Scholastic history

Although the paper did not turn a profit during the 1921--22 school year, its circulation reached 4,000.

The first issue of the Scholastic, which billed itself as "The National High School Bi-Weekly," was published on September 16, 1922 and sold for 15 cents per copy.

In 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards were founded in connection with The Scholastic magazine.

In 1924 Scholastic began to sponsor the Scholastic Creative Writing Awards as well as a contest to provide cover designs by high school art students, programs that proved extremely popular.

While the program began as an opportunity for young writers, it expanded in 1927 to also recognize teen artists.

In the early months of 1929, Robinson acquired a weekly social studies periodical, The World Review, for which he paid with Scholastic stock.

During the 1931--32 school year, Scholastic entered into a joint venture with competitor American Education Press, in which Scholastic gained control of four publications: The Magazine World, World News, Current Literature, and Looseleaf Current Topics.

In April 1932 Scholastic bought out American Education Press and, two months later, the company's name was changed to Scholastic Corporation, as plans were made to sell St Nicholas before the end of the year.

By the spring of 1938, however, the circulation of the mainstay Scholastic (which eventually became known as Senior Scholastic to distinguish it from its junior counterpart) had dropped precipitously, and projections for the success of Junior Scholastic proved overly optimistic.

The study was completed in 1941 and recommended that the company either be liquidated or that Robinson be replaced as its head.

In 1946 Scholastic Teacher, Practical English, and Prep were introduced.

In 1948, a partnership with Pocket Books helped Scholastic revolutionize access to books and bring reading to the masses.

By 1951, Scholastic was able to pay a dividend on its stock for the first time.

By the end of the decade, Scholastic had added several new publications to its roster, including Practical Home Economics, acquired in 1952, and JAC/Junior American Citizen, which was renamed Newstime.

Headquartered in Norwalk, CT, Weston Woods provides materials to more than 50,000 schools and libraries nationwide and has distributors in more than 20 countries around the world. It was originally founded in 1953 by Morton Schindel.

have enjoyed steady growth since the Company first crossed the border to launch Scholastic Canada in 1957.

To offset this trend, the company decided to invest more than $5 million to enter the highly competitive textbook market, building on the instructional materials it first offered in 1961.

In 1962 the World Affairs Multi-Text series was offered for use in social studies classes, and a series of arithmetic booklets were promoted for individual study at home.

In 1963, Norman Bridwell created what would become one of America’s oldest and most beloved children’s characters: Clifford the Big Red Dog®. There are currently more than 134 million Clifford books in print, which are published in 19 languages, and distributed worldwide.

In 1965 Scholastic introduced its hardcover book publishing division, the Four Winds Press.

By 1968, a series of short films, entitled Toute la Bande, had been designed for instruction in the French language.

In 1971 a School Division was created to oversee operations involving the company's book clubs and magazines.

Founded in 1977, Klutz creates book-based activity kits that stimulate creativity and critical thinking in kids of all ages.

Scholastic Productions was formed in 1978 to provide the company with the capability of producing children's television series, feature films, home videos, and multimedia products based on its popular book characters.

In 1981, Scholastic launched its in-school book fairs business with the purchase of a California book fair.

In 1982 the New Media division was launched to focus on educational software.

They proved so successful that Scholastic went national by acquiring Great American Book Fairs in 1983.

By May 1984, however, these new ventures had resulted in losses of $13.8 million, and the company's stock price plummeted.

The Magic School Bus series launched in 1986, with multiple television series and video games to follow.

In 1989, Scholastic Professional Publishing was developed to create high-quality resources for teachers.

Once the company was back on solid financial ground, it again went public, offering $90 million worth of stock in February 1992.

In September 1993 the company started Scholastic Network, an educational online computer service available on America Online (AOL).

In September 1993 the company started Scholastic Network, an educational online computer service available on America Online (AOL). It spent $20 million to develop its first animated television series, The Magic School Bus, which debuted on PBS in fall 1994.

The Goosebumps series was launched on Fox television in the fall of 1995.

"Scholastic Agrees To Buy Red House," company press release, November 19, 1996, at http://www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/invrel/press/96nov19.htm

In January 1997 it acquired Red House Books Ltd., a British children's book distributor and book club operator, making Scholastic the largest children's book publisher and distributor in the United Kingdom.

Faced with a need to improve profitability, Scholastic rebounded in fiscal 1998.

In 2000 Scholastic acquired Grolier, one of the largest United States publishers of general encyclopedias.

In 2005, Scholastic's Graphix imprint launched with the color edition of BONE #1: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith, creating a separate platform for Scholastic graphic novels.

In 2008, Scholastic published The Hunger Games, the first title in Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular dystopian trilogy.

Scholastic launched its corporate podcast Scholastic Reads in December 2015.

In 2016, Captain Underpants creator Dav Pilkey introduced readers to Dog Man, a part-canine, part-policeman superhero.

In September 2019, Raina Telgemeier’s third middle-grade graphic novel memoir, Guts, premiered as the #1 bestselling book in the country overall.