Abingdon Press

History

Abingdon Press was begun in the early 1900s by the Methodist Church, with headquarters in New York City. The name of the imprint is a reference to the town of Abingdon, Maryland, location of the Methodist university Cokesbury College.

In 1923 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South adopted the name Cokesbury for its own publishing concern, with headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. When the northern and southern branches of the Methodist Episcopal Church reunified in 1939, the name Abingdon-Cokesbury was chosen as the name of publishing house of the unitary Methodist Church and Nashville was chosen as the headquarters.

This name remained in use until 1954, when a return was made to the name Abingdon Press, with the church's retail division for its publishing enterprises assuming the name Cokesbury. In 1968, W. T. Handy, Jr. was hired as their first African-American executive.

References

References

1. link. (April 12, 2010 accessed April 3, 2010)
2. Alan K. Waltz, [http://www.umc.org/ "Abingdon Press,"] {{Webarchive. link. (2017-03-07 in ''A Dictionary for United Methodists.'' New York: Abingdon Press, 1991. Cited in United Methodist Church: Glossary: Abingdon Press, www.umc.org/.)
3. In 1965 the joint Abingdon Press and the associated Cokesbury retail shops employed more than 2,000 people.Leland D. Case, "Origins of Methodist Publishing in America," ''Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America,'' vol. 59, no. 1 (First Quarter 1965), pg. 27. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24300768 In JSTOR].
4. "Bridwell Library Explores Three African American Bishops of the United Methodist Church".