John_G._Ryan
John G. Ryan
American publisher
John Gerard Ryan (1910–1989) was an American publisher, president of P.F. Collier & Son Corporation[1] and of The Richards Company, Inc., a subsidiary of Grolier Incorporated.[2] He was pivotal to the 1950s and 1960s expansion of the American encyclopedia business that placed reference libraries in millions of homes.[3][4] He published and marketed Collier's Encyclopedia, The Harvard Classics, the New Book of Knowledge, the American Peoples Encyclopedia, and other reference works.[5] Ryan helped middle and low income families afford in-home libraries by permitting costumers to pay over time with small monthly payments.[6][7][8]
Ryan's profitable leadership of P.F. Collier & Son supplied the cash flow that kept its parent company, The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company (later renamed Macmillan, Inc), solvent in the 1950s as it closed its money-losing magazines, including Collier's,[9][10] and grew into one of the world's largest book publishers.[11][12] At P.F. Collier & Son, he employed the conservative intellectual William Terry Couch as editor of Collier’s Encyclopedia and instructed Couch to begin compilation of what became Collier’s Encyclopedia’s 24-volume 1962 edition.[13][14] At Grolier, publishers of Encyclopedia Americana, he built The Richards Company, Inc., into Grolier's highest sales volume book division.[15] Ryan also pioneered the sale of American encyclopedias in overseas markets.[16]