Harcourt history

Otis became a World Book employee in 1921.

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.

By 1960, Harcourt Brace led the market in high school textbook publishing, but had little presence in the elementary school market.

In 1968, Harcourt, Brace & World entered the trade magazine business by acquiring Ojibway Press.

In 1969, Harcourt acquired Academic Press.

In 1970, the company was known as Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (HBJ), with William Jovanovich as chairman.

Harcourt also published mass-market paperback books with Pyramid Books, which it bought out in 1974 and renamed Jove Books.

That same year, the company acquired The Psychological Corporation. It also bought several theme parks—including SeaWorld, which it acquired in 1976 for $46 million.

It sold this section to the Putnam Berkley Group in 1979.

After an eight-year stint at Macmillan Publishing Company, P, William's son, joined Harcourt in 1980.

In 1984, Peter was named head of the company's $400 million college textbook and professional division.

In 1985, HBJ merged in a stock trade with Cypress Gardens.

Jim Monaghan sold Circus World for stock to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich on Tuesday, May 10, 1986, at 3:50 a.m.

Eventually, the company divested its trade magazines to the buyout firm Kidder, Peabody & Co. in 1987.

HBJ Park Group opened SeaWorld San Antonio in 1988.

The company divested its theme park division in 1989 to Busch Entertainment for $1.1 billion, when they expected $1.5 billion, to meet its large debt.

In 1991, General Cinema Corporation, a diversified company (that operated a national chain of movie theaters, and retailers such as Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman), acquired Harcourt Brace Jovanovich for more than $1.5 billion.

In 1993, General Cinema Corporation renamed itself Harcourt General.

In 1994, Harcourt General acquired the religious imprint Brown-ROA from William C. Brown Company, a division of Times Mirror Company.

In 1995, Harcourt General acquired Assessment Systems, Inc., a professional test company.

In 1997, Harcourt General acquired National Education and Steck-Vaughn.

In 1998, Harcourt General acquired Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

In 1999, Harcourt General also divested its retail division and shortened the publishing division's name to Harcourt, Inc.

In 2001, the Anglo-Dutch publishing company Reed Elsevier acquired Harcourt, Inc.

In 2004, Harcourt acquired Saxon Publishers, publishers of Saxon math materials.

On February 15, 2007, Reed Elsevier announced its intention to sell its education arm, Harcourt Education, of which Harcourt Trade Publishers was a part.

The merger was completed and the Harcourt name ceased being used separately in 2008.