J.B. Lippincott Company

LC name authority rec. n80037020

Organized in 1836 as J. B. Lippincott & Co.; in 1885 name changed to J. B. Lippincott Company.

Biography:

J. B. Lippincott & Co. was an American publishing house founded in Philadelphia

Pennsylvania in 1836 by Joshua B. Lippincott. Joshua Lippincott's company began by

selling Bibles and other religious works then successfully expanded into trade books,

which became the largest portion of the business. In 1849, Lippincott acquired Grigg,

Elliot & Co., a major book distribution company. The acquisition helped make the

company one of the largest publishers in the United States. In the 1950s the company

began producing a successful line of medical and nursing books and journals. The

company was sold to Harper & Row in 1978 but Joshua Lippincott's great-grandson

Joseph Wharton Lippincott, Jr. remained on the Board of Directors until 1987. In 1990,

the company was acquired by Wolters Kluwer, who merged it with Raven Publishers and

then with Williams & Wilkins to form Lippincott Williams & Wilkins in 1998.

( J.B. Lippincott Company Records (Collection 3104), The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. )

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