RRD history

Richard Robert Donnelley established his company in downtown Chicago, which in 1870 became the Lakeside Printing and Publishing Company.

When the shop’s building and presses were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871, leaving Donnelley virtually penniless, he borrowed $20 for a trip to New York, where he managed to get new presses completely on credit.

1873: Rebuilt printing shop is back in business.

In 1875, a new subsidiary, Donnelley, Loyd & Company, published a successful series of classic reprints called the Lakeside Library.

In 1877 as competition stiffened, the 200-title Lakeside Library was sold.

In 1878 Norman T. Gassette became a partner in Donnelley, Loyd & Company, then known as Donnelley, Gassette & Loyd.

Richard Donnelley created a separate corporate entity in 1880 to house the publishing side of the enterprise, the Chicago Directory Company.

In 1882 the Donnelley, Gassette & Loyd directors voted to change the name of their printing firm to R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company.

In 1890, under the aggressive leadership of Richard’s son Thomas E. Donnelley, the firm was incorporated as R.R. Donnelley and Sons.

In 1895 the first sewing machine, used for binding, was introduced into the company, and at about the same period, the Empire and Linotype machines were installed, as the company raced to compete in the age of machine composition.

By 1897 the company was so successful that it expanded into larger quarters in another building.

In 1898 the company installed its first rotary perfector press with the ability to fold.

Richard Robert Donnelley died in April 1899, at the close of the company’s most successful decade; the firm passed into managerial control of his sons, with Thomas Elliot Donnelley becoming president and Reuben H. Donnelley heavily involved in the directory business.

After a series of reorganizations and expansions, Donnelley built the Lakeside Press Building on Plymouth Court, and in 1902 began construction of the R.R. Donnelley and Sons Co.

In addition, 1903 was a period of great turbulence among the ranks of unionized printers; Donnelley resisted the disruptions and ended its participation in a closed shop.

By 1907 the firm severed all ties with the printing unions, which were at the time leaders in apprenticeship programs and industrial education opportunities.

In 1916 the Chicago Directory Company was renamed the Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation, with R.H. Donnelley as president and T.E. Donnelley as vice president.

In 1921 Donnelley opened a printing plant in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Naomi Donnelley continued to be an active force in the firm, and in 1924 on the occasion of firm’s 60th anniversary, delivered a speech to the assembled company about the history of the enterprise.

In 1928 Donnelley began printing one of the first of a new wave of national, mass marketed magazines, entitled Time.

In 1934 magazine circulations began to increase again.

Shortly after they heard about Donnelley's new high-speed printing methods they awarded the firm the contract to publish the new Life magazine, the first issue of which came out in 1936.

In 1952 General Charles C. Haffner Jr. succeeded his father-in-law, T.E. Donnelley, as chairman of the board of the R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company.

Donnelley went public in 1956 to raise capital for further expansion.

Waltz, George H., The House that Quality Built, Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1957.

The company formed its Lancaster, Pennsylvania, manufacturing division after acquiring the Rudisill Printing Company in 1959.

Despite a depressed economy, sales reached $149.8 million in 1961, with Time Inc. accounting for 29 percent.

In 1968 Donnelley bought an RCA Videocomp, which set 4,500 characters of type per second using a cathode ray tube.

Look folded in 1971, taking $15 million of Donnelley's business with it; then Life cut circulation from 8.5 million to 5.5 million.

To keep pace, the firm opened a plant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1972, exclusively for the printing of phone books for the mid-Atlantic states.

In 1974 the firm began shifting away from high quality four-color extended runs, which had accounted for most of its work until then.

In 1978, Donnelley bought Interweb, a printing firm since reorganized as the Los Angeles division of Donnelley, and Ben Johnson & Company Ltd. of York, England, another printer.

It began an aggressive telemarketing campaign in which it contacted numerous small publishers, trying to change its image as a printing house for larger clients only. As a result, by 1983, Donnelley had between 600 and 700 book publishers as customers, and short-run books accounted for nearly 50 percent of unit sales.

Donnelley's moves into cutting-edge technology were not always successful, however; in 1984 it had made a premature, ill-fated attempt to move into electronic shopping.

Sales grew rapidly, reaching $2.2 billion in 1986.

It also moved into financial printing, opening a Wall Street financial printing center shortly before the stock market crash of October 1987.

Meredith/Burda’s 1989 sales were $456 million, with six plants and more than 3,000 employees in 1989.

The acquisition was completed in September 1990.

In early 1993 Sears ceased publication of its 97-year-old catalogue, which Donnelley had printed since its inception.

1994: Donnelley goes digital with state-of-the-art computerized technology.

By the end of 1995 sales reached $6.5 billion, a 33 percent climb due in part to the company's global expansion.

A slowdown came in the first quarter of 1996, however, when sales fell below expectations.

In 1997 came a major transition with the appointment of a new chairman and CEO, William L. Davis, formerly of the St Louis-based Emerson Electric Company.

1999: Company announces alliance with Microsoft for electronic bookstore.

2000: Company expands electronic capabilities with several new web-based programs.