Resources on the WebThis section presents annotated links to information about the various series and about the life of Emmanuel Julius-Haldeman found elsewhere on the Web. Eventually I'll categorize stuff better. (As I said before, everything is preliminary and will change.) There aren't many items yet, but that's because you haven't told me about the ones I've missed. If you know of other articles and/or web-based resources, please let me know. |
| Haldeman-Julius: Pocket Series and the Little Blue Books | Really good website "devoted to the history, identification and collecting of the various 3½ × 5 inch volumes published by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (and his son) via Appeal to Reason, Appeal Publishing Company, Haldeman-Julius Company, Haldeman-Julius Publications, and The Little Blue Book Company. " Very nicely designed, too. |
Axe Library Little Blue Books Checklist |
Not as complete as our own checklist, this one contains more information including many dates. Certainly worth checking out. |
The Henry Ford of Literature |
How one nearly forgotten 1920s publisher’s 'little blue books' created an inexpensive mail-order information superhighway that paved the way for the sexual revolution, influenced the feminist and civil rights movements, and foreshadowed the age of information -- Rolf Potts, 9/2008 issue of The Believer |
Reading Little Blue Books and Libraries: A Guide to Self-Improvement |
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius published about 2,200 Little Blue Books in Girard, Kansas, between 1919 and 1951, totaling about 300 million "volumes." He took offense at the word "pamphlet." He feverishly promoted reading and the written arts. "The quest" for self-improvement, self-education, self- betterment, and self-development comprised the "eternal pursuit of happiness." The Little Blue Books were "tiny missionaries, spreading a taste for good literature and inducing a desire for better reading."-- From Nebraska Library Association Quarterly (Spring 2007) |
Mass Marketing of Culture for a Nickel a Book |
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius was the brand. He was the spokesman, author and trademark of the Blue Book publications. They were the extension of his finely crafted public persona. He was the value added to his products. -- Speech given by Susan Brorson, Ph.D. at the 50th Annual Missouri Valley History Conference, Omaha, Nebraska (March 2007) |
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius and the education of the poor of America |
It is argued that Haldeman-Julius's publications made a major contribution to the cultural background, both scientific and literary, of the period in the United States of America. His little blue books were bought by children as the cheapest source of information. They were also purchased by working men intent on self advancement. -- Paper presented by at the IPS-USA-2006 New York Conference (New York, Jul 3-6, 2006) by William P. Palmer, Ph.D. |
He Quits? |
"I QUIT! On June 33, I shall quit publishing Little Blue Books! Order till then at 5c. I am going to stop because I must give my full attention to my immensely successful Haldeman-Julius Monthly—The Enterprise of Bringing out 842 Good Books has been Sensational-over 75,000,000 sold in Five Years—Here is sound advice: Do not buy a mere 25 or 30 books—Do as most are doing by ordering 100 or 200 titles, or better still an entire set of 842 titles. Invest today in your future reading. This is your final opportunity." -- Time magazine, Monday, Jun. 08, 1925. [He didn't quit. -- Ed.] |
Little Blue Books |
... During his lifetime. Emanuel Julius —or Haldeman-Julius, the hyphenation he assumed after marrying Anna Marcet Haldeman—sold more than 300 million copies of his Little Blue Books, mostly for a nickel apiece, in one of the most successful mail-order businesses ever conceived. -- Time magazine, Monday, Aug. 15, 1960 |
| The First 300 Million | Few publishers have been as prolific as E. (for Emanuel) Haldeman-Julius. In 30 years he has sold more than 300 million of his world-famed Little Blue Books, whose 2,000 volumes range from the Bible, Shakespeare and Aristotle to socialism, psychoanalysis and sex. Haldeman-Julius, an agnostic, has infuriated clergymen and delighted village atheists, but he has probably helped to open as many curious minds as he has helped to frazzle unstable ones. Last week, in the biggest sale of his career, he slashed his famed Little Blue Books from 10¢ to 6¢, in an attempt to unload his ten-million-volume inventory. -- Time magazine, Monday, Aug. 08, 1949 |
| Haldeman-Julius, the Little Blue Books, and the Theory of Popular Culture |
...Along with an increasing number of social and intellectual historians this writer is of the opinion that a direct but as yet unexplored route to the American Mind is to be found in the recently claimed territory of popular culture. It is the purpose of this paper to briefly introduce Haldeman-Julius and his Little Blue Books to the modern popular culturalist, and to suggest some tentative conclusions about what is perhaps the first theory of popular culture to be articulated by an American in the twentieth century. This discussion is part of a proposed book-length exploration of the Little Blue Books as a vehicle of popular culture... -- by Dale M. Herder, English Department, Michigan State University, Journal of Popular Culture, vol. IV, no. 4, Spring 1971 |
| Proletarian paperbacks: The little blue books and working-class culture | ... The Little Blue Book project emerged then, quite literally, into the space left by the Espionage Act's suppression of the radical press. Finding pamphlet publishing safer and more profitable in the conservative political climate of the post-war years, Haldeman-Julius turned over more and more of his presses to the less explicitly political Blue Books, eventually abandoning the crippled Appeal in 1922 (Graham 1990, 288). The transition from socialism to education for the working-classes was not, however, as abrupt as historians of the Appeal have depicted.... -- Eric Schocket, College Literature, Fall 2002 |
| Haldeman-Julius: Is It Bragging if You Can Do It? | Emanuel Julius was involved with the publishing business of the Appeal to Reason before he ever set foot in Girard, Kansas. ... The business of the Appeal was to spread socialism. It did so with great success in both financial and propagandist terms until November 1912, when Wayland’s self-inflicted death caused an upheaval in operation and management of the publications. ... As a staff writer, Julius wrote articles that appeared in the Appeal in 1912. Julius could not have imagined that the paper that offered him a staff job in 1915 would become his life’s work as a publisher and author. -- Sharon Neet, University of Minnesota, Crookston Missouri Valley History Conference, March 2007. |