D C. Heath & Company
—This house was founded in 1886 by Daniel C. Heath, whose first office was in Tremont Place, Boston. The name chosen by Mr. Heath for his firm was D. C. Heath & Company, which name has continued until this day. Mr. Heath’s first partner was Charles H. Ames, who was admitted to the firm in 1888. His second was William E. Pulsifer, who joined the Company in 1889. Dr. Winfield S. Smyth, who had been Ginn & Company’s Chicago manager, was taken into the firm of D. C. Heath & Company in 1893. In 1895, the partnership sold its business to a corporation organized in that month, of which Mr. D. C. Heath was made President, Dr. Winfield S. Smyth, Vice President, William E. Pulsifer, Treasurer, and Charles H. Ames, Secretary. Mr. Heath died in January, 1908, and Dr. Smyth in August, 1908.
After Mr. Heath’s death his trustees, Herbert C. Foss and E. G. Cooley, who for some time had been Superintendent of Schools in Chicago, carried on the business for two years, when Mr. Heath’s stock was purchased by William E. Pulsifer, Winfield S. Smyth, Jr., W. H. Ives, James C. Simpson, Isaac Van Houten, Frank F. Hummel, and others who bought a few shares of the common stock. In 1910 the corporation elected as its officers, William E. Pulsifer, President, W. H. Ives, Vice President, Winfield S. Smyth, Treasurer, and Charles H. Ames, Secretary. Mr. Ives soon retired and in September, 1911, Mr. Ames died. The present officers of the Company are William E. Pulsifer, President, James C. Simpson, Vice President, Winfield S. Smyth, Treasurer, and Frank F. Hummel, Secretary. Mr. S. Willard Clary was the editor-in-chief of the Modern Language Department for twenty-seven years, and Dr. Charles Henry Douglas has been the editor-in-chief of the general list since 1895.
When Mr. Heath retired from the firm of Ginn & Heath, he was paid for his interest partly in cash and partly in books. Among the publications which he received from the Ginn & Heath list were Remsen’s Organic Chemistry, Shaler’s First Book in Geology, Ybarra’s Practical Method in Spanish, Sheldon’s Short German Grammar, Hall’s Methods of Teaching History, and Mitchell’s Hebrew Lessons. There were altogether twenty-four bound books and several manuscripts, including those prepared by Mary Sheldon. Mr. Heath’s first publications were Sheldon’s Studies in General History, the Joynes-Meissner German Grammar, and several French and German texts purchased from English and Scotch publishers and republished by him.
D. C. Heath & Company has acquired by purchase from Leach & Shewell and added to its list the Wells Series of Mathematics for secondary schools and colleges, a number of Latin texts and textbooks from the University Publishing Company, Thomas’s History of the United States from a Friends’ Society known as The Text-Book Association of Philadelphia, Bancroft’s School Gymnastics from Kellogg & Company of New York, Bowser’s Algebras, Geometries, and Trigonometries from Van Nostrand & Company, and the American rights in what is now known as the Arden Shakespeare from Blackie & Son, Limited, of Scotland.