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Willey & Co. was a small subscription book publisher founded around 1888 by John S. Willey ( John Stephen Willey; 1855–1927) in Springfield, Massachusetts, at 195 State Street and operated by he and his wife, Kate Willey ( Catherine Casler; 1856–1894). Earlier, John. S. Willey Publishing Company ran in Manhattan, New York from about 1881 to about 1886.

History

 * Standard Publishing House,, New York, John S. Willey, proprietor
 * John S. Willey Publishing Company, New York
 * Willey & Co., Springfield, Massachusetts
 * Willey Incorporated, Springfield, Massachusetts

Willey & Company, based in Springfield, Massachusetts. The company was operated by English immigrant printer John Stephen Willey along with his wife Catherine. Mainly a publisher of religious volumes, Willey & Company had also printed Penn’s Afro-American Press and Alexander Crummell’s Africa and America: Address and Discourses, both in 1891. Although small, the firm advertised itself in the 1890s as the publisher of "great Race Books."


 * Citation: Penn to Douglass, 14 September 1892, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frames 667–69, Douglass Papers, Library of Congress; Harrison and Harrison, Irvine Garland Penn, 39; 1860 U.S. Census, New York, Oneida County, 80; 1905 New York State Census, New York County, 25; 1910 U.S. Census, New York, New York County, 147; The National Corporation Reporter: A Weekly Journal Devoted to the Interests of Business and Municipal Corporations, Finance and Commerce (Chicago: The United States Corporation Bureau, 1893–1894), 249; Massachusetts Birth Records, 1840–1915, Ancestry.com; U.S. City Directories, 1822–1995, Ancestry.com; New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829–1940, FamilySearch.org; New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795–1949, FamilySearch.org; FindAGrave.com.

Willy Incorporated was established in Springfield in 1893 by John S. Willey as President and Treasurer with capital stock of $10,000.

Willey & Co.'s address, 195 State Street, is the current location of the Springfield Fire & Marine Insurance Co. building, erected in 1905, and, in 1983, listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

John S. Willey
John Stephen Willey was born March 31, 1855, in Leamington, Warwickshire, England.

Willey & Company, New York

 * 1895 Directory, John S. Willey, publisher → work: 26 Frankfort → home: 108 East 10th Street.


 * Trow's New York City Directory for the Year Ending May 1, 1883, Vol. 96


 * 211 East 57th Street, New York (home on 1883 Naturalization papers)


 * John S. Willey, Arrived March 1864, Naturalized in Common Pleas Court, New York County, January 22, 1883

Standard Publishing House





 * LCCN unk83037751;.

John S. Willey Publishing Company
Note: The title, intended as sarcasm by the author, sees capitalism as immoral and unethical and offers Christianity as an antidote. Edward J. Blum, in an essay published in 2013, explained that Leavitt "turned to fiction to save the America people from sin and decadence".

Willey & Co.





 * LCCN tmp92003542;.


 * (1891); (1969 re-print);.




 * (original); (1969 re-print);  (1969 re-print);.


 * Editors:
 * Editors:









Litigation





 * Continental Publishing Company v. John S. Willey Publishing Company Chicago: Circuit Court of Cook County (Septemrer 1885).

Family
Willey's son, Rev. John Stephen Willey, Jr., from 1945 to 1955, was Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in Oklahoma City. From January 4, 1944, to late October 1945, he was a Navy Chaplain at Cabaniss Field, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. Before that, he was with a large bank in Manhattan. He was ordained as Priest December 21, 1933.

Related subjects

 * Subscription literature
 * Subscription book trade near the turn of the 20th century
 * Subscription books, with the elegant bindings and gold-edged leaves, caught the eye of many who were hungering for knowledge on the intellectually starved frontier. A longing to have a pretty volume in the home or to give the children advantages which parents never had, influenced others to part with their hard-earned cash.


 * Subscription publishing was tantamount to today's gofundme styled publishing and ArtistShare, a fan-funded platform where artists provide content for patrons who subscribe to access levels of their choosing.


 * "The serious trend of the public's reading, as illustrated by Chicago library circulation statistics," said R. S. Branch, of a Chicago publishing house, "sounds a note of optimism for the subscription book industry. When we learn that 'The Mind in the Making' was the most popular book in the library in 1922, we cannot escape the fact, as surprising as it may be to many, that the books the public wants nowadays are those of educational value. This is the kind of books subscription publishers sell. We would have to go out of business if we depended upon best-sellers whose popularity lasts a few months or a year. Our books represent a large investment, and if they are to prove profitable they must have continuing interest and be as valuable ten years in the future as they are when issued." – R.S. Branch, in a speech before a convention of the Subscription Book Publishers Association, 1923.

Subscription Book Publishers' Association

 * 1921: Frank Elbert Compton (1874–1950), President
 * 1955: David S. Beasley, President


 * see this
 * and this
 * and this
 * and this

National Association of Book Publishers

 * The Publishers Association disbanded sometime on or before 1929, but many of its members joint the National Association of Book Publishers, founded in 1920 in New York, and from within it, formed a Subscription Group Committee.


 * 1920: Frederick G. Melcher, founding Executive Secretary

Conventions

 * 1923: Eighth Annual Convention

References linked to notes




Note: David B. Clarkson Company, in 1905, became successor to Clarkson and Cooper, publisher based in Chicago →








 * (publication); (article);  (article).










 * ; ISBN 0-7864-0387-X;.




 * (publication); (article).






 * ; ISBN 1-8849-6433-8;.