CHARITIES PUBLICATION COMMITTEE
105 EAST 22ND STREET, NEW YORK
November 23, 1909
Dear Miss Addams:--
During our editorial conferences yesterday and today, Professor Taylor has spoken of your plans for a book on "Twenty Years At Hull House." We do not know how far negotiations have gone with a publisher, but if the final agreement has not been reached, Dr. Devine and Professor Taylor join me in requesting that you consider the possibility of bringing it out through Charities Publication Committee. Mr. Glenn is interested and would probably be willing to advance the money necessary for printing and advertising. He has done this for us with three forthcoming books: "How Two Hundred Children Live and Learn" by Dr. Reeder, "Visiting Nursing in the United States" by Miss Waters, and "Our Slavic Fellow Citizens" by Miss Balch.
A number of publishers with whom we have talked agree that the only disadvantage of the Publication Committee as compared with a commercial publisher, is the fact that as yet its list of books is not large enough to warrant a traveling salesman to call on the book trade. We do not feel, however, that this is a very serious objection. Our sales both of the Russell Sage Foundation publications and of books bought from other publishers seem to indicate that we have peculiar facilities for reaching readers in our own field. For example, the Macmillan Company to date has sold a total of 1525 copies of Dr. Devine's "Misery and Its Causes."" More than 600 [page 2] of this total have been sold by this office. Of Dr. Gulick's "Medical Inspection of Schools," a Russell Sage Foundation Publication, we have just sold out a second edition, making a total of 2000 copies in a year, and are putting on an edition of another thousand this week.
I feel that it would be a tenstrike for the Committee to be able to include one of your books in its list. If you are at all inclined to let us see the manuscript with a view to publication, I should be glad to go into details of royalty and the like with you.
It may be well to say that our equipment includes a first class copy and proof reader, relations with very good printers and a selling system based upon the subscription list of The Survey (between twelve and thirteen thousand names), plus all sorts of other special lists of people likely to be interested in books in our field. We have, of course, a very close touch with the settlement people, the Charity Organization people and are becoming more and more identified with existing literature in the minds of ministers, church workers, school teachers and other similar group.
Sincerely yours,
Arthur P. Kellogg [signed]
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