Street & Smith or Street & Smith Publications, Inc. , was a New York City publisher specializing in inexpensive paperbacks and magazines referred to as dime novels and pulp fiction . They also published comic books and sporting yearbooks. Among their many titles was the science fiction pulp magazine Astounding Stories , acquired from Clayton Magazines in 1933, and retained until 1961. Street & Smith was founded in 1855, and was bought out in 1959. The Street & Smith headquarters were at 79 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan ; they were designed by Henry F. Kilburn .
20-491: Detective Story Magazine was an American magazine published by Street & Smith from October 15, 1915, to summer 1949 (1,057 issues). It was one of the first pulp magazines devoted to detective fiction and consisted of short stories and serials. While the publication was the publishing house's first detective-fiction pulp magazine in a format resembling a modern paperback (a "thick book" in dime-novel parlance), Street & Smith had only recently ceased publication of
40-676: A former editor at Dell Magazines, and Harold S. Goldsmith, former managing editor of the Magazine Publishers group. It was the time of the Great Depression , and Steeger had just read The Hound of the Baskervilles where he ran Ace Publications. The original intention was for Steeger to mostly run the editorial side of the publishing company while Goldsmith would operate the business side. Steeger realized that people wanted escapist fiction , allowing them to forget
60-551: A hero pulp that ran from 1933 to 1936. A popular radio show, Nick Carter, Master Detective , aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System network from 1943 to 1955. Authors published in Detective Story include: Street %26 Smith Francis Scott Street and Francis Shubael Smith began their publishing partnership in 1855 when they took over a broken-down fiction magazine. They then bought
80-505: A new company, Fictioneers, was started; it was essentially a fictional company, with an address (205 East 42nd St) that corresponded to the rear entrance of Popular's offices at 210 East 43rd St. It was given a separate phone number, and the switchboard girl was instructed to put calls through to staff working on Fictioneers titles only if the calls came to the Fictioneers number. Many staff were working on magazines for both companies at
100-576: A small fortune inventing a new printing process. He moved the offices into a skyscraper. Street & Smith published comic books from 1940 to 1949, their most notable titles being The Shadow , from their pulp magazine line, Super-Magician Comics , Supersnipe Comics , True Sport Picture Stories , Bill Barnes/Air Ace and Doc Savage Comics , also from the pulp magazine line. Street & Smith stopped publishing all their pulps and comics, with one exception, in 1949, selling off several of their titles to Popular Publications . Sales had declined with
120-430: A word, which was standard base rate among the major publishing groups, though fringe publishers paid less. In 1937, Street & Smith discontinued a number of their pulp titles, including Top-Notch and Complete Stories , the start of a long-term shrinking of their pulp line. In 1938, Allen L. Grammer became president. He had spent more than twenty years as an ergonomics expert for Curtis Publishing Company , and made
140-670: The Sporting News , originally The Sporting News , and merged Street & Smith's annuals into TSN ' s annuals. In 2017, American City Business Journals revived the Street & Smith name for its sports annuals, published collectively as Street & Smith's Yearbooks . Issues are published at the start of each applicable sport's season, with individual issues subtitled to reflect the season and sport, such as: 2019 College Football ; 2020 Fantasy Baseball ; 2022–23 NBA Preview . Popular Publications Popular Publications
160-535: The 1880s and continuing into 1959. In the early decades of the 20th century, Ormond V. Gould was the company secretary. Ormond Smith remained company president until his death in 1933. In 1933, Street & Smith bought titles from Clayton Magazines, including Astounding Stories . In 1934 they put out 35 different magazines, looked after by about a dozen editors, including John Nanovic, Frank Blackwell, Daisy Bacon and F. Orlin Tremaine . The company paid one cent
180-475: The advent of television. They continued to publish Astounding Science Fiction well into the late 1950s. Condé Nast Publications , a subsidiary of the Newhouse family's Advance Publications , bought the company for more than $ 3.5 million in 1959. The company's name continued to be used on the sports pre-season preview magazines until 2007 when Advance division American City Business Journals acquired
200-444: The company was sold to Brookside Publications, a company owned by advertising magnate David Geller. At the time it was still publishing Argosy, Railroad , recently ending Adventure and True Adventure . In c. 1977, Geller sold Popular to French publisher Hachette. In 1981, they sold the rights to Joel Frieman who established Blazing Publications, which in 1988 renamed itself Argosy Communications, Inc. Under those names, it published
220-478: The difficulties of daily life. Steeger wrote "I realised that a great deal of money could be made with that kind of material. It was not long before I was at it, inventing one pulp magazine after another, until my firm had originated over 300 of them." In the late 1930s Steeger was under pressure to lower his rate of pay to below one cent a word, which he felt was the minimum decent rate he could offer. He didn't want to have Popular pay less than one cent per word, so
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#1732786577278240-406: The dime-novel series Nick Carter Weekly , which concerned the adventures of a young detective. From February 21, 1931, to its demise, the magazine was titled Street & Smith's Detective Story Magazine . During half of its 34-year life, the magazine was popular enough to support weekly issues. Ludwig Wittgenstein , the eminent philosopher, was among the magazine's readership. Stories from
260-492: The early 1950s the entire industry of pulp fiction imploded. In a 1973 interview, Steeger stated that to the best of his knowledge Popular Publications published no magazine in the old pulp size format after 1953. He believed that "the Pocketbooks were probably the main factor that contributed to the ultimate fading of pulps from the publishing field--then television came along and administered the 'coup de grace'." In 1972,
280-421: The existing New York Weekly Dispatch in 1858. Francis Smith was the company president from 1855 until his 1887 retirement, his son Ormond Gerald Smith taking over his role. Francis Street died in 1883. Francis Smith died on February 1, 1887. The company, which owned a six-story building at 79 Seventh Avenue (just north of 14th Street ), became a publisher of inexpensive novels and weekly magazines starting in
300-491: The law," Detective Action Stories , featuring true mystery and action type stories with the emphasis more on action than deduction, and Western Rangers , containing stories with "gun fighting, battles from ambush, and bandits running wild." The emphasis was on the action, not the "woman interest", which, if any, was to be kept "incidental". In 1934, Popular acquired Adventure from the Butterick Company. Around
320-539: The magazine titles being put out one month and reaching the figure of 42 to 45. In 1949, they acquired all of the pulp titles Street & Smith had recently cancelled, with the exceptions of The Shadow (due to the radio show) and their other hero pulps, and Astounding , although Popular did not publish revivals of them all. Other imprints used included Fictioneers, Inc. (1939–58), All-Fiction Field, Inc. (1942–58), New Publications, Inc. (1936–60), Recreational Reading (1936–60), and Post Periodicals, Inc. (1936–60). By
340-516: The magazine were first heard on the radio on July 31, 1930. The Street and Smith radio program Detective Story Hour was narrated by a mysterious character named " The Shadow ." Confused listeners would ask for copies of "The Shadow" magazine. As a result, Street & Smith debuted The Shadow Magazine on April 1, 1931, a pulp series created and primarily written by the prolific Walter B. Gibson . The success of The Shadow and Doc Savage also prompted Street & Smith to revive Nick Carter as
360-453: The same time, they purchased a number of titles from Clayton Publications such as Ace-High Magazine and Complete Adventure Novelettes. In 1940, they purchased Black Mask from The Pro-Distributors, Inc. In 1942 the firm acquired the properties of the Frank A. Munsey Company . The company reached its peak of production right at the end of the second world war when Steeger recalls counting
380-503: The same time, which made it difficult to maintain the pretense of separation. Science fiction writer Frederik Pohl , on the other hand, was hired specifically to edit two Fictioneers titles: Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories . The first four magazines published, all cover dated October 1930, were Battle Aces , featuring war stories consisting of dog-fights between squadrons of airplanes, Gang World , "dealing with tough and ready characters in conflict with each other and
400-402: Was one of the largest publishers of pulp magazines during its existence, at one point publishing 42 different titles per month. Company titles included detective , adventure , romance , and Western fiction . They were also known for the several ' weird menace ' titles. They also published several pulp hero or character pulps. The company was formed in 1930 by Henry "Harry" Steeger ,
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