Whitman Publishing
Whitman Publishing, long a subsidiary of Western Publishing, was a children's book publishing company that was popular from the early 1900s to the mid-1970s. Whitman published a variety of children's books, including westerns, mysteries, science fiction, adventure stories, and various others. Whitman also published authorized editions of popular television shows, such as Hawaii Five-O, Roy Rogers, Lassie, and book adaptations of many Walt Disney films. Their main genre of publishing was westerns and mystery, but they encompassed many other genres as well. One of their most popular mystery series, a Nancy Drew-like series intended for girls, was called the Whitman Authorized Editions.
History
In 1938, Whitman began publishing coin boards, used by coin collectors to store their collections. In 1942, the company published its first price guide, The Official Blue Book of U.S. Coins. This started an expanding line of books aimed at numismatists which would include hundreds of titles. The line continued as Western was sold to Mattel in 1982, then spun off and renamed Golden Books Family Entertainment. The new company sold off Whitman Coin Products and other non-kids lines to St. Martin's Press. They in turn sold off just the Whitman Coin Products line to the H.E. Harris company, another publisher specializing in coin collecting materials. H.E. Harris was then renamed Whitman Publishing, and continues to produce primarily coin collecting materials.[1]
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