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Frederick A. Stokes

American publisher; founded White & Stokes in 1881, Frederick A. Stokes Company in 1890

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ5497221 ↗
Source-derived summary

Frederick Abbott Stokes (November 4, 1857 – November 15, 1939) was an American publisher, founder and long-time head of the eponymous Frederick A. Stokes Company.

Biography

Stokes graduated from Yale Law School in 1879. He worked at Dodd, Mead and Company for a year and in 1881 established White & Stokes, a partnership that became the Frederick A. Stokes Company in 1890. The Stokes businesses published more than 3,000 books in his 58 years, 1881 to 1939.

Stokes published established writers such as Frances Hodgson Burnett, Frank Buck, and Stephen Crane. He also published beginning writers such as James Branch Cabell, Maria Montessori, and Percival Wren. Best sellers included: The Story of Ferdinand, On Jungle Trails, Doctor Dolittle, When Worlds Collide, Guys and Dolls, and The Story of Little Black Sambo. Stokes was also known for publishing high quality art and children's books, such as "The Glue Series", a popular 17-volume series beginning with The House That Glue Built in 1905.

Stokes was an opponent of the new Book Clubs of the 1920s, and of modern advertising methods such as billboards and radio ads.

Stokes died in 1939, at age 82, in his home at 344 West 72nd Street, Manhattan.

Editorial summary

“Frederick A. Stokes” enters the record as american publisher; founded White & Stokes in 1881, Frederick A. Stokes Company in 1890. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Frederick, Stokes and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1857, 1939, 1879, 1881—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1857-11-04. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Frederick, Stokes and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Frederick A. Stokes” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Frederick, Stokes and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5497221. VIAF identifies the subject as 4564491. The Library of Congress control number is no99047981. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1857, 1939, 1879 and 1881.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Frederick A. Stokes”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Frederick A. Stokes primary sources, Frederick A. Stokes archive and Frederick research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Frederick A. Stokes”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Frederick A. Stokes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.