University Publishing Company
—This firm was incorporated in 1868 under New York State law. Prominent among the promoters and original stockholders of the Company were Horace Greeley, August Belmont, W. H. Aspinwall, G. B. Hallgarten, W. R. Travers, Eugene Kelly, J. B. Alexander, Richard L. Edwards, and many others of New York. In Baltimore, Robert Garrett & Sons, brokers controlling the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, A. S. Able of the Baltimore Sun, C. H. Latrobe, at one time Mayor of Baltimore, John Hopkins, W. T. Walters, owner of the once famous Peach Blow Vase, were stockholders. Jefferson Davis and Joseph E. Johnson subscribed for stock, and Dr. Howard Crosby, the famous divine of New York, was an enthusiastic supporter. General John B. Gordon was interested in the Company and was for many years a director and Vice President of the concern.
The educators agreed upon as authors of the new books were all university men, and this fact gave its name to the Company. The list of authors included Dr. Basil L. Gildersleeve of Johns Hopkins University, Matthew F. Maury, author of The Physical Geography of the Sea, Dr. George F. Holmes, Charles S. Venable of the University of Virginia, and Professor William Hand Brown. Of the books published, Maury’s Physical Geographies and Gildersleeve’s Latin Grammar at once took their places as standard authorities.
Early in 1873, Ezra D. Barker was elected General Manager by the directors. He supervised the revision of Holmes’ Readers and Spellers, Maury’s Primary and Grammar School Geographies, and Venable’s Arithmetic.
In 1888, Mr. C. L. Patton cast his fortune with the Company and came to New York as the Manager of the Agents’ Introduction Department. In 1892, Mr. Patton reorganized the Company, which took over the plates and publishing rights of the J. B. Lippincott schoolbook list, also a list of books published by F. F. Hansell & Brother of New Orleans.
On the 31st of December, 1906, the directors of the Company decided to go into voluntary liquidation. In this liquidation the grammar school books were sold to the American Book Company, Gildersleeve’s Latin Series to D. C. Heath & Company, Eadies’ Physiologies to Charles Scribner’s Sons, and the Standard Literature Series and all remaining publications to Newson & Company.