Dodd, Mead & Company

Institutional History:
The publisher, Dodd, Mead and Company, was begun in New York City in 1839 as the firm, Taylor and Dodd. Founded by Moses Woodruff Dodd and John S. Taylor, this firm published originally religious books. In 1840 Dodd bought out his partner and established the company as M. W. Dodd. The company was to evolve through two further changes in its name. In 1870, when Dodd's nephew Edward S. Mead took over the firm, the publisher became Dodd and Mead. In 1876 Bleecker Van Wagenen became a partner and the name was changed to its final form, Dodd, Mead and Company.
Obligations of the World to the Bible, A Series of Lectures to Young Men (1839) was the first book published by Dodd. Although religious works dominated the early publication lists of M. W. Dodd, by the 1870s Frank Dodd, the son of Moses Dodd, had done much to change the emphasis of the publisher to a more general list.
Early publications of popular fiction included Martha Finley's Elsie Dinsmore and Edward P. Roe's Barriers Burned Away. Edward S. Mead, a partner in Dodd, Mead, was also a writer for the company. He wrote a number of books for children and adults under the pseudonym Richard Markham. Through the 1890s and early 1900s Dodd, Mead and Company expanded publications to include a variety of British and American authors including: G. K. Chesterton, Jerome K. Jerome, H. G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, Paul Leicester Ford, George Barr McCutcheon, Hamilton Wright Mabie, and Agatha Christie.
In the late 1890s Dodd, Mead and Company introduced the work of a number of new poets including Robert W. Service, Bliss Carman, and Paul Laurence Dunbar. This archive is comprised of the contracts and correspondence between Dunbar, a prominent Black American poet, and Dodd, Mead. Dunbar's Lyrics of Lowly Life was published in 1896, followed by Poems of Cabin and Field (1899), Lyrics of the Hearthside (1899), and a novel, The Sport of the Gods (1902).
During the 1950s, '60s, and '70s Dodd, Mead and Company published a number of anthologies of Negro poetry, folklore, essays, stories, and humor. This archive contains contracts and permission files related to those publications. Some of the anthologies and their editors include: We Speak of Liberators (1970) and What We Must See edited by Orde Coombs, The Book of Negro Folklore (1958, 1969) edited by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes, 3000 Years of Black Poetry (1969) edited by Lomax and Abdul, The Book of Negro Humor (1966) edited by Langston Hughes, and The Harlem Renaissance Remembered (1972) edited by Arna Bontemps.
The business operations of Dodd, Mead and Company were suspended in March 1989 pending the outcome of arbitration with its fulfillment house, Metro Services Inc. By the end of 1990 the company ceased publications.

Biographical Note:
In 1839 Moses W. Dodd purchased an interest in a New York publishing firm established by John S. Taylor. The following year he severed his connection with Taylor and continued alone until his retirement in 1870. He was succeeded by his son, Frank H. Dodd, who, with his cousin Edward S. Mead, formed the firm Dodd & Mead. A retail department was added to the firm and in 1876 Bleecker Van Wagnen was taken as a partner. The firm was then renamed Dodd, Mead & Company.

Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990.

In 1839, Moses Woodruff Dodd (1813–1899) and John S. Taylor, at that time a leading publisher in New York, formed the company of Taylor and Dodd as a publisher of religious books. In 1840 Dodd bought out Taylor and renamed the company as M.W. Dodd. Frank Howard Dodd (1844–1916) joined his father in business in 1859 and became increasingly involved in the publishing company's operation.

With the retirement of founder Moses Dodd in 1870, control passed to his son Frank Howard Dodd, who joined in partnership with his cousin Edward S. Mead (1847–1894), and the company was reorganized as Dodd and Mead. In 1876, Bleecker Van Wagenen became a member of the firm and the name was changed to Dodd, Mead and Company.

The company was well known for the quality of its publications, including many books on American history and contemporary literature. As a bookseller, the firm was a dealer and leading authority in rare books.

As head of Dodd, Mead and Company, Frank Dodd established The Bookman in 1895, and The New International Encyclopedia in 1902. He was president of the American Publishers Association for a number of years. The firm built the Dodd Mead Building (1910) at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Thirtieth Street, and the 11-story building was heralded as creating a new trade center in New York City.

Dodd, Mead and Company published the work of new poets including Robert W. Service, Bliss Carman and Paul Laurence Dunbar.

When Frank Dodd died in 1916, the partnership was dissolved and the business was incorporated. Dodd's only son, Edward H. Dodd, succeeded him as president.

In 1922 Dodd, Mead and Company began a period of great expansion with the purchase of the American branch of John Lane Company, publisher of Anatole France, William John Locke and many prominent poets. Other authors included Aubrey Beardsley, Max Beerbohm, Rupert Brooke, G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Theodore Dreiser, and Stephen Leacock. In 1924 Dodd purchased Moffat, Yard & Co., adding books by William James, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung to their list. Dodd, Mead's New International Encyclopedia was sold in 1931 to Funk & Wagnalls. In 1934, Dodd, Mead acquired Duffield and Green, publisher of Elinor Glyn, Emma Gelders Sterne, and General Krasnov; and the Sears Publishing Company. Dodd, Mead acquired the complete works of George Bernard Shaw.
In December 1981, Dodd, Mead and Company became a subsidiary of Thomas Nelson Inc. One of the last family-owned publishers in the United States, it was purchased for $4 million. The company was sold again in 1986, for $4.7 million. To retire some of its debt, the 149-year-old publishing house sold its greatest assets – the U.S. rights to books by Agatha Christie and Max Brand — to the Putnam Berkley Group in 1988.

The business operations of Dodd, Mead and Company were suspended in March 1989 pending the outcome of arbitration with its fulfillment house, Metro Services, Inc. By the end of 1990 the company ceased publications.