Henry Altemus Company

 

Altemus & Co. Books

 

Altemus & Co. Books

 

Although the main imprints used by Altemus were Henry Altemus and Henry Altemus Company, the Altemus & Co. imprint can be found on early Bibles from the 1870's, scrapbooks and photograph albums. The Altemus & Company press also printed various titles. Some are monographs for groups mostly in and around Philadelphia. These latter books were generally produced in small quantities and are quite scarce.

Examples are The Tenth Annual Report of the Women's Christian Association of Germantown in 1881, the By-Laws of the Kensington Hospital for Women in 1887, and a small booklet entitled the Bachelors Barge Club of Philadelphia. This latter volume published in 1914 is shown below.

Bachelors Barge Club

This small 66 page book (5.75 x 4.25) summarizes the by-laws, committees, rules etc. of the club. The names of the members of the Barge Club and when they joined are also listed. Henry Altemus Sr.'s four sons, all who were involved with the publishing Company, were members: Henry Jr., Howard, Robert and Roland.

 

The Talisman- An Altemus & Company publication

 

As is noted above, the Altemus & Co. imprint can be found on Photographic albums, scrapbooks and a handful of other publications. Books with this imprint are quite scarce. Here is an example of a book with the Altemus & Co imprint. This title was first published by Hogan and Thompson, a Philadelphia publisher, in 1851.

The date of the Altemus publication is unclear. Based on the use of this imprint plus the style of the book a date between 1851 and the 1870's is my best guess.

This is definitely the earliest Altemus & Co imprint that I have seen with exception of some photographic albums.

The book has gold gilt edges and measures 6.5 x 9.5.

 

Tenth Annual Report of the Women's Christian Association (1881)

 

This 11 page pamphlet was published by the "Press of Altemus and Co. in 1881. Interestingly Altemus did not publish any other Annual Reports for this organization.

 

Pictures courtesy of The Library Company of Philadelphia. Special thanks to Nicole Joniec.

 

 

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Last Revision January 28, 2014