For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner, Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors... His legacy will endure in the books to come.[1]
Supreme Court Case
In 1961, Pub. Affairs Associates, Inc. v. Rickover, 369 U.S. 111 (1962), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the circuit court's decision should be vacated because the facts of the case were too unclear. Remanded to district court to create an "adequate and full-bodied record.".[4]
(Note: Books below under "Works," gleaned from the Library of Congress, show the publisher's name as "Public Affairs Press" as far back as 1940.)
The Post called founder Morris B. Schnapper a "redoubtable gadfly."[2]
American Council on Public Affairs
In the 1940s, Schnapper served on the staff of the American Council on Public Affairs as executive secretary and editor. The organization had "advisory assistance" in various fields from experts:
Political Science: Kenneth Colegrove, W. Y. Elliott, Ernest Griffith, Lowell Mellett, Frederic Ogg, C. J. Friedrich, William E. Mosher, Ernest K. Lindley, Robert J. Harris
Economics:Sumner Slichter, Paul H. Douglas, Edwin E. Witte, Leon C. Manhall, G. T. Schwenning, David Cushman Coyle, Arthur E. Burns, Jacob Viner, Eveline Bumi, Herman Somera, George Soule
Sociology: William Ogburn, R. M. Maciver, Read Bain, Bruce Melvin, Mark May, Willard Waller, Harold A. Phelps, Edward All1worth Ro11, E. S. Bogardus
Social Welfare: Paul Kellogg, Walter West, Frank P. Graham, E. C. Lindeman, Clarence Pickett
Labor: John B. Andrews, Leo Wolman, W. Jett Lauck, Hilda Smith, Elizabeth Christman, Willard Uphaus, Marion H. Hedges, Paul Brissenden, Frank Palmer
Education: George Zook, Clyde Miller, Frederick Redefer, Floyd Reeves, Chester Williams, William G. Carr, Carl Milam
Latin America: Ernest Galarza, George Howland Cox, Rollin Atwood, J. D. M. Ford, John I. B. McCulloch, Samuel Guy Inman
History: Guy Stanton Ford, Harry Elmer Barnes, Sidney B. Fay, Richard Heindel, Bernadotte Schmitt
Public Opinion: Harold Lasswell, Peter Odegard, Delbert Clark, Harold Gosnell, Harwood Childs
Between 1942 and 1946, the American Council on Public Affairs published seven books through Public Affairs Press:
Prelude to invasion; an account based upon official reports by Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War (1944)
American policy toward Palestine by Carl J. Friedrich (1944)
Economics of demobilization by E. Jay Howenstine Jr. (1944)
Job guide, a handbook of official information about employment opportunities in leading industries by Sydney H. Kasper (1945)
Educational opportunities for veterans by Francis J. Brown (1946)
Guide to public affairs organizations, with notes on public affairs informational materials by Charles R. Read and Samuel Marble (1946)
Palestine: problem and promise; an economic study by Robert R. Nathan, Oscar Gass, Daniel Creamer (1946)[8]
Location
According to Library of Congress records, Public Affairs Press had offices at 2153 Florida Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, between 1940 and 1948.[9]
In 1962, Public Affairs Press had offices at 419 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington DC 20003, DC.[10]
Legacy
In 1997, Peter Osnos, when founding PublicAffairs, asked and received permission from Schnapper to name his new publishing house after Public Affairs Books.[11]
Works
By 1983, the Post reported, Public Affairs Press had published some 1,500 books and pamphlets on political-social-economic and historical topics. In 1983, its current catalog listed 100 titles.[2]
Public Affairs Press often had Washington insiders add introductions and similar materials to its book, e.g., prior to their presidencies, introductions by John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baynes Johnson.
The most published author was Frederick Mayer (1921-2006), an educational scientist, philosopher, and proponent of global humanism who wrote more than sixty books, including eight with Public Affairs Press.
The Library of Congress has the following nearly 400 books recorded as published in Washington, DC, by Public Affairs Press:
1940s:
Guide to America; a treasury of information about its states, cities, parks, and historical points of interest (no date)
Guide to America: pictorial supplement (no date)
Manual of ancient history by Elmer Louis Kayser. (1940)
Internal check and control for small companies by M. E. Murphy (circa 1940)
Progress of Pan-Americanism, a historical survey of Latin-American opinion, translated and edited by T. H. Reynolds (1943)
Going back to civilian life by the American Council on Public Affairs (1944)
Cartels; challenge to a free world by Wendell Berge (1944)
American policy toward Palestine by Carl J. Friedrich (1944)
Economics of demobilization by E. Jay Howenstine Jr. (1944)
Industry-government cooperation; a study of the participation of advisory committees in public administration by Carl Henry Monsees (1944)
Surplus war property: official documents of the Office of war information and the Surplus war property administration (1944)
Prelude to invasion; an account based upon official reports by Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War (1944)
Reorganization of Congress: a report of the Committee on Congress of the American political science association (1945)
National health agencies, a survey with especial reference to voluntary associations by Harold M. Cavins (1945)
Post-war markets; a guide based upon official information prepared by the Bureau of foreign and domestic commerce, edited by E. Jay Howenstine (1945)
Job guide, a handbook of official information about employment opportunities in leading industries by Sydney H. Kasper (1945)
Post-war jobs, a guide to current problems and future opportunities by Press Research, Inc. (1945)
Washington's dining out guide; forthright notes about the capital's restaurants, hotel dining rooms, night clubs, cafeterias, etc. by Morris Bartel Schnapper (1945)
Our American neighbors by US Office of inter-American affairs (1945)
American handbook by US Office of inter-American affairs (1945)
Enemy Japan by US Office of inter-American affairs (1945)
Veterans information directory; a guide to national, state, and local agencies through which ex-servicemen can obtain government benefits and private aid in the fields of business, employment, education, agriculture, social service, rehabilitation, etc. (1946)
Educational opportunities for veterans by Francis J. Brown (1946)
Endless horizons by Vannevar Bush (1946)
Palestine: problem and promise; an economic study by Robert R. Nathan, Oscar Gass, Daniel Creamer (1946)
Guide to public affairs organizations, with notes on public affairs informational materials by Charles R. Read and Samuel Marble (1946)
Unions and veterans by Anne Ramsay Somers (1946)
American names, a guide to the origin of place names in the United States by Henry Gannett (1947)
UNESCO: its purpose and its philosophy by Julian Huxley (1947)
Dictionary of international affairs (1947)
Full employment & free enterprise by John Herman Groesbeck Pierson (1947)
Reason and rubbish about the Negro, a Southerner's view by Elta Campbell Roberts (1947)
Palestine and the United Nations: prelude to solution by Jacob Robinson (1947)
Fishery resources of the United States, edited by Lionel A. Walford (1947)
Book publishing in Soviet Russia; an official survey based upon the data of the All-Union Book Department, translated by Helen Lambert Shadick (1948)
Mineral resources of the United States (1948)
Soviet views on the post-war world economy; an official critique of Eugene Varga's "Changes in the economy of capitalism resulting from the Second World War", translated by Leo Gruliow (1948)
Pattern of Soviet democracy by Georgiĭ Fedorovich Aleksandrov (1948)
Wool tariffs and American policy by Donald Mayer Blinken (1948)
Marketing of surplus war property by James Allan Cook (1948)
Guide to American business directories by Marjorie V. Davis (1948)
Ideological content of Soviet literature by Aleksandr Mikhaĭlovich Egolin, translated by Mary Kriger (1948)
Economy of the USSR during World War II by Nikolaĭ Alekseevich Voznesenskiĭ (Russian Translation Program of the American Council of Learned Societies) (1948)
American men in government, a biographical dictionary and directory of Federal officials, edited by Jerome M. Rosow (1949)
Out of the crocodile's mouth; Russian cartoons about the United States from "Krokodil," Moscow's humor magazine, edited by William Nelson (1949)
What's doing in ... by Morris Bartel Schnapper (1949)
Guide to women's organizations; a handbook about national and international groups by Ellen L. Anderson (1949)
You can't win; facts and fallacies about gambling by Ernest Evred Blanche (1949)
Western union; a study of the trend toward European unity by Andrew Boyd (1949)
Control of the public budget by Vincent J. Browne (1949)
People know best: the ballots vs. the polls by Morris L. Ernst and David Loth (1949)
Goethe's autobiography, Poetry and truth from my own life, translated by R. O. Moon (1949)
Atlantic pact by Halford Lancaster Hoskins (1949)
Short history of the Middle East ; from the rise of Islam to modern times by George E. Kirk (1949)
Realities of American-Palestine relations by Frank E. Manuel (1949)
Conflicting patterns of thought by Karl Přibram (1949)
Dictionary of guided missile terms by US Department of Defense, Research & Development Board, Committee on Guided Missiles (1949)
Truman program; addresses and messages, edited by Morris Bartel Schnapper (1949)
1950s:
Handy pocket map of Washington, D.C.: including a calendar of important events and historical dates of 1950 (1950)
Soviet history of philosophy; the outline of a new volume to replace G. F. Alexandrov's History of western European philosophy, withdrawn from circulation as a result of a philosophical discussion organized in 1947 by the Communist Party of the USSR (1950)
Story of the American automobile; highlights and side- lights by Rudolph E. Anderson (1950)
Industrial management in the USSR by Artashes Arkadʹevich Arakeli︠a︡n, translated by Ellsworth L. Raymond (1950)
Documentation by S.C. Bradford (1950)
Soviet imperialism; Russia's drive toward world domination by Ernest Day Carman (1950)
Soviet territorial aggrandizement, 1939-1948; an analysis of concepts and methods by Ernest Day Carman (1950)
Principles of scientific research by Paul Freeman (1950)
Crimes against international law by Joseph Berry Keenan and Brendan Francis Brown (1950)
Lost America; the story of iron-age civilization prior to Columbus by Arlington Humphrey Mallery (1950)
Washington, past and present; a pictorial history of the Nation's capital by Chalmers McGeagh Roberts (1950)
Vsesoi︠u︡znyĭ leninskiĭ kommunisticheskiĭ soi︠u︡z molodezhi. T︠S︡entralʹnyĭ komitet. Otdel propagandy i agitat︠s︡ii (Young communists in the USSR; a Soviet monograph describing the demands made upon members of the Komsomol organization, translated by Virginia Rhine) (1950)
Treason; the story of disloyalty and betrayal in American history by Nathaniel Weyl (1950)
Citizen's handbook of sexual abnormalities and the mental hygiene approach to their prevention; a report of the Governor's Study Commission on Sex Deviates by Samuel W. Hartwell (1951)
Washington fricassee; photos by Albin R. Meier and others by Morris Bartel Schnapper (1951)
School and society in England; social backgrounds of Oxford and Cambridge students by Charles Arnold Anderson (1952)
Economics of employment and unemployment by Paul H. Casselman (1955)
Challenge of automation; papers delivered at the national conference on automation by Joseph C. O'Mahoney et al. (Congress of Industrial Organizations) (1955)
Treaties and federal constitutions by James McLeod Hendry (1955)
Economics of group banking by Palmer Tobias Hogenson (1955)
Woman voter; an analysis based upon personal interviews by Earl Roger Kruschke (1955)
Twilight of the profit motive by Theodore Levitt (1955)
Life and letters of Mary Emma Woolley by Jeannette Augustus Marks (1955)
Lyndon Johnson's credibility gap by James Deakin (1968)
Economics of trading stamps by Harold W. Fox (1968)
America and swaraj; the U.S. role in Indian independence by A. Guy Hope (1968)
United States-Philippine relations, 1946-1956 by Sung Yong Kim (1968)
Military occupation and national security by Martin and Joan Kyre (1968)
President and public opinion; leadership in foreign affairs by Manfred Landecker (1968)
Quotations from the would-be chairman: Richard Milhous Nixon, edited by M. B. Schnapper (1968)
Citizen's choice: Humphrey or Nixon by Nelson W. Polsby (1968)
Political trends in Brazil by Vladimir Reisky de Dubnic, foreword by Adolf A. Berle (1968)
Roots of international organization by J. William Robinson (1968)
New mass media: challenge to a free society by Gilbert Seldes (1968)
President as chief administrator; a study of Franklin D. Roosevelt by A. J. Wann (1968)
Nuclear proliferation by Walter B. Wentz (1968)
Community Structure and Health Action; a report on process analysis by Robert N. Wilson with Robert E. Boone (1968)
Conditions for peace in Europe; problems of detente and security, edited by David S. Collier and Kurt Glaser (1969)
National priorities; military, economic, and social by Kenneth E. Boulding et al. (1969)
Frankly speaking; a collection of extraordinary speeches by Spiro T. Agnew (1969)
Treaty trap; a history of the performance of political treaties by the United States and European nations by Laurence W. Beilenson with Bernard M. Dain (1969)
Learning through games; a new approach to problem solving by Elliot Carlson (1969)
Soldier's guide to the laws of war by Morris Greenspan (1969)
Brass factories; a frank appraisal of West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy by J. Arthur Heise (1969)
One life--one physician; an inquiry into the medical profession's performance in self-regulation; a report to the Center for Study of Responsive Law by Robert S. McCleery et al. (1971)
Pollution of politics; a research/reporting team investigates campaign ethics, edited by Samuel J. Archibald (1971)
Uncle Sam is watching you; highlights from the hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, introduced by Alan Barth (1971)
Famous American trademarks by Arnold B. Barach (1971)
People's instrument; a philosophy of programming for public television by Robert J. Blakely (1971)
American symbols; the seals and flags of the fifty States by M. B. Schnapper (1974)
Conscience of the Nation: the people versus Richard M. Nixon, edited by M. B. Schnapper (1974)
Presidential impeachment; a documentary overview, edited by M. B. Schnapper, introduced by Alan Barth (1974)
Constitutional grounds for Presidential impeachment, by the impeachment inquiry staff, Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives (1974)
Inflation and monetary crisis: a symposium of the Committee for Monetary Research and Education, edited by G. C. Wiegand (1975)
What's right? What's wrong?: A psychological analysis of moral behavior by Larry C. Jensen (1975)
Bronze age civilization: the Philistines and the Danites by Allen H. Jones (1975)
Minorities in the United States: problems, progress, and prospects by Sar A. Levitan, William B. Johnston, Robert Taggart (1975)
Political science and political knowledge by Philip H. Melanson, foreword by Max Lerner (1975)
^
Streitfield, David (May 29, 1997). "Big Picture Books". Washington Post. Retrieved October 16, 2020.
^
Angel, Dan (1970). William G. Milliken: A Touch of Steel. Public Affairs Press.
External links
Just Law: M. B. Schnapper, Public Affairs Press (a Corporation of Thestate of Delaware), Appellants, v. William E. Foley, Director, Administrative Office of The U.S. Courts of the Supreme Court, et al., 667 F.2d 102 (D.C. Cir. 1981)