R.R. Donnelley and Sons Company

Founded in Chicago in 1864 by Canadian immigrant Richard Robert Donnelley, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company is a leading global provider of printing and print-related services.

From the description of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive, 1844-2005 (inclusive) (University of Chicago Library). WorldCat record id: 772636484

Richard Robert Donnelley (1836-1899), born in Hamilton, Ontario, arrived in Chicago in 1864 to apply his trade as a journeyman printer with the firm of Church and Goodman, Steam Printers. He was an ambitious and entrepreneurial young man, and in the next several years he entered into numerous partnerships - and endured more than one bankruptcy - in the city's growing printing industry.

A major turning point in Donnelley's fortunes came in 1871. Several days after losing both his business and his home in the Great Chicago Fire, he boarded a train to New York with only a few dollars and a letter of introduction. His mission was to secure financing and purchase printing equipment to re-establish himself in the printing business.

The outcome of his trip is one of countless success stories that came in the aftermath of the Chicago Fire. In New York, Donnelley was extended credit based solely on his reputation. He purchased the most modern presses available and leased temporary space in Chicago's Loop, which was being rebuilt with unprecedented speed. In taking these steps, Richard Robert Donnelley also helped to ensure that Chicago would become the printing center of the West.

By the 1870s, Donnelley's printing firm established a reputation for quality that quickly made him one of the largest book, directory and periodical printers in the West. Another important person in this story was Donnelley's wife, Naomi Ann Shenstone Donnelley (1845-1934), who was equally determined that the family company would grow into a major force in the printing industry.

In 1882, Richard Robert Donnelley purchased his partners' interest in the company that was then known as Donnelley, Gassette and Loyd, and renamed it for the last time. On May 19, 1890, the enterprise was reincorporated and became "R.R. Donnelley and Sons Company."

Donnelley added many of Chicago's most prestigious accounts to his customer list. They included the Chicago Telephone Company, Montgomery Ward and Company, Lyon and Healy, The University of Chicago, Deering Harvester Company, American Radiator Company, The Caxton Club, S.C. Griggs and Company, A.C. McClurg and Company, Herbert S. Stone, McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, Marshall Field and Company, Carson Pirie Scott and Company, The Chicago Club, and many others.

RR Donnelley published and printed the Lakeside City Directory of Chicago in the 1870s. Richard Robert Donnelley believed, however, that publishing and printing should be managed separately, and in 1881 established the Chicago Directory Company as a distinct enterprise. In 1886, these companies undertook to produce directories for the Chicago Telephone Company. The first Chicago Telephone Directory produced by Donnelley's new firm included a classified section, a new concept in telephone directories and predecessor to what is now the Yellow Pages.

In 1887, Donnelley's eldest son Reuben Hamilton Donnelley (1864-1929), became manager of this publishing subsidiary, and by 1917 it was incorporated as the Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation, an independent publisher of telephone directories.

As Chicago grew in the last quarter of the 19th century, RR Donnelley grew with it. The company was among the first American printers to consolidate all aspects of the printing process under one roof. In 1897, Donnelley hired the young architect Howard Van Doren Shaw to design a new facility at the corner of Plymouth Court and Polk Street on what is now Chicago's Printing House Row. The new Plymouth Court building was fully outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment: a typesetting machine, Miehle press, perfect binder, Smythe sewing machine, and rotary press with folding delivery. This was to be the first of three manufacturing plants that Shaw would design for the company. Each time the buildings were more modern in concept and design than the printing industry had previously known.

With the death of Richard Robert Donnelley in 1899, his son Thomas E. Donnelley (1867-1955) assumed the presidency of the company. The younger Donnelley's talent as a salesman, commitment to quality craftsmanship, and vision of the future led RR Donnelley into the new century.

Among the early milestones of T.E. Donnelley's presidency was the beginning of the Lakeside Classics series in 1903. This tradition continues as an annual gift to employees, customers, and friends, and demonstrates the premier craftsmanship of the company's typographers, printers, and binders. Appropriately, the first Lakeside Classics title was the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, "patron saint" of American printers. Subsequent titles have been selected from American historical memoirs. Lakeside Classics are now highly collectible.

In 1908 T. E. Donnelley's quest for quality craftsmanship led to the creation of one of the first apprentice training schools in the country. Boys "of special promise and ability" were admitted to a seven-year apprenticeship consisting of "craftsmanship combined with cultural studies." In creating this school RR Donnelley established an enduring tradition of training its own craftsmen.

The company maintained a leadership role in many areas of printing throughout the first decades of the 20th century. In 1909, RR Donnelley printed architect Daniel Burnham's landmark treatise on urban planning, the Plan of Chicago. And in 1910, RR Donnelley established a long relationship with Encyclopaedia Britannica when it began work on its new Eleventh Edition. By 1912 the company had outgrown its facility on Plymouth Court. Architect Howard Van Doren Shaw was commissioned to design a new plant at Calumet Avenue and 22nd Street. Built in several phases over the course of 17 years and completed in 1929, it was considered the "largest building in the United States devoted to the production of printing." The case bindery could produce 25,000 books a day, while the mail-order bindery had a capacity of several hundred thousand catalogs and telephone books per day.

In 1921, a new manufacturing facility, also designed by Shaw, was opened in Crawfordsville, Indiana, to print the Indianapolis Telephone Directory. It was the first company facility outside of Chicago, and this expansion foreshadowed a long-time commitment of RR Donnelley to serve its customers better by establishing itself in proximity to them.

RR Donnelley also established itself as the leader in commercial graphic design and typography. In 1922 the company hired William A. Kittredge (1891-1945), one of the leading graphic artists of his time, to direct and develop the Department of Design and Typography. The department set new standards in commercial graphic design, placing RR Donnelley at the center of this important field for more than three decades.

In 1923 the company hired well-known British bookbinder Alfred de Sauty (1870-1949) to direct the newly formed Extra Bindery. RR Donnelley was one of the first commercial printers in America to employ a staff devoted to this old-world craft. The Extra Bindery distinguished itself in hand binding and also in graphic conservation. Notable commissions included the conservation of J.J. Audubon's folio edition of Birds of America, four of the twenty-three known copies of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence, a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, the papers of John Quincy Adams, and correspondence of Abraham Lincoln. Fine bindings by RR Donnelley's Extra Bindery continue to be sought by collectors.

In the late 1920s, RR Donnelley sought to capture the burgeoning mass-readership book market. As part of this effort the company undertook its famous "Four American Books" project, wherein RR Donnelley published and printed limited editions of Poe's Tales, Thoreau's Walden, Dana's Two Years before the Mast, and Melville's Moby Dick. The purpose of this project was promotional - to demonstrate that American books of the highest quality could be produced entirely by an American printer using all American illustrators, typefaces, paper, and machinery. This printing of Moby Dick, illustrated by Rockwell Kent, is recognized as one of the most famous editions of this classic work. Today all four books of the series are coveted by collectors and stand as examples of the highest quality in mass-market printing.

RR Donnelley made another indelible mark on the cultural history of Chicago when it won the contract to be the official printer of the Century of Progress Exposition in 1933. Guidebooks, post cards, brochures, programs, and other printed material for the world's fair were integral to one of the most important expositions of modern design.

RR Donnelley pioneered the fields of industrial engineering research and development in the printing industry. An example of the company's emphasis on technology was the development of heat-set printing in 1936, which was essential in the production of a new weekly news magazine, Henry Luce's Life. For the first time a high-quality illustrated weekly periodical could be produced on high-speed web-fed presses. The close relationship between RR Donnelley and Life, whose circulation grew as no magazine before, was demonstrated again in 1946 when the company began construction of a second Chicago manufacturing facility, South Plant, devoted entirely to the production, printing, and distribution of the nation's greatest illustrated magazine.

Charles C. Haffner, Jr., (1895-1979), son-in-law of T.E. Donnelley, was named Chairman of the Board in 1952, and headed the company through its period of post-war growth. Recognizing the need for substantial capitalization, Haffner presided over the company's first public offering in 1956. Haffner discussed the move in terms of a long-time fundamental commitment: "Growth is basic at Donnelley's, for we believe that a business that is not growing is already beginning to decay."

In the decades that followed, RR Donnelley experienced expansion that assured its leadership in the world printing market. New manufacturing plants were opened in Willard, Ohio (1956); Warsaw, Indiana (1958); Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with the purchase of Rudisill Printing Company (1959); Old Saybrook, Connecticut (1960); Mattoon, Illinois (1967); Dwight, Illinois (1968); Glasgow, Kentucky (1970); Gallatin, Tennessee (1975); Harrisonburg, Virginia (1979); and Spartanburg, South Carolina (1979).

During these years major contracts were signed or renewed with National Geographic Society; Time, Inc.; Sears, Roebuck and Company; J.C. Penney; New Yorker Magazine, Inc.; Lane Publishing, Inc.; Condé Nast; Cowles Communication, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., and many other important publishing concerns.

Gaylord Donnelley (1910-1992), second son of T. E. Donnelley, became Chairman of the Board in 1964. His long career in the family business began in 1927 as an apprentice. Gaylord Donnelley subsequently held many positions with the company, and he chronicled his career with the company upon his retirement as Chairman in 1975 with the publication of a richly personal memoir, To Be A Good Printer. In it he wrote: "It seems abundantly clear that the philosophy, policies, standards, and practices that have evolved during the history of our company have now as much value as ever, possibly more. While we have held to them firmly, we have also adapted them as needed to the ever-changing scene in our industry and society."

In the mid-1970s RR Donnelley engineers once again made history when they developed Selectronic ink-jet printing and binding. This technology made it possible for publishers to selectively control the editorial and advertising content of each copy of a periodical edition based on subscriber profile.

In 1975, Charles W. Lake, Jr. (b.1918) became the first person outside the Donnelley family to be named Chairman of the Board. Charles Lake had been Director of Engineering and Research Development, a position he assumed in 1956, and his focus on technology blended perfectly with the company tradition of excellence. "Our Company has earned its reputation as 'The House that Quality Built' on the strength of the quality we put into every step of every operation," Mr. Lake said in a 1966 speech. "The future success of our business will depend on how well we maintain and improve our reputation for total quality."

In 1978 RR Donnelley simultaneously became a coast-to-coast and worldwide printing concern when it expanded into Los Angeles, California and York, England. One year later, in 1980, RR Donnelley reached the billion-dollar mark in annual sales. Two years later the company began satellite transmission between the United States and the United Kingdom. RR Donnelley was the first printing company to utilize this technology, and the trans-oceanic link placed the company at the center of the highly competitive financial and legal printing market. In 1983 the Financial Printing Services Group was created in response to this growth, and in 1984 the satellite network was extended to the Far East.

In the early 1980s RR Donnelley's Technical Documentation Services began serving the personal computer industry, reproducing software, and printing user manuals. RR Donnelley expanded its range in this international market with a new plant in Singapore to serve the Far East.

John B. Schwemm (b. 1934) served as Chairman of the Board from 1983-1988. "Quality," said Schwemm, "should characterize our manufacturing methods. Quality should be evident in the people we hire and in the training we give them. And, quality should be exercised at all levels of management. We must use great care so as not to give less attention to the foundation of quality than did our predecessors." In 1987, under Schwemm's leadership, RR Donnelley acquired Metromail Corporation, a provider of list and list enhancement services.

In 1983 RR Donnelley's Financial Printing Services Group undertook the mammoth printing contract associated with the ATandT divestiture prospectus. It was the largest financial printing, binding, and distribution job of its time, with 3.6 million copies. In the 1980s, the Financial Printing Services Group opened offices in Paris, Seoul, Mexico City, and Hong Kong to serve the financial documentation needs of multinational corporations.

The ability to anticipate future needs of its customers always has been an RR Donnelley strength. As the company moved into electronic communication, mailing and distribution, database and list management, and other auxiliary services, it became a leader in diverse aspects of tomorrow's communications technology.

In 1989 John R. Walter (b. 1947) became the seventh Chairman of the Board. Shortly after assuming the position, he discussed RR Donnelley's future and outlined the company's three key priorities: 1) To establish, communicate and manage the strategic vision, direction and plan; 2) to make decisions on the intelligent investment of our capital for a long-term return; 3) to continue to identify and develop the people who will successfully lead this company into the 21st century.

RR Donnelley expanded to Mexico in 1989 when ground was broken for a new book printing plant in Reynosa. In 1990 RR Donnelley made its largest ($550 million) acquisition to date by purchasing Meredith/Burda, a major catalog and magazine printer with operations throughout the U.S.

In 1992 the company relocated its corporate headquarters to The RR Donnelley Building at 77 West Wacker Drive. This move consolidated many corporate functions under one roof and placed RR Donnelley in the heart of Chicago's business district.

In the early twenty-first century, RR Donnelley is a Fortune 500 company, and among the world's leading providers of printing and print-related services to publishers, manufacturers, retailers, financial institutions and technology companies.

From the guide to the R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company. Archive, 1844-2005, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)