Before 1920, publishers were known to publish an occasional book for boys and girls, but no publishers had “Children’s Book” departments per se. A few hundred children’s books might be published each year, but the costs for printing illustrated books in color was still high and the market was not well defined.
Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, embarked on a nation-wide tour to advocate for better standards in children’s literature. At the time, relatively few kids’ books were published each year—in part because printing color illustrations was expensive—bu