Houghton Mifflin Harcourt history

In an effort to pay off the debts he had amassed while in school, Houghton moved to Boston after his college graduation in 1846, where he held a series of jobs in journalism and printing.

The business had changed its name by 1851 to Houghton & Haywood, when Houghton exchanged his former partner for one of his cousins.

In January 1865, the company purchased an additional 20 titles, including works by James Fenimore Cooper.

In 1866, Hurd & Houghton was reorganized when one of Houghton's brothers contributed additional capital.

In 1878 Houghton bought out the older firm and formed Houghton, Osgood & Company, moving the company more firmly into the realm of literary publishing, away from the lucrative printing and textbook publishing with which it had begun.

Chief among the company's schoolbooks was the Riverside Literature Series, also inaugurated in 1882, comprised of unabridged American classics annotated with study guides, available to schools as cheaply as possible.

Seven years later, in 1908, after a series of deaths among the firm's original partners, Houghton, Mifflin & Company restructured itself, changing from a partnership into a corporation, under the name Houghton Mifflin Company.

By 1914 George Mifflin's desire to publish novels that would win widespread popularity had brought about a decline in the overall literary quality of the company's offerings.

We’ve been publishing books that have made a real difference—including Walden, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and 48 Pulitzer-Prize winners—since 1932.

1967: Company sells stock to the public for the first time.

1969: American Heritage Dictionary is introduced.

Four years later, in 1975, Houghton purchased the company, to better integrate its operations with its textbook division.

These gains attracted the attention of Western Pacific Industries, a railroad conglomerate, which had acquired 6.7 percent of the company's stock by March 1978.

1980: Company acquires Rand McNally for $11.6 million.

Such titles as 1992's International Electronic Thesaurus and the latest edition of the American Heritage Electronic Dictionary were major sellers.

Fortunately for Houghton, several new curriculum projects were well received in 1996 and, along with further sales by D.C. Heath, revenues were up by 91 percent in the second quarter.

Net sales for 1997 reached $797.3 million, an increase of 11 percent and on track to reach Darehshori's projections for the new century.

Darehshori believed the D.C. Heath purchase would play a significant role in the company's future and would help Houghton reach sales of $1 billion by the year 2000.

Also in 2010 he starred in a mathematics segment for NBC-TV on the Today Show and throughout the 2010 Winter Olympic coverage.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ HOLT MCDOUGAL; 1st edition (December 31, 2014)