Street & Smith, the magazine publisher, and The American News Company,
the distributor, were two old companies with a long history together.
At a certain point S&S dropped ANC and went with alternate
distribution. I have conflicting years for this event: 1925, 1926 and
1930. I need as precise a date as possible, and a citation/quote for
the primary source that provides it. The conflicting sources include
THE WESTERN STORY/Tuska/1999, PULP FICTIONEERS/Locke/2004 and THE
PAPERBOUND BOOK IN AMERICA/Schick/1958; so none of these can be used.
Syracuse University's S&S Archive cannot answer this question. Nor can
the S&S history THE FICTION FACTORY/Reynolds/1955. Possible sources:
trade publications like THE AMERICAN NEWS TRADE JOURNAL or PUBLISHERS'
WEEKLY; the NEW YORK TIMES; histories of American magazines or
publishing. (Note that S&S reunited with ANC in 1933.) Thanks, john.

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Request for Question Clarification by hummer-ga on 10 Feb 2006 09:12 PST

Hi John,

I haven't been able to come up with a precise date for you, but the
following article (which at the least, I think you will enjoy),
mentions that S & S was still with ANC in 1930 and switched to
independent distributors in the early 1930's.

Electronic Magic by George W. Geib
"American News was the country's major news stand distributor. ...Its
level of service was also a curse to many publishers.  Geared to
newspapers and mass magazines, it offered less attention to such
smaller publications as the pulps -- and, in particular, provided no
return privileges.  No wonder that the word from news stand operators
in New York City of actual sales figures was so important to Street &
Smith in 1930: they never saw a copy after it went onto the back of an
ANC truck, and hence could get no independent audit of sales figures.
There was, of course, an alternative that Street & Smith would turn to
in the early 1930's -- the independent distributors.  Not quite as
independent as their name suggested, they were actually a group of
loosely structured associations of dealers who pooled their resources
(and occasionally, as in Chicago, their muscle) to compete with
American News and Union News.  Denied the big magazines, the
independents stressed other titles: racing forms, men's magazines, and
small publications (including many of the pulps).  The racy covers we
associate with many pulps make much more sense when you remember the
type of periodical they often shared the shelves with.  In good times
the independent stand offered an outlet for sales, but when times
turned bad or new competitors appeared, it meant that many of the
pulps (which, like modern men's magazines, had very little in the way
of mail order subscriptions) had a major distribution problem. "
http://blue.butler.edu/~ggeib/shadow.html 

Does that help?
hummer

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Clarification of Question by johnl4321-ga on 13 Feb 2006 10:23 PST

Thanks, hummer! Nice find! THE PAPERBOUND BOOK IN AMERICA appears to
be the main source for the story, repeated in many histories, that
Street & Smith dropped The American News Company in 1930, and that ANC
in response promoted College Life publisher, Ned L. Pines, in the
creation of a new pulp chain to distribute, Standard Magazines. S&S's
motive in dropping ANC was that they thought they were being
overcharged for shipping and handling. For fill their distribution
needs, S&S grouped some independents into an entity named the Chelsea
News Company (not the Chelsea House publisher). My problem is that I
have strong indications that the S&S/ANC divorce and Chelsea creation
occurred around 1926. I suspect the author of PAPERBOUND, or his
sources, misunderstood the story and combined the 1926 divorce and the
1930 ANC/Pines event into one story that all happened in 1930. Would
have been an easy mistake to make, because it demonstrates a
satisfying cause-and-effect. So I need some hard verification of the
divorce date to settle the conflict between sources, something I know
isn't another repeat of the story that originated in PAPERBOUND. -john