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J.B. Lippincott & Co.
American, founded 1836
Formed by descendants of the Religious Society of Friends, Joshua Lippincott's company began selling a line of Bibles, prayer books and other religious works before expanding into trade books, which became the largest portion of the business. In 1849, Lippincott acquired Grigg, Elliot & Co., a major book distribution company whose origins dated back to bookstall operators Benjamin Warner and Jacob Johnson in 1792. The acquisition helped make the company one of the largest publishers in the United States. For a time in the 1850s, it did business as Lippincott, Grambo & Co., before taking on the name J. B. Lippincott & Co.
In the 1950s, the company began producing a successful line of medical and nursing books and journals. After numerous changes and mergers, which included a merger with Harper & Row in the 1970's, the company was acquired in 1990 by Wolters Kluwer of Germany. Merged in 1998 with Williams & Wilkins to form Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, it specializes in medical books and journals. As of 2011, HarperCollins still controls Lippincott's back catalog of fiction titles; notable among those titles is Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
On Joshua Lippincott's death in 1886, his son Craige Lippincott took over as president. He committed suicide in 1911.
He was succeeded by J. Bertram Lippincott. Bertram married his cousin Joanna Wharton, daughter of the founder of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Joseph Wharton.
In 1940 their son Joseph Wharton Lippincott (1887–1976) became the company's president. In 1943 J. B. Lippincott & Co. bought out the publishing company Frederick A. Stokes.
Joseph Wharton Lippincott, Jr. (1914–2003), became the fourth generation to head the business and expanded the business into Europe and Asia. In 1978 he sold the company to Harper & Row but Lippincott, Jr. remained on the Board of Directors until 1987.
In 1990, the company was acquired by Wolters Kluwer of Germany, who merged it with Raven Press of New York to form Lippincott-Raven Publishers. In 1998 Lippincott-Raven was merged with Williams & Wilkins to form Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Person TypeBusiness
English, founded 1680
