Founded in Wilkinsburg, Scholastic magazine celebrates 100 years of educating children
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The first issue of Scholastic was Oct. 22, 1920.
Maurice R. “Robbie” Robinson started the publication as a four-page magazine about high school sports called Western Pennsylvania Scholastic.
The Wilkinsburg resident had just graduated from Dartmouth College—a period in which he spent more than a year in the Army during World War I.
“In one of his early letters, he talked about the importance of resilience, one of his favorite words, as he worked for more than 30 years to keep Scholastic alive before it made its first real profits in the early 1950s,” said his son, Scholastic chairman and CEO Dick Robinson.
Within two years, the four-page first edition evolved into a 24-page national biweekly that took on topics beyond sports, such as arts and literature. Currently, there are more than 30 Scholastic Classroom Magazine titles reaching more than 25 million students nationwide as the company celebrates 100 years in business on Thursday.
Scholastic , based in New York City, has covered feminism and gender issues, climate change, the celebration of Black voices and literature before and during the Civil Rights movement — including featuring a Black student on the cover of the magazine in 1948, a decision that led to the magazine being banned—and a pandemic.
The early years
Maurice Robinson wanted to “bring the world into the classroom,” providing relevant contemporary literature for English and current events for history and government classes, his son said.
“Three out of four children in the country are reading one of Scholastic’s magazines,” said Lauren Tarshis, senior vice-president and editor-in-chief/publisher, Scholastic Classroom Magazines. “Our mission is about the importance of reading. It is so cool that Scholastic started in Wilkinsburg. Pittsburgh has such a wonderful history.”
She said the company’s consistency with only two CEOs is phenomenal.
“It is moving to personally hear Dick Robinson speak,” Tarshis said. “He talks from the heart and it resonates in the stories he tells about his father. It’s a beautiful story.”
The younger Robinson said it’s about getting inside the mind and heart of the student reader, and connect them to the literature and stories of the world.
Pandemic learning
Because of the pandemic, “Scholastic Learn at Home” was a free web product in April and May when schools were closed and attracted 80 million page views. “Scholastic Learn at Home for Families” is available on a monthly subscription.
Helping with distance learning is another dimension to the company, said Deimosa Webber-Bey, director of information services and cultural insight. Searching the archives she’s discovered interesting, pertinent information. A former teacher, she used the Scholastic books as resources for her classroom.
“You have the opportunity to learn something every day here at Scholastic,” Webber-Bey said. “There are so many resources. I have had a lot of requests for history on the anniversary. What a wealth of resources Scholastic has been over the past 100 years.”
Scholastic sells books and magazines to most of the 70,000 elementary schools in the country. The communication with teachers and students has kept the company vital, Dick Robinson said.
Another Pittsburgh connection
A question from a Pittsburgh student prompted him to buy books for a class room.
He received what he calls “this great letter, with a copy of our book, “The Three Wishes,’” (first published 50 years ago) from Joycita Rose Malrey Lucas, a student at Carmalt Elementary School in Brookline.
“She said in return for her sending this book, I should give her and her classmates free books for the year,” he said. “She signed the letter ‘The Great Negotiator.’ I immediately agreed. She sent me pictures of her classmates with their books. These were children who definitely loved the books but probably could not afford to purchase them.”
He said her reaching out reminded him of the power of one child.
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop | Tribune-Review
Joycita Rose Malrey Lucas (fourth from left) contacted the president and chief executive officer of Scholastic Dick Robinson about getting free books for she and her classmates and he responded. Scholastic celebrates 100 years in business on Oct. 22, 2020.
Early on
Maurice Robinson, a publicity writer for the Chamber of Commerce noticed that enrollment in public high school was projected to go up following the war. He met with Western Pennsylvania principals which is where he got the idea for the sports magazine, and then later for a magazine devoted to contemporary English and social studies. He met his wife, Florence Liddell, from Avalon, won a poetry contest advertised through Scholastic, and then worked there.
“For me and my three sisters and brother, Scholastic’s Pittsburgh home was the reason we came into the world,” Dick Robinson said. “In many ways, Scholastic and our family owed its early life to the city of Pittsburgh and its people.”
Scholastic has overcome many challenges and his father’s resilience remains.
The newest release will be for the holidays called “All Because You Matter.”
“We need to maintain our relevance as we have for 100 years by providing this information in the ways that are easy for young people to access in school and at home,” Dick Robinson said. “Continuing to do this well will ensure our usefulness and value to people well into the 21st century.”
Dick Robinson wrote this letter on the website about the 100th anniversary.
JoAnne Klimovich Harrop is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact JoAnne at 724-853-5062, jharrop@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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