Study Jams - History

History

In 1920, Maurice R. "Robbie" Robinson founded the business he named Scholastic Publishing Company in his hometown of Wilkinsburg, right outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As a publisher of youth magazines, the first publication was The Western Pennsylvania Scholastic. It covered high school sports and social activities and debuted on October 22, 1920.

In 1926, Scholastic published its first book, Saplings, which was a collection of selected student writings by the winners of the Scholastic Writing Awards.

For many years the company continued its focus on serving the youth market through the relatively low cost of magazine publication. So, even with the later transition into paperback books, the company continued under the name Scholastic Magazines, Inc., through the 1970s.

After World War II, cheap paperback books became available. In 1948, Scholastic entered the school book club business with its division T.A.B., or Teen Age Book Club with classic titles priced at 25 cents.

In 1957, Scholastic established its first international subsidiary, Scholastic Canada, in Toronto; it later moved to Markham, Ontario.

The company published paperback books under its division Scholastic Book Services. These were offered to school students via classroom mail order catalogs, known as the Scholastic Book Club. Along with the New York and Toronto publishing locations, the division also expanded further internationally to operate in London, Auckland, and Sydney by the 1960s. By 1974, the paperback book division had expanded into Tokyo as well.

In 1974, Richard "Dick" Robinson, the son of founder M. R. Robinson, became President of Scholastic Inc. He was named Chief Executive Officer in 1975 and Chairman in 1982, and still remains in those positions as of May 2012.

In 1996, Scholastic acquired Weston Woods Studios.

In 1997, Scholastic (through Arthur A. Levine Books) purchased the U.S. publication rights to the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; it was renamed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in order to appeal to American children. It has continued publishing the Harry Potter books, all of which have been record best sellers.

In June 2000, Scholastic acquired Grolier. The book club division (most notably the book club license for the Dr. Seuss books by arrangement with Random House), as well as its imprint Children's Press, were consolidated into its new parent, Scholastic.

During the 2000 presidential election, Scholastic organized the Scholastic News Kids Press Corps, a group of about 80 kid reporters aged 9–14.

In 2012, the New Video Group became the new video distributor to distribute the home entertainment business of Scholastic, including the Weston Woods Studios library, Scholastic Storybook Treasures, and most recently, their home entertainment rights to the 2002 movie adaptation of the book Stellaluna from MGM.

In July 2012, the company announced that it planned to discontinue separate issues of its Weekly Reader magazines after more than a century of publication. The publications, which Scholastic had bought from Reader's Digest Association in February, were merged with Scholastic's legacy classroom publications, Junior Scholastic and Scholastic News.

In the Spring of 2013, Scholastic removed the e-book versions of two of its' Star Wars titles - Last Of The Jedi and Rebel Force. They are no longer available for purchase from Amazon's Kindle Store or Barnes & Noble's Nook Store.