American Book Company Plant - Cincinnati, Ohio
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 39° 06.091 W 084° 30.185
16S E 715917 N 4331010
Former school book publishing plant located in Cincinnati.
Waymark Code: WM3R71
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 05/09/2008
Views: 52
The AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY PLANT, 300 Pike St., comprises a 5-story office
building of brown-painted brink, with stone quoins in the corners, and a factory
covering two blocks along E. Third St. Here some 500 persons are employed
in the production of several million school books each year which are
distributed throughout America. The firm is an outgrowth of the modest
publishing house started by Winthrop Smith in 1834; its first book was Ray's
Eclectic Arithmetic. In 1836 the firs published the first McGuffey's
Reader, which soon achieved an extraordinary popularity. Alexander
McGuffey and Dr. Timothy Pinneo aided William Holmes McGuffey in preparing
additional titles and revisions, and for 65 years the Cincinnati firm, under
various changes of name, brought out edition after edition of the
celebrated school books. In 1901, when the last edition was published, it
was estimated that 100 million copies of the McGuffey books had been printed.
~ from Cincinnati: A Guide to the Queen City and Its Neighbors,
1943, Tour 3, pg. 165
The American Book Company is no longer occupies the building. The
building has been converted to professional offices. The McGuffey Readers
are still available in many book stores and many are available on line including
The New McGuffey First Reader originally published in 1901.