Pulprack

Doubleday, Page & Co. -- The Garden Where Publications Grow

[Editor's Note: After more than a century of operation, Doubleday & Co., and its numerous book clubs, is no longer an independent publisher. Through a merger several years it became just another faceless conglomerate called Bantam, Doubleday & Dell. Yet Doubleday's history is richly steeped in pulp fiction history. Its long-running SHORT STORIES was one of the great adventure story magazines of all time. The following article originally appeared in the April 1920 issue of The American News Trade Journal, and provides a few interesting glimpses into the publisher's formative years.]

It was in 1897 that the house of Doubleday, Page and Company formed a partnership with S. S. McClure, already a veteran of the publishing business, the firm being known as Doubleday and McClure. In 1900, however, the partnership broke up. Mr. Doubleday taking the book-publishing end of the firm, while Mr. McClure kept the magazine that bears his name.

Mr. Doubleday searched some time for another partner, finally selecting Walter H. Page, a former ambassador to Great Britain -- a man wonderfully in touch with current events and national movements. Mr. Page at once took up the task of getting out the new magazine the firm had decided to issue. It bore the now famous name of World's Work, and was published for the first time in September 1900, from the third floor of a building at 34 Union Square. Up to that date all the serious magazines had consisted principally of quotations from newspapers and other periodicals. World's Work was the first in which all the contributions were originally written for the magazine alone.

For a short time Everybody's Magazine also was edited and published by the Doubleday, Page Company, but it was dropped in 1903.

World's Work, in the course of its history, has carried on several campaigns giving public sentiment expressed against current abuses. The most notable were the crusade against the pension frauds, and the rights for conservation of national resources -- the latter a battle that has not yet finished.

On the outbreak of the war in 1914, the current issue of World's Work, which was already in the presses, was entirely killed, and the War Manual substituted. During our war with Germany the magazine was given almost entirely over to furthering the national interests. Hugh Gibson's articles "From Our Legation in Belgium" were prominent during that period, and with the close of the European conflict Admiral Sims' excellent work on "Our Victory at Sea" has appeared. World's Work to-day holds an enviable position among the magazines of the country, no small part of which is due to the present editor, Mr. Arthur W. Page, who succeeded the elder Mr. Page on his death.

Just one year after the initiation of World's Work the first copy of Country Life in America came off the press. This was followed, in 1905, by Garden Magazine, as the need of a periodical of slightly different type was felt. No small part of the beauty of modern American country homes is due to Country Life, while everyone, in city or country, who has tried to raise a garden knows the value of Garden Magazine. It speaks well for the quality of Country Life that it came out at a particularly difficult time; one in which the publication of a new magazine was looked upon as extremely dangerous. Mr. R. T. Townsend is now editor of Country Life, and Mr. Leonard Barron of Garden.

The beginning of the great war opened up South American trade to this country, but few manufacturers were prepared to take advantage of the opportunity thus presented to them. The need for closer co-operation of all sorts was felt, and Doubleday, Page and Co., accordingly started La Revista del Mundo, a quarterly in Spanish, considerably on the lines of World's Work. The magazine jumped into popularity at once, and in the spring of 1919 it was found necessary to change it from a quarterly to a monthly.

Recently, a snappy magazine for men was added to the Doubleday family, under the name of Short Stories.

The names of Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Selma Lagerlof are immortal; but they owe something of their immortality to the publishers who put their books into such readable, purchasable form. Not only these giants from across the Atlantic, but many of our most popular American authors are on Doubleday's trade list. Gene Stratton Porter's entrancing stories of Limberlost, Tarkington's brisk novels of American life, Kathleen Norris' up-to-date books, Stewart Edward White's tales, with their fine, bracing atmosphere of the frontiers of the world, Grace Richmond's quiet novels, all these bear the Country Life imprint. The latest addition to the Doubleday, Page group of writers is Ole Hanson, the fighting mayor of Seattle, whose story of how he tamed the Reds in that western town has just appeared. Henshaw's thrilling "Cleek" tales must be mentioned, too.

The firm that produces Garden Magazine would naturally publish garden books. Doubleday, Page's Garden series is quite without equal.

The growth of the firm has been remarkably rapid. In 1904 it was found necessary to buy the ground and erect a new building at 133-7 East Sixteenth St., New York. It was supposed that this plant would be large enough to take care of future expansion for some time to come. It did -- for just six years. The company grew with truly astonishing speed, and when it had reached its tenth birthday the Sixteenth Street plant had become hopelessly small. Printing was being carried on in separate buildings, and another had to be leased for a store-room.

It was decided to erect an entirely new plant, on an entirely new idea. Twenty miles out of New York, on Long Island, the village of Garden City was selected. It was already a place of paved streets and beautiful homes, beyond the boom stage, and offered every advantage. Architects were set to work, and the new plant proceeded with furious haste, for Doubleday's, cramped in the New York building, were not publishing either as swiftly or efficiently as they might. A book might be written on the building of the Garden City plant alone -- how steel from Pittsburgh was delivered before it was contracted for; how carloads of cement and brick came piling in on each other; how the swarms of laborers were handled for the maximum of work and minimum of interference; and how the various jobs of wiring, millwrighting, boiler installation, and heating were done in record time. For a time it was feared that the tenth anniversary number of World's Work would have to be published in New York, but efficient speed carried the day, and on October first, the company moved into its new plant.

An object lesson to the read of Country Life and Garden Magazine is the company's own garden, occupying more than half of the Garden City plot. It is a green paradise, this garden, with a lovely Italian pool nesting in the center, and the trimmest hedges imaginable. There are rare flowers and curious plants, too, from all over the world. Whenever a new flower or shrub is found, an effort is made to have one plant of the new species, at least, in the Country Life Garden. The practical side of gardening is not forgotten, in the meantime, and during the war vegetables only were raised. The garden is open to the public, and many readers of Doubleday magazines visit each summer.

One of the most beautiful sun-dials in America occupies one corner of the Doubleday, Page garden, surrounded by a lovely arbor of cedars.

The Long Island Railroad connects the company with New York City, three-quarters of an hour's ride away, the company having its own station.

The story of Doubleday, Page is that of a constantly growing power in the publishing world. Each successive building has become too small in an astonishingly short time, and even now they are building two additions to the Garden City plant. The quantity of books published has been increased each year, and the number of magazines published has risen from one to five in the company's twenty years of existence.

Looking forward, there is no reason to believe that Doubleday, Page and Company will not maintain the high standards of quality and quantity they have set up in the past.

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