Thomas Young Crowell, originally a Boston book-binder, opened a small publishing firm in New York in 1876. He preferred to publish 'solid' books of religion, classical poetry and Russian literature, and economics. The company developed a line of reference books, and from 1938 added a successsful line of children's books.
There was a Crowell as president of the company until 1972, when Thomas' grandson, Robert T. Crowell, retired. The firm was acquired by Dun and Bradstreet in 1968 but continued as an entity; in the early 1970s the company acquired Abelard-Schuman, Chandler Publishing Company, Criterion Books, the John Day Company and Intext Educational Publishers. The Crowell imprint was continued by Harper and Row after Crowell was taken over by that company in 1979.
Thomas Y. Crowell was an early publisher of Southey's Botany Bay Ecologues.
