Founded in 1891, the University of Chicago Press is one of the oldest continuously-operating university presses in the United States. From its humble beginnings as a group of printers and typesetters, it soon turned into one of the largest university presses in the United States.
First Publications of the University of Chicago Press
If books should not be judged by their covers, then (university) presses should not be judged by the success of their first publication(s). The University of Chicago Press’s first published book was Robert F. Harper’s Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Belonging to the Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum, which apparently sold only five copies in its first two years. However, John Dewey’s The School and Society, published soon after in 1899, stayed in print for more than a hundred years.
Interestingly, the University of Chicago Press published scholarly journals from the very beginning, starting with the Journal of Political Economy in 1891. Many of them were therefore firsts in a new field: The American Journal of Sociology, published in 1895, for example, or the Social Service Review, published in 1927, marked the establishment of social work as a profession. Today, the Press’s journals division publishes 49 journals and annuals.
A Brief History of the University of Chicago Press
Like Princeton and Yale University Press, the University of Chicago Press started out physically and organizationally separate from the university: Initially, Boston-based publisher D. C. Heath and Chicago printer R. R. Donnelley ran the Press. This arrangement wasn’t feasible in the long run and the Press became officially a part of the University of Chicago in 1894. During the first 11 years, the Press suffered from financial difficulties, lack of adequate facilities and changes in leadership.
Its fortune changed in 1902 when the Press started the Decennial Publications, one of the earliest and very ambitious publishing programs consisting of articles and monographs by University of Chicago scholars, faculty and administrators on the state of the university and its research. More than just a new publishing project, the Decennial Publications led to a radical reorganization of the Press, its staff, resources and policies: From 1905 onward, the Press also published books by scholars outside the University.
From Mission to The Chicago Manual of Style
In addition, a copyediting and proofreading department was added in 1906, a development that ultimately led to UCP’s trademark publication: The Chicago Manual of Style, a style guide and standard accepted by researches, writers and editors the world over. The Manual has been continuously in print since 1906 and has sold nearly a million copies. It is currently in its fifteenth edition.
True to its mission to “advance scholarly conversation within and across traditional disciplines [… and] to help define new areas of knowledge and intellectual endeavor” with all its books and journals programs, the University of Chicago Press continuously strives to reach the academic audience as well as the general reader, especially in the following areas:
- reference works
- educational texts
- scholarly works
- non-scholarly works
- translations
- regional interest publications
University of Chicago Press Submissions
The Press does accept manuscript proposals, and prospective authors can put together a book proposal containing a cover letter, their curriculum vitae, a table of contents and a brief description of their project including the intended audience, length, number of illustrations and time frame. Book proposals should be sent to one of the Press’s editors in the following fields:
- American history, Chicago, regional publishing
- Art, architecture, ancient archeology, classics
- Economics, economic history, business, international relations, law
- Ethnomusicology, interdisciplinary philosophy, and education
- History, sociology, sexuality studies, rhetoric
- Humanities: literature, literary studies, media and cultural studies, religious studies
- Life sciences, geography, earth sciences
- Medieval studies, poetry in translation
- Music
- Physical Sciences
- Reference: dictionaries, encyclopedias, guides, atlases, general reference
- Science Studies
- Social sciences: political science, law and society
The Press does not publish unrevised dissertations, conference proceedings, Festschriften, fiction or poetry and not outside the areas mentioned above.
As seen in this brief overview, the University of Chicago Press is one of the oldest, continuously operating university presses in the United States. Especially its first decade was difficult but the Press’s early diversification into books and journals helped overcome the initial hurdles. This strategy continues today with its focus on various digital initiatives and the Distribution Services Division, warehousing and customer services provided to 60 publishers.
For more information about the Press, visit the University of Chicago Press’s blog or website. Readers interested in this profile may also like to read about other university presses, the Economics of Scholarly Publishing or the Association of American University Presses.
Simone Preuss - Simone is a freelance writer, editor and translator who decided to go solo after a successful career in publishing. That was more than ...
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