'Houghton Mifflin is one of the leading educational publishers in the United States, publishing textbooks, instructional technology, assessments, and other educational materials for teachers and students of every age. They also also publish an extensive line of reference works and award-winning fiction and nonfiction for adults and young readers.' http://www.hmco.com/indexf.html (Sighted 14/12/04).
The Company was formed in Boston by Henry Oscar Houghton and George Harrison Mifflin, following the dissolution of a short-lived parnership between Houghton and James R. Osgood. Houghton had established the printery Riverside Press in 1852, which had become the leading printery in America, and had published with partner Melanchthon Hurd as Hurd and Houghton between 1864 and 1878. Osgood was a former partner in Ticknor and Fields, whose valuable list came with him to the partnership in 1878.
Houghton, Mifflin soon established a line of textbooks. Educational sales grew five hundred percent between 1891 and 1908, surpassing trade to become the Company's largest, most profitable business. This has continued to be so, with eighty percent of volumes published in 1988 being textbooks, although it is recognised that at various times Houghton and Miffflin has had a very large and distinguished author's list. A children's department was established in the 1930s.
