houghton mifflin harcourt

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The company was formerly known as Houghton Mifflin Company but changed its name following the 2007 acquisition of Harcourt Publishing. Prior to March 2010, it was a subsidiary of Education Media and Publishing Group Limited, an Irish-owned holding company registered in the Cayman Islands and formerly known as Riverdeep.

In 1832, William Ticknor and James Thomas Fields had gathered an impressive list of writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. The duo formed a close relationship with Riverside Press, a Boston printing company owned by Henry Oscar Houghton. Shortly after, Houghton also founded a publishing company with partner George Mifflin. In 1880, Ticknor and Fields and Houghton and Mifflin merged their operations, combining the literary works of writers with the expertise of a publisher and creating a new partnership named Houghton, Mifflin and Company. The company still had debt from when it merged from Houghton, Osgood and Company, so it decided to add partners. In 1884, James D. Hurd, the son of Melancthon Hurd became a partner. Three people in 1888 became partners as well: James Murray Kay, Thurlow Weed Barnes, and Henry Oscar Houghton, Jr.

Shortly thereafter the company established an Educational Department, and from 1891 to 1908 sales of educational materials increased by 500 percent. Soon after 1916, Houghton Mifflin became involved in publishing standardized tests and testing materials, working closely with such test developers as E.F. Lindquist. The company was the fourth-largest educational publisher in the United States in 1921.

In 1961, Houghton Mifflin famously passed on Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, giving it up to Alfred A. Knopf who later published it in 1962. It went on to become an overnight success and is considered by many to be the bible of French cooking. Houghton Mifflin’s strategic error was depicted in the 2009 film Julie & Julia.^{[unreliable source?]}

In 1967, Houghton Mifflin became a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol HTN.

Under (new from 1991) president Nader F. Darehshori Houghton Mifflin acquired in 1994 for $138 million McDougal Littell, an educational publisher of secondary school materials, and in following year D.C. Heath and Company, a publisher of supplemental educational resources. In 1996, the company created their Great Source Education Group to combine the supplemental material product lines of their School Division and these two companies.

In 1998, HMH announced a sub-brand called LOGAL Software, which was to release a new line of interactive science software called Science Gateways, to support the United Stated curriculum. As of 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is offering the “Logal Science” brand as a licensing opportunity on its website.

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