W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923,
when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures
delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New
York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute,
publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By
mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program—trade books
and college texts—were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred
control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of four
hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published
each year—W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest
publishing house owned wholly by its employees.
