R.R. Donnelley is an American
Fortune 500 integrated communications company that provides marketing and business communications, commercial printing, and related services.
[ Its corporate headquarters are located in ]Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, United States. As of 2007, R.R. Donnelley was the world's largest commercial printer.
History
R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company was founded in Chicago in 1864 by Richard Robert Donnelley. His son, Reuben H. Donnelley, founded the otherwise unrelated company formerly known as R. H. Donnelley.[Donnelley, Gaylord. ''To Be A Good Printer'' (Lakeside Press, 1977) ASIN B000S5KF9I]
Richard Robert Donnelley established his company in downtown Chicago, which in 1870 became the Lakeside Printing and Publishing Company. The business was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 10 ...
of 1871. After a series of reorganizations and expansions, Donnelley built the Lakeside Press Building
The Lakeside Press Building is a historic commercial building located at 731 S. Plymouth Ct. in downtown Chicago, Illinois. The building served as a showroom, office, and printing press for the Lakeside Press. The building was built in two stages; ...
on Plymouth Court, and in 1902 began construction of the R.R. Donnelley and Sons Co. Calumet Plant on 21st Street and Calumet Avenue. The company aimed to produce books and periodicals with impressive modern design and mass printed commercial and reference materials. Lakeside Press produced Encyclopædia Britannica
The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various time ...
, ''Time Magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...
'', '' Life Magazine'', promotional literature for the Model T Ford
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...
, catalogs for Sears Roebuck
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
, among others. The Press produced high quality collectible editions for the Chicago Caxton Club
The Caxton Club is a private social club and bibliophilic society founded in Chicago in 1895 to promote the book arts and the history of the book. To further its goals, the club holds monthly (September through June) dinner meetings and luncheo ...
and the Limited Editions Club
George Macy (1900–1956) was an American publisher.
Career
George Macy was born in New York City in 1900.
In 1926, he founded Macy-Masius, which was sold to the Vanguard Press in 1928.
In 1929, he founded the Limited Editions Club, publis ...
. Donnelley was the official printer for the 1933–1934 World's Fair, "A Century of Progress," which took place on the Lake Michigan lakefront just to the east of the plant. The company designed and printed official tickets, postcards, posters, brochures, and magazines which displayed the company's distinctive modernist design. " The company eventually became a global provider of printing and print-related services. From 1922 to 1945, the Director of Design and Typography was William A. Kittredge, who commissioned other well-regarded artists and designers, such as Rudolph Ruzicka, Edward A. Wilson, and W.A. Dwiggins.
R.R. Donnelley's cartographic
Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...
production facility grew to be one of the largest custom mapmaking companies 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 territorie ...
. In the early 1990s, the division successfully integrated routing technology with its digital map databases and launched a separate company, Geosystems, which several years later became MapQuest
MapQuest (stylized as mapquest) is an American free online web mapping service. It was launched in 1996 as the first commercial web mapping service. MapQuest vies for market share with competitors such as Google Maps and Here.
History
MapQuest's ...
.
The Calumet Plant was closed in 1993, following the cancellation of the Sears catalog
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as ...
. Donnelley's handling of the closing generated a lawsuit, which went all the way to the US Supreme Court, concerning alleged discrimination against black employees. Donnelley settled the lawsuit in 2003.
Lakeside Press Apprentice School and labor relations
In 1908 T.E. Donnelley, son of the founder, opened the Lakeside Press Apprentice School. Donnelley, a Yale graduate and a trustee of the University of Chicago, felt that the recent revival of the ancient practice of apprenticeship was unsatisfactory because unions dominated the rules. He was determined to open a program modeled on the apprentice training program at the Chaix Printing Company in Paris, France, which combined instruction and practical experience. "The whole plant," in the words of one official description, "is the laboratory of the school" The inscription for the 1913 handbook for apprentices stated that "The employer should realize that engaging an apprentice is a much more important task than hiring a journeyman."
The company was one of many which at the time offered apprenticeship courses of this type, ranging from the American Bridge Company
The American Bridge Company is a heavy/civil construction firm that specializes in building and renovating bridges and other large, complex structures. Founded in 1900, the company is headquartered in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pitt ...
and the American Locomotive Company to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and ammunition. The firm was established in 1866 by Oliver Winchester and was located in New Haven, Connecticut. The firm went into receivership ...
.
In the early years, 90 percent of the company's executives and supervisors were graduates of the Apprentice Training School and were either college graduates who had gone through a training program or had come up through the ranks. The firm's turnover remained low. As Chicago became home to a northward migration of blacks, the workforce became stratified as non-whites found it hard to attain management positions. Racial tensions in the 1960s further weakened the company's ability to meet technological challenges and global competition. Declining fortunes led to layoffs and contention, and the school closed in 1993.
The Four American Books Campaign
Donnelley launched a "Four American Books" campaign in 1926 which culminated with their publication in 1930. The aim was to establish that the company's modern commercial machinery could produce illustrated books to rival high-quality presses in Europe and to establish a reputation as a printer of fine trade editions in order to enter the mass-market book industry. The choice of American authors reflected a growing pride in and market for American literature. C. G. Littell, vice president and treasurer, and William A. Kittredge, head of the department of design and typography, organized the campaign.
When Kittredge approached William Addison Dwiggins
William Addison Dwiggins (June 19, 1880 – December 25, 1956), was an American type designer, calligrapher, and book designer. He attained prominence as an illustrator and commercial artist, and he brought to the designing of type and books so ...
about illustrating a book for the project, Dwiggins, who was a well-established designer of magazine and newspaper advertisements, replied that he welcomed the chance to "do something besides waste-basket stuff" which would be "promptly thrown away." After he turned down several suggestions, Dwiggins agreed to illustrate the ''Tales'' of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
. The Press considered his fee of $2,000 low for an illustrator of his commercial power. Edward A. Wilson illustrated Richard Henry Dana's mid-19th century sea-adventure Two Years Before the Mast
''Two Years Before the Mast'' is a memoir by the American author Richard Henry Dana Jr., published in 1840, having been written after a two-year sea voyage from Boston to California on a merchant ship starting in 1834. A film adaptation under the ...
and Rudolph Ruzicka Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...
's Walden
''Walden'' (; first published in 1854 as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is a book by American transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part ...
.
The best known of the publications in the series was Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent (June 21, 1882 – March 13, 1971) was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, writer, sailor, adventurer and voyager.
Biography
Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York. Kent was of English descent. He lived much of ...
's edition of Herman Melville
Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American people, American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his bes ...
's novel, Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler, whaling ship ''Pequod (Moby- ...
, which at that point was not yet accepted as an American classic. Kittredge commissioned Kent to perform the design and illustrations in 1926, and the book appeared four years later in a three-volume limited edition of one-thousand copies issued in an aluminum slipcase. Kittredge called it "the greatest book done in this generation" and declared that "we will all go jump in the lake" if "it is not the greatest illustrated book ever done in America." (In fact, the book is considered one of the finest of the 20th century.) Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
quickly issued a one-volume trade edition, which was also printed by Lakeside Press, bound in black cloth with silver print and decorations. The book's cover and the first advertisements both featured Kent's name but did not mention Melville's. Kent's design, especially in the Modern Library
The Modern Library is an American book publishing imprint and formerly the parent company of Random House. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, Modern Library became an ...
edition of 1943, helped the novel to find a wider audience.
Kent's illustrations give the impression of being woodcuts but are in fact ink and wash. Kent counselled Kittredge that the "whole book is a work that should be read slowly, reflectively; the large page and type induce such reading. The character of the type should be homely, rather than refined and elegant, for homeliness flavors every line that Melville wrote." He wrote that he had thought of using a fourteen-point Caslon
Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work.
Caslon worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or matrices used to cast metal ty ...
type-face, and he did make the pages rather large. The artist considered his illustrations "literary woodcutting, not engraving," and added that the illustrations show the "midnight darkness enveloping human existence, the darkness of the human soul, the abyss, -- such is the mood of Moby-Dick."
In 1992, the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...
held an exhibition devoted to the Four American Classics series.
Lakeside Press Galleries
In 1929, the company opened the Lakeside Galleries on the eighth floor of their newly completed building on 22nd Street. From 1930 to 1961, when the corporate headquarters were moved, the galleries devoted exhibitions to the works of American and European artists and photographers, as well as to typography and book design.
Business acquisitions and mergers
Throughout its history, particularly in the 1990s and 2000s, R.R. Donnelley purchased a number of other companies outright, steadily increasing in size. In February 2004, R.R. Donnelley merged
Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, other business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. As an aspect ...
with Moore Wallace Inc., keeping the name R.R. Donnelley as the name of the combined company. Donnelley went on to purchase OfficeTiger, a major publishing and financial outsourcing company, as well as printing company Banta Corporation
Banta Corporation was a major printing, imaging, and supply chain management company of the United States, based in Menasha, Wisconsin, for all of its 105 years. Founded in 1901, it was acquired by Chicago-based RR Donnelley in late 2006.
Histo ...
in 2007.
In May 2007, R.R. Donnelley also acquired book and educational materials printer Von Hoffmann (and creative/ pre-press subsidiary Anthology Inc.) from Visant Corporation.[ ] An additional purchase at the beginning of 2007 was Perry Judd's Holdings Inc., a private catalog and magazine printer.
In 2005, it acquired Hong Kong based Asia Printers Group from CVC Capital Partners. Asia Printers Group consists of South China Printing, which was acquired by Asia Printers Group in 2002.
In 2006, it acquired Canadian Bank Note Company
The Canadian Bank Note Company (CBNC) is a Canadian security printing company. It is best known for holding the contract with the Bank of Canada to supply it with Canada's banknotes since 1935. The company's other clients include private busin ...
's financial printing business, consisting of documentation for initial public offerings.
In 2007, R.R. Donnelley was also named as an interested party in an attempt to purchase Quebecor World
Quebecor World Inc. was a printing subsidiary of Quebecor Inc. based in Montreal, Quebec. It comprised a number of small and large print shops throughout the world. In 2010, Quebecor World (now known as Worldcolor) was acquired by Wisconsin-based ...
.[ ] In May 2009, the company tendered an unsolicited bid to purchase Quebecor World.
In July 2008, the company established a multi-year contract with F+W Publications Inc., which allowed Donnelley to print a large amount of F + W's book
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...
and magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
publications. The contract was valued at about $80 million.
At the beginning of 2008, RRD also announced the acquisition of Pro Line Printing, Inc.
In 2010 and 2011, R.R. Donnelley acquired Bowne & Co., San Francisco-based Nimblefish Technologies, Helium.com, and Austin-based LibreDigital.
During the Labor Day weekend in September 2011, R.R. Donnelley announced it would close its Bloomsburg printing plant where Penguin Classics
Penguin Classics is an imprint of Penguin Books under which classic works of literature are published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean among other languages. Literary critics see books in this series as important members of the Western ...
and paperbacks in the best-selling Twilight and Idiot's Guide
The ''Complete Idiot's Guides'' is a product line of how-to and other reference books published by Dorling Kindersley (DK). The books in this series provide a basic understanding of a complex and popular topics. The term "idiot" is used as hyperb ...
series were printed.
On August 15, 2012, R.R. Donnelley acquired EDGAR Online.
In 2013, R.R. Donnelley acquired Consolidated Graphics
Consolidated may refer to:
* Consolidated (band)
**''¡Consolidated!'', a 1989 extended play
*Consolidated Aircraft
The Consolidated Aircraft Corporation was founded in 1923 by Reuben H. Fleet in Buffalo, New York, the result of the Gallaude ...
.
In August 2015, the company announced it would split into three different companies. One would keep the name R.R. Donnelley & Sons whereas the other two would be titled LSC Communications
LSC Communications is an American commercial printing company based in Chicago, Illinois, and, as of December 2020, a fully-owned subsidiary of Atlas Holdings. The company was established in 2016 as part of a corporate spin-off from RR Donnelley ...
and Donnelley Financial Solutions. The separation was completed in October 2016.
It left the Brazilian market in 2019.
In October 2021, R.R. Donnelley announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Chatham Asset Management for $7.50 per share in cash. After a bidding war with Atlas Holdings, Chatham increased their offer to buy R.R. Donnelley's remaining shares for $10.85 per share in cash, for a value of nearly $900 million. The acquisition completed in February 2022.
Lakeside Press
Lakeside Press was a Chicago publishing imprint under which the R.R. Donnelley Company produced fine-quality books as well as mail order catalogs, telephone directories, encyclopedias, and advertising. The Press was best known for its high quality editions for the Chicago Caxton Club
The Caxton Club is a private social club and bibliophilic society founded in Chicago in 1895 to promote the book arts and the history of the book. To further its goals, the club holds monthly (September through June) dinner meetings and luncheo ...
as well as the Lakeside Classics, a series of fine reprints produced annually, at Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...
time, by R.R. Donnelley. The Lakeside Classics tradition began in 1903 by Thomas E. Donnelley, who was then the company president. The basic format of these books has remained essentially the same since inception, as a hardcover, cloth wrapped and gold embossed. Subject matter tended to cover elements of American history. Many early volumes contained speeches and writings of noted Americans, including Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, whose autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
was published as the first Lakeside Classic.
Lakeside Classics
Lakeside Classics is a series started in 1903 that reprinted neglected classic works. Thomas E. Donnelley, then president of the company, was impressed by a set of seven razors presented to him by one of the company's suppliers, and wanted to create a gift that would similarly represent his own company's product and could not be purchased on the open market. The company did not sell the books to the public, but gave each of the company employees a copy at Christmas, making the series valued collectors items.Lakeside Press
chicagology.com. Retrieved 10 February 2019,
Thomas Donnelley wrote in the introduction to ''
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
''The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin'' is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his ''Memoirs''. Although it had ...
'', the first volume in the series, that "If, in a modest way this volume conveys the idea that machine-made books are not a crime against art, and that books may be plain but good, and good though not costly, its mission has been accomplished." Following volumes featured speeches and writings of noted Americans, then in the 1910s selections turned to first-person narratives of American history, especially those which were rare or out of print. Themes included the Civil War, the Old West, exploration and frontier life. In the 1990s, several changes were introduced. Partly to acknowledge the company's global markets, narratives by Americans abroad were included.
An early admirer wrote in 1923 that the printing, binding, and finishings were all done by the apprentice class to "illustrate the ideals of a well-made book," and that "not only are these books well made, but they contain historical works, autobiographies, and early travels unforgettable to him who loves this fair land." He concluded that the series is becoming "an institution near and dear to the collector of books of intrinsic value and beauty."
Minor design changes were made occasionally and a major redesign every quarter century. In 1995, the date line on the title page was changed from "Christmas" to "December." For the redesign in 2003, Bruce Campbell, known for his work on
The Library of America
The Library of America (LOA) is a nonprofit publisher of classic American literature. Founded in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Ford Foundation, the LOA has published over 300 volumes by authors rang ...
, was engaged. Among other changes, the gold-framing on the cover was restored and the typeface was changed from
Bulmer to
Garamond
Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular and particularly often used for book printing and bo ...
[Susan Lev]
The Lakeside Classics: A Christmas Gift that Keeps on Coming
''The Caxtonian'' 20.12 December 2012.
The company did not keep detailed records on how many copies were printed. The preface to the 1935 volume says that the print run for the first volume was 1,500 copies, but no further information was included in later editions. In the 1970s printings were in the tens of thousands. The hardest volume to find is the 1904 ''Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents, Washington to Lincoln''. It is not known whether the run was smaller or whether collectors of Washington and Lincoln have kept them off the market by retaining them. The second scarcest is ''Fruits of Solitude'', which may have been easy to lose because it had the fewest pages. The difficulty of finding the volume ''Memorable Speeches'' led one family member to joke that the speeches were so unmemorable that everyone threw them out. The Chicago publisher Reilly & Britton, a Chicago publisher, was given rights to reissue some of the earliest titles as “The Patriotic Classics.”
By 2015, the series included 113 volumes.
Lakeside Classics were not sold to the public and only made available to R.R. Donnelley employees, clients and others associated with the company.
The week before Christmas, each employee was given one copy of that year's volume. As such, some of the volumes have become scarce, and are in demand on the collectors' market.
Antiquarian
An antiquarian or antiquary () is an fan (person), aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artifact (archaeology), artifac ...
bookstores often have a section devoted to Lakeside Classics, and early volumes command large sums from book collectors.
Publications
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References
Further reading
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* Edwards, Karen (January 2011)
"Plain But Good" ''Fine Books & Collections'', finebooksmagazine.com.
Guide to the R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive 1844–2005
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External links
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Design Archives Examples of Lakeside Press book and typographic designs.
Guide to the R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company Archive 1844-2005at th
University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
{{authority control, state=expanded
1864 establishments in Illinois
Apprenticeship
Book design
Companies based in Chicago
Printing companies of the United States
Business services companies established in 1864
Publishing companies established in 1864
American companies established in 1864
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Publishing companies of the United States
2022 mergers and acquisitions
Private equity portfolio companies