to the California and the West Coast) and thus gave up his firm to his brother , the firm becoming A. L. Bancroft & Co.

The latter firm concentrated on law books, reference books, and blank books. The Bancroft publishing building burnt down in April, 1886.

Here is an advertising cover for A. L. Bancroft & Co. It is for a blank book.

Advertising Cover for A.J. Holman & Co.

The picture above is an advertising cover for A.J. Holman & Co. This cover is especially nice because it has a picture of the Holman building in Philadelphia and is dated (January 14, 1891).

A. J. Holman was an extremely prolific publisher of Bibles in the 19th century. In the 1850's Holman was employed by Jesper Harding, another huge Bible publishing house, as a superintendent of the manufacture of Bibles. In 1872 he began his own publishing firm which as the cover notes specialized in Bibles, and photographic albums.

Holman competed directly at that time with his former employer, Jesper Harding. In 1883 one of Holman's trusted copartners , Captain J. Parker Martin, left Holman to take over as manager of the Henry Altemus Bible production department. The similarity between the new Altemus Bibles and the Holman Bibles was quite startling. See: http://henryaltemus.com/bibles/bibles.htm .

As the years went on into the 20th century Holman continued to be one of the major Bible publishers.

Holman was still at this address in this building into the middle of the 20th century.

Donohoue and Henneberry Advertising Cover

No matter what type of ephemera someone is collecting it. An area that I do not know much about is advertising covers. As you probably do know, my interest is in books and related items. So it is no wonder that there is a crossover between my interests and envelopes, err, I mean advertising covers. Since I thought from time to time I would show an interesting advertising cover, I figured that I should know something about them.
There is a nice site which reviews the terminology :
http://alphabetilately.com/A.html Hopefully I will not mess up too badly in describing these items.

Shown here is a great cover from Donohue and Henneberry. Based on the site noted above I think it is a "topical advertising cover". Its building is shown in addition a mention of its "Red Line Series" was made. This series is the only printing done by the company in the 1880's. The Red Line Series remained popular into the 1890's. The Red Line Series however was not a series of reading books. It was rather a series of school registers, report cards, diplomas, receipt books and the like. In fact the Donohue and Henneberry 1889 catalogue lists four pages of this kind of "red line" item for sale.

Early on this company was a bookbinder only. From 1871-1878 they were Donohue, Wilson and Henneberry and as a bookbinder was succeeded by Donohue and Henneberry. The publisher came to be in 1890 as Donohue, Henneberry and Company. In 1900 they were succeeded by Donohue Brothers as Michael A. Donohue went in one direction and William F. Henneberry went in another becoming Henneberry Company. In 1901 Donohue Brothers became M.A. Donohue. Throughout the 1800's they were located at the Dearborn address in Chicago.

In addition to publishing and binding books, they manufactured office supplies-pads of paper, pencils, crayons, clips, etc.