Bowne Of New York City LLC history

Following reports of an outbreak in a neighboring town during the summer of 1832, Bowne established a stringent quarantine policy regulating travel in and out of the metropolitan area.

Their first great test arrived in 1835, when Bowne & Co. was destroyed by fire, as was most of New York, which lost 17 city blocks and nearly 600 buildings to a fire that started in a dry goods store.

By that time, cholera epidemics had been largely contained by the construction of the Croton Aqueduct and the provision of clean water for consumption and bathing. It was not until 1883 that the German physician Robert Koch discovered that cholera spreads through contaminated water or food.

His retirement in 1898 signaled the end of Bowne family management and set the stage for the first non-family member to head the company, Stanley M. Dewey, who joined Bowne & Co. at age 16.

Dewey had been with Bowne & Co. for 30 years by the time he was appointed the company's fifth president in 1909, the year the business was incorporated for the first time.

The SEC required, by law, stock issue prospectuses and instituted annual reporting requirements for publicly-held corporations, creating a wealth of business for companies like Bowne & Co. Its printing operations received a major boost in business when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was formed in 1933.

Stanley was joined by his son, Edmund A. Stanley, Jr., in 1949.

In 1966, the company acquired Garber-Pollack Co., a trade bindery, and two years later, when Bowne & Co. converted to public ownership, The La Salle Street Press, Inc. was purchased, giving the company the largest financial printer in Chicago.

On June 10, 1969, Bowne Park made headlines as the first City park with an instant playground.

In 1984, the SEC introduced a voluntary electronic filing program for corporations called EDGAR. Bowne & Co. was the first corporation to join the program and lent its assistance to the prime contractor in the development of the program.