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.
