History
Wiley was established in 1807 when Charles Wiley opened a print shop in Manhattan. The company was the publisher of such 19th century American literary figures as James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as of legal, religious, and other non-fiction titles. Wiley later shifted its focus to scientific, technical, and engineering subject areas, abandoning its literary interests.
Charles Wiley's son John (born in Flatbush, Long Island, 4 October 1808; died in East Orange, New Jersey, 21 February 1891) took over the business when his father died in 1826. The firm was successively named Wiley, Lane & Co., then Wiley & Putnam, and then John Wiley. The company acquired its present name in 1876, when John’s second son William H. Wiley joined his brother Charles in the business.
Through the 20th century, the company expanded its publishing activities, the sciences, and higher education. Since the establishment of the Nobel Prize in 1901, Wiley and its acquired companies have published the works of more than 450 Nobel Laureates, in every category in which the prize is awarded.
One of the world’s oldest independent publishing companies, Wiley marked its bicentennial in 2007 with a year-long celebration, hosting festivities that spanned four continents and ten countries and included such highlights as ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange on May 1. In conjunction with the anniversary, the company published Knowledge for Generations: Wiley and the Global Publishing Industry, 1807-2007, depicting Wiley’s pivotal role in the evolution of publishing against a social, cultural, and economic backdrop. Wiley has also created an online community called Wiley Living History, offering excerpts from Knowledge for Generations and a forum for visitors and Wiley employees to post their comments and anecdotes.
Read more about this topic: John Wiley & Sons
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
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“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)