World Book Company (1905)
The first-created component of what would eventually become Harcourt was the World Book Company (unrelated to the Chicago-based World Book, Inc. publisher of reference works), which opened its first office in Manila in 1905 and published English-language educational materials for schools in the Philippines. The company later moved to New York City, where it became a test publisher. Much of the company's success was based on the work of Arthur S. Otis. He was best known for the intelligence tests he developed for the U.S. Army. Millions of World War I draftees took Otis tests.
World Book Company became the first publisher of group-administered tests measuring mental ability when it published Otis's Group Intelligence Scale in 1918. Otis became a World Book employee in 1921. By 1960, World Book had a portfolio of educational tests, including the Stanford Achievement Test (1923), the Metropolitan Achievement Test (1932) and the Otis Mental Ability Test (1936).
Harcourt, Brace & Howe (1919) and Harcourt, Brace & Company
Alfred Harcourt and Donald Brace were friends at Columbia College of Columbia University in New York, from which they both graduated in 1904. The two worked for Henry Holt and Company before founding their own publishing company in 1919, Harcourt, Brace & Howe, along with editor Will David Howe. After Howe left the company in 1921, the partners changed the name to Harcourt, Brace & Company. They published the works of a number of writers who became internationally renowned, including Walter Lippmann, Sinclair Lewis, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, James Thurber, George Orwell, Valentine Davies and Robert Penn Warren. Firms acquired by Harcourt, Brace include Brewer, Warren and Putnam; and Reynal & Hitchcock.[4]
Harcourt, Brace & World (1960) and successors
Harcourt, Brace & World only existed between 1960 and 1970. The name Harcourt, Brace & World was used on books that were copyrighted as early as 1931, if not before.[5][6] By 1960, Harcourt Brace led the market in high school textbook publishing, but had little presence in the elementary school market. That year, William Jovanovich, who had become president of the company in 1954, took the company public and merged Harcourt Brace & Company with World Book Company to create Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.
This strategic action improved the position of Harcourt Brace because World Book was an established elementary textbook publisher and test publisher.
In 1968, Harcourt, Brace & World entered the trade magazine business by acquiring Ojibway Press.[7] In 1969, Harcourt acquired Academic Press.[8]
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
In 1970, the company was known as Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ), with William Jovanovich as chairman. That same year, the company acquired The Psychological Corporation. Under Jovanovich's leadership, the company diversified into non-publishing businesses such as insurance and business consulting. It also bought several theme parks—including SeaWorld, which it acquired in 1976 for $46 million.[9]
Harcourt also published mass-market paperback books with Pyramid Books, which it bought out in 1974 and renamed Jove Books. It sold this section to the Putnam Berkley Group in 1979.
In 1985, HBJ merged in a stock trade with Cypress Gardens.[10] Jim Monaghan sold Circus World for stock to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich on Tuesday, May 10, 1986, at 3:50 a.m. HBJ had a new idea for the park, and closed the park at opening time that day to rebuild it into Boardwalk and Baseball.[11] HBJ Park Group opened SeaWorld San Antonio in 1988.[9]
Harcourt General and Harcourt, Inc.
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich was acquired in 1991 for more than $1.5 billion by General Cinema Corporation, a diversified company that operated a national chain of movie theaters, and retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman.[15] In 1993 General Cinema Corporation renamed itself Harcourt General and restored the 1921 to 1960 name "Harcourt, Brace & Company" to its publishing division as Harcourt Brace (no comma). At the end of the year it divested its cinema division.[16]
In 1994, Harcourt General acquired the religious imprint Brown-ROA from William C. Brown Company, a division of Times Mirror Company. It was renamed Harcourt Religion in 1999.[17]
In 1995, Harcourt General acquired Assessment Systems, Inc., a professional test company.[18]
Reed Elsevier Group plc
In 2001, the Anglo-Dutch publishing company Reed Elsevier acquired Harcourt, Inc. Harcourt Trade Publishers was a member of the Reed Elsevier Group plc (NYSE: RUK and ENL), a publisher and information provider operating in four global industry sectors: science and medical, legal, education, and business. As part of the deal, Reed Elsevier sold Harcourt's higher education division, and the NETglobal (formerly National Education Training), Assessment Systems, Inc (ASI), and Drake Beam Morin businesses to Thomson Corporation.[23] Several parts of Harcourt (Academic Press, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, and Saunders) were transferred to Elsevier and several parts of Elsevier (including Greenwood Publishing Group) were transferred to Harcourt Education.
In 2004, Harcourt acquired Saxon Publishers, publishers of Saxon math materials.[24]
Reed Elsevier then comprised the following divisions: Elsevier (science and medical), LexisNexis (legal), Harcourt Education (education), and Reed Business (business).
Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group
On February 15, 2007, Reed Elsevier announced its intention to sell its education arm, Harcourt Education, of which Harcourt Trade Publishers was a part. According to Reed Chief Executive Crispin Davis, "This is essentially a strategic decision that we want to focus more sharply on our three existing businesses ... with better growth rates."[25]
On July 17, 2007, Reed Elsevier announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to sell its Harcourt U.S. Schools Education business, including Harcourt Trade Publishers, to Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group.[2] The merger was completed and the Harcourt name ceased being used separately in 2008. Harcourt Religion was sold to Our Sunday Visitor in 2009. Houghton Mifflin Company acquired Harcourt in 2007, combining the Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt names to form Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
