History

Today at work we were treated to a presentation of historical materials related to the company's mysterious past.  Ok, it's not really that mysterious, but there was a lot of stuff I didn't know.

For example:  apparently, for the first 50 or so years, the G & C Merriam Brothers & Co. were much more just printers than publishers-- the vast majority of the actual dictionary writing and editing was done in offices at Yale, where the editors were mostly employed.  The Springfield offices were literally just printing houses until they moved into their penultimate location (down by the intersection of State and Main, if anyone's curious), and they finally had room for a permanent editorial staff.  The current location was actually chosen as part of what we suspect (this part is actually slightly mysterious) was a deal with the city to develop the neighborhood, which at the time had only recently acquired actual paved streets.

Also, the charity that we donate toys and etc to every Christmas was actually founded (under a different name) by the wife of one of the Merriam Brothers.  That relationship goes back much farther than I had been aware.