Free Press (publisher)
book publisher in the United States
Free Press was an American independent book publisher that later became an imprint of Simon & Schuster. It was one of the best-known publishers specializing in serious nonfiction, including path-breaking sociology books of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. After a period under new ownership in the 1980s of publishing neoconservative books, it was purchased by Simon & Schuster in 1994. By 2012, the imprint ceased to exist as a distinct entity; however, some books were still being published using the Free Press imprint.
History
Free Press was founded by Jeremiah Kaplan (1926–1993) and Charles Liebman in 1947 and concentrated on religion and social science. They chose the name Free Press because they wanted to print books devoted to civil liberties. It was launched with three classic titles: Division of Labor by Emile Durkheim, The Theory of Economic and Social Organization by Max Weber and The Scientific Outlook by Bertrand Russell. It was headquartered in Glencoe, Illinois, where it was known as The Free Press of Glencoe.
In 1960, Kaplan was recruited by Macmillan to provide new editorial leadership and he agreed to move to New York if Macmillan Publishing Company would buy Free Press, and thus Free Press was sold in 1960 for $1.3 million ($500,000 going to Kaplan and $800,000 going to Liebman).
In 1994, Simon & Schuster acquired Macmillan and Free Press.
The public source identifies “Free Press (publisher)” as book publisher in the United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Free, Press and publisher.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5499961. VIAF identifies the subject as 311352319. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2012, 1926 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Free Press (publisher)” 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.