E. (Emanuel) Haldeman-Julius

Born Emanuel Julius in Philadelphia in 1889, he became a journalist and socialist writer before building the career that made him famous. After marrying Marcet Haldeman, he adopted the name Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, and the couple became closely associated with publishing in Girard, Kansas.

He is most closely linked with Haldeman-Julius Publications and the Little Blue Books, small, inexpensive paperbacks that offered classics, essays, self-improvement, and a wide range of popular reading to a mass audience. Their reach was extraordinary, with hundreds of millions of copies sold over time, and they helped make affordable reading a part of everyday American life.

Haldeman-Julius was also known for his secular and reformist outlook. Remembered as a socialist writer, atheist thinker, and social reformer as well as a publisher, he used print not just to entertain but to spread ideas and encourage independent thinking until his death in 1951.