David Alfred Boehm (February 6, 1914 – February 6, 2000) was an American publisher known for founding Sterling Publishing and popularizing the

Guinness World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

in the United States.

Biography

Boehm was born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, attended George Washington High School and graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1934, where he studied sociology and edited the '' Columbia Daily Spectator''. After graduation, Boehm worked for a number of publishers including

McGraw-Hill Book Company McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...

Cupples & Leon Cupples & Leon was an American publishing company founded in 1902 by Victor I. Cupples (1864–1941) and Arthur T. Leon (1867–1943). They published juvenile fiction and children's books but are mainly remembered today as the major publi ...

. In 1949, Boehm founded Sterling Publishing in a telephone booth in the

Hotel Pennsylvania The Hotel Pennsylvania was a historic hotel at 401 Seventh Avenue (15 Penn Plaza) in Manhattan, across the street from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden in New York City. Opened in 1919, it was once the largest hotel in the world. ...

. His first books were a series of how-to books on subjects such as stamp collecting and coin collecting. In 1956, after discovering 30,000 copies of ''The Guinness Book of Superlatives'' on the shelves of a

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

warehouse, Boehm rushed to secure publishing rights from Arthur Guinness Son & Co. of the magazine in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in return for a percentage of the sales. He also renamed it ''

The Guinness Book of World Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' and added in baseball records to appeal to the American audience''.'' In 1961, Boehm secured rights to publish a separate American version of the Guinness World Records, with sales rising to two to three million copies a year during the 1970s. Boehm began to license merchandise spinoffs in the 1980s as the series gained popularity, resulting in a series of legal fights that led to Guinness's buying back the license for $8 million in 1989. He made regular appearances on the game show '' The Guinness Game'' as a judge of live attempts to break world records''.'' Boehm retired from the publisher in 1980 and died in his home on February 6, 2000, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

References

1914 births 2000 deaths American publishers (people) {{DEFAULTSORT:Boehm, David A. American company founders American publishing chief executives George Washington Educational Campus alumni Guinness World Records Columbia College (New York) alumni