University of New Mexico Press - The Great Depression and War Years

The Great Depression and War Years

In 1933, Fred E. Harvey was hired as director, as Walter left to complete his Ph.D and become the founding faculty member of UNM’s sociology department. Under Harvey, the Press began publishing its first hardcover books. The best-seller for this era was Practical Spoken Spanish by Arthur L. Campa and F.M. Kercheville, published in 1934, and still in print today.

The first Press minutes on file are from the Committee on Publications meeting of April 20, 1937. In those days, the committee, consisting of “Bloom, Brand, Harvey, Pearce, Seyfried, John D. Clark, Popejoy, and Hammond,” was the editorial board of the Press. The Committee received, discussed, and sent manuscripts out for critical review. The board also set the production budget. For the fiscal year 1937-1938, the printing budget was $6,000 and covered printing six University course catalogs and twelve faculty Bulletins, in addition to UNMP books. During at least one year of the Depression era, no funds were available to pay Press employees during the summer months. Director Harvey told the Albuquerque Journal that the staff had agreed to work without pay until enough books were sold to compensate them. Harvey himself filled his car with books and sold them to bookstores and schools throughout New Mexico during these tough times.

In 1940, the Press was involved in celebrating the four hundredth anniversary of the Coronado expedition to New Mexico. A statewide commission was set up to handle the celebration, and the Coronado Historical Fund, with federal and state moneys was established. Two series of books, later published by UNMP, were planned. The first—the Coronado Historical Series—consisted of ten titles authored by notable historians like Herbert E. Bolton, George P. Hammond, and Frances V. Scholes. The second series was an anthropological series that contained a two-volume set titled Pioneers in Anthropology.

At the start of World War II, the university still was relatively small. In the fall of 1943, University President Zimmerman, in assessing the work of various departments at UNM, asked Joseph A. Brandt, then director of the University of Chicago Press, to visit UNMP and submit suggestions for improvement. Brandt had been prime in launching the University of Oklahoma Press in 1928 and was a dynamic figure in university press publishing during this period. Brandt wrote a four-page letter to Zimmerman in June 1944, praising the university for its Press. He recommended a larger staff and subsidy and better equipment for the printing plant. Other suggestions included a focus on furthering the understanding of New Mexico citizens and their history and economics; a publishing schedule of six to ten new books to be published in two seasons each year; and a publishing proposal to accompany each book with reports from a qualified reader, a market estimate, and a financial plan. Many of Brandt’s recommendations were incorporated into the publishing procedures still followed by UNMP.

In 1945, Professor Dudley Wynn of the English department was made Director of UNMP. The printing plant continued as part of the Press but was made a separate division with Fred Harvey in charge. UNMP continued to print New Mexico Quarterly and also the Southwest Journal of Anthropology, New Mexico Historical Review, and New Mexico Business Review. Throughout the life of the Press, occasional subsidies or grant money helped offset publishing costs. In 1945, one of the first major grants was accepted when the Carnegie Corporation offered $1,500 for publication of _It Happened in Taos_, an educational study by J.T. Reid. By 1945, the Press had issued sixty-five books, employed a staff of twenty, and operated without a University subsidy. During the period of 1944-1946, the Press disassociated from joint publishing agreements with the School of American Research and Rydal Press, both in Santa Fe.

The Press Committee drew up what appears to be the first comprehensive outline for Press operations in 1946. Budget appropriations, approval of manuscripts, qualifications of Press personnel, operating procedures, and an editorial program were all covered. The Committee and Press activities would be overseen by two executives: the Editor of Publications and the Press Manager. The Editor of Publications would build the list of the Press through acquisitions and the Press Manager would be responsible for the printing, marketing, and sales aspects.

The editorial program at this time recognized that the Press would publish two kinds of materials: scholarly works that would be included in the Publications Series and other books. The Publications Series would be fully subsidized by the university, and others would be partially subsidized or published at the Press’s own financial risk. Toward the end of the 1947-48 fiscal year, then-president of the university, Tom Popejoy, drew up business guidelines for UNMP. A deficit subsidy of $15,000 annually would be the university’s maximum support and the Press was told to strive for increased sales and self-sufficiency.

In mid-1949, Fred Harvey took a leave of absence and E. B. Mann replaced him. Also in 1949, UNMP joined the Association of American University Presses, an organization with whom it is still affiliated. During this era, Mann published such writers as Ross Calvin and Frank Waters as the Press was giving serious attention to developing a regional list that would appeal to a wide audience. Mann, himself an author of Western fiction, proposed a series of reprints of Southwestern fiction, but the idea was tabled in 1950. The Press also made its first foray into publishing lithographed prints during Mann’s tenure but, due to the marketing structure of the Press, sales for the prints were poor.