| Parent company | Macmillan Publishers (1869–1951) |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 1869 |
| Founder | George Edward Brett |
| Defunct | February 1994 |
| Successor | Simon & Schuster Gale McGraw Hill |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Headquarters location | New York City, U.S. |
Macmillan Inc. (also known asMacmillan US, and formerlyThe Macmillan Company) was an American bookpublishing company originally established as the American division of theBritishMacmillan Publishers. The two were later separated and acquired by other companies, with the remnants of the original American division of Macmillan present inMcGraw-Hill Education's Macmillan/McGraw-Hill textbooks,Gale's Macmillan Reference USA division, and some trade imprints ofSimon & Schuster (Scribner,Free Press, andAtheneum Books) that were transferred when both companies were owned byParamount Communications.
The German publisherHoltzbrinck, which bought the British Macmillan in 1999, purchased American rights to the Macmillan name in 2001 and rebranded its American division with it in 2007.[1]
George Edward Brett opened the first Macmillan office in the United States in 1869. Macmillan sold its U.S. operations to the Brett family,George Platt Brett Sr. andGeorge Platt Brett Jr. in 1896, resulting in the creation of an American company, Macmillan US (in which Macmillan Publishers held stake until 1951).[2][3] Even with the split of the American company from its parent company in Britain, George Brett Jr. and Harold Macmillan remained close personal friends.[4]
George P. Brett Jr. made the following comments in a letter dated 23 January 1947 to Daniel Macmillan about his family's devotion to the American publishing industry:
For the record my grandfather was employed by Macmillan's of England as a salesman. He came to the United States with his family in the service of Macmillan's of England and built up a business of approximately $50,000 before he died. He was succeeded . . . by my father, who eventually incorporated The Macmillan Company of New York and built up business of about $9,000,000. I succeeded my father, and we currently doing a business of approximately $12,000,000. So then, the name of Brett and the name of Macmillan have been and are synonymous in the United States.
Under the leadership of the Brett family, Macmillan served as the publisher of American authors Winston Churchill,[5]Margaret Mitchell, author ofGone with the Wind,[6] andJack London,[7] author ofWhite Fang andCall of the Wild.
The Bretts remained in control of the American offices of Macmillan from its creation in 1869 to the early 1960s, "a span matched by few other families in the history of United States business."[4]
Macmillan Publishers sold its stake in Macmillan US in 1951 and later re-entered the American publishing industry with the founding ofSt. Martin's Press in 1952.[3]
Despite the strong protest of leading astronomers of the time, Macmillan US published in 1950Imanuel Velikovsky'sWorlds in Collision. When a boycott threatened Macmillan US, it transferred the book toDoubleday[8]
Macmillan US merged withCrowell Collier Publishing Company in 1961. The U.S. publisher became a media giant and renamed itself Macmillan Inc. in 1973.
In 1979,Thomas Mellon Evans bought a large stake in Macmillan Inc. Macmillan Inc. then was bid on byMattel andABC, only for an acquisition by ABC to break down.[9] Macmillan Inc. then sold several non-publishing divisions. In 1980, Macmillan Inc. sold musical instrument makerC.G. Conn.[10] In 1981, Macmillan Inc. soldHagstrom Map, the bookstoreBrentano's and the printer Alco‐Gravure.[11][12][13]
In 1981, Macmillan Inc. acquired the children's publisher Bradbury Press.[14] In 1982, Macmillan Inc. sold its British division,Cassell, toCBS.[15] In 1984, Macmillan Inc. acquired theScribner Book Companies and the textbook publishers Sieber & McIntyre, Dellen Publishing, and Pennwell Books.[16] The following year, Macmillan Inc. acquired the publishing operations ofITT (Sams,Bobbs-Merrill, legal publisher Michie Co., trade magazine company Intertec,Marquis Who's Who, andG. K. Hall & Co.).[17] Bobbs-Merrill was subsequently closed, with its remaining books moved to Macmillan.[18] In 1986, Macmillan Inc. sold the music publisherG. Schirmer, Inc. toMusic Sales Group.[19] In 1987, Macmillan Inc. acquired the educational publisher Laidlaw fromDoubleday.[20] In 1988, Macmillan Inc. acquired the educational publisher Jossey-Bass.[21]
The company was acquired by the controversial British tycoonRobert Maxwell'sMaxwell Communication Corporation in 1989. Later in 1989, Macmillan acquiredPrentice Hall Information fromSimon & Schuster and sold Intertec, Macmillan Book Clubs, and Gryphon Editions to K-III Communications (nowRent Group).[22][23] Maxwell Macmillan Professional and Business Reference Publishing (the former Prentice Hall division) was sold toThomson Professional Publishing.[24] Macmillan's directories (led byMarquis Who's Who and National Register Publishing) were sold toReed Publishing.[25] Michie was sold toMead.[26] Macmillan also sold the department storeGump's, the trade schoolKatharine Gibbs, and part of its stake in language schoolBerlitz.[27]
Maxwell died in 1991, and Macmillan began selling properties and eventually filed for bankruptcy. Paramount acquired Macmillan Computer Publishing.[28] Standard Rate & Data Service was sold toOAG, a sister Maxwell company.[29]Collier's Encyclopedia was sold toPlaneta andDeAgostini.[30] What remaining of Macmillan Inc. was eventually sold toSimon & Schuster/Paramount Communications for $552.8 million and finalized in February 1994.[31][32][33] (At the time,Viacom had just purchased S&S via the acquisition of its former parent companyParamount Communications; it was owned for several years by corporate successorParamount Global and now owned byKohlberg Kravis Roberts.) The Macmillan and Atheneum adult trade publications were merged into Scribner.[34] Macmillan Publishing USA became the name of Simon & Schuster's reference division (while Macmillan Inc. became simply a legal name for it).Pearson acquired the Macmillan name in America in 1998, following its purchase of the Simon & Schuster educational and professional group (which included Macmillan Inc. and its properties).[1] Pearson merged the acquired Simon & Schuster divisions with Addison Wesley Longman to formPearson Education (including Macmillan Computer Publishing).[35] Pearson closed the children's reference imprints of Macmillan Library Reference in preparation for a sale.[36] Pearson sold the Macmillan Reference USA division (which includedScribner Reference and G. K. Hall) toThomson Gale and Macmillan General Reference (exceptComplete Idiot's Guides) toIDG Books in 1999.[35][37]
Macmillan's school publishing operations (including Glencoe, Barnell Loft, andBenziger) were merged into a joint operation withMcGraw-Hill in 1989.[38] McGraw-Hill acquired full ownership of Macmillan/McGraw-Hill in 1993 after Maxwell's death.[39]
Holtzbrinck purchased most of the rights to the Macmillan name from Pearson in 2001,[40] but not any of the businesses then associated with it. Holtzbrinck rebranded its U.S. division with the name in 2007.[1]
The online user-maintained database Jacketflap reports these constituent American publishers of Holtzbrinck's Macmillan division (August 2010):[41]
| Academic and professional |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Gale | ||
| Other | ||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
