Ottenheimer Publishers

Ottenheimer Publishers
Ottenheimer Publishers (originally I. & M. Ottenheimer) was a family-owned Baltimore publisher and book packager that lasted from 1890 to 2002.

Brothers Isaac Ottenheimer (19) and Moses Ottenheimer (14) started the firm with a $100 loan from an aunt, on the condition that the business would not interfere with observing the Sabbath. They began as wholesalers of remaindered books, stationery, and postcards, then became known for cheap 10-cent pocket joke books compiled from vaudeville routines. Estimates put joke-book sales above a million copies. The jokes were often grouped by theme (ethnic humor, married life, automobiles) and sometimes issued under names like Irv and Moe Ott. Those plates were later donated to WWII scrap drives.

By the 1930s the company had shifted toward reference works, cookbooks, and especially children’s novelty books, pop-ups and board books. It packaged titles for other houses while often keeping rights itself. In the 1980s it handled U.S. editions of the Mr. Men and Little Miss books (later acquired by Price Stern Sloan). It also produced licensed children’s lines such as Flintstones books. Late in its life it created the Thurman House imprint to reissue Nancy Stouffer titles, including The Legend of Rah and the Muggles; Stouffer’s unsuccessful lawsuit against J.K. Rowling and Scholastic is a footnote, not the cause of the company’s end.

The business stayed in the family for four generations (later presidents included Allan T. Hirsh Jr. and Allan Hirsh III). It filed for bankruptcy in November 2001; president Allan Hirsh III cited “changes in the industry.” Operations wound down in 2002 after 112 years. Rights to active titles were sold off.

The best places to find Ottenheimer Publishers books online are:
eBay Books

Popular Ottenheimer Publishers Books
Joke books (1890s–1930s) – The New Red Hot Joke Book, New Irish Joke Book, New Hebrew Joke Book, New Italian Joke Book, New Tramp Joke Book, and Auto Joke Book.
Children’s pop-ups and board books
The Night Before Christmas: A Pop-up Book (Treasury Collection)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz pop-ups (Emerald City, Cyclone!, boxed sets)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs pop-up
The Nutcracker pop-up
Favorite Christmas Classics (4-book pop-up sets)
My Giant Story Book
Giant fairy-tale editions of Three Little Pigs, Pinocchio, Hansel and Gretel
Wind in the Willows board books (The Open Road, The Wild Wood, River Bank)
Cuddly Beasties educational pop-ups (alphabet, numbers, shapes)
Licensed children’s books
U.S. Mr. Men and Little Miss editions in the 1980s
Many Flintstones Durabooks, Big Little Books, and paperbacks (1972–1987), e.g. Pebbles, Bamm-Bamm and the Baby Sitter, Fred and Barney Join the Circus, The Mystery of Mammoth Mansion
Other cartoon/licensed items such as Mighty Mouse Foils the Mousenappers
Reference and household books
Home Medical Dictionary
Hints ’N’ Helps Household Dictionary
Book of Familiar Quotations
Proverbs and Epigrams
The Key to Hoyle’s Games
Various Webster’s, University bilingual dictionaries and synonym books
Cookbooks
Better Cooking Library volumes (buffet, salad, etc.)
Holiday Mix ’N Match Meals
Crockery Cooking
Creative Sourdough Cooking
Whitman’s Chocolate Cookbook
Country Cooking