Message from the President - 2008
Can a company’s recent success ignite a renewed fascination in its past? Can a seemingly endless building renovation, enabled by same success, refocus the spotlight on the central figures of a company’s genesis? Can the portraits of same central figures, now in classically updated surroundings, resurrect the prominence of their mighty achievements? At F.A. Davis Company the answer is yes. Yes, because however scattered and piled and stacked and stashed in places so secure as the Chairman’s private lavatory, the archives of F.A. Davis have been preserved. And yes, because sometimes the best way to learn something new is to take something old and figure out why in the world it avoided the haul of the recycle truck.
Once upon a time, an enterprising, resourceful book salesman, F.A. Davis, called on a prodigal physician and lecturer at Jefferson Medical College, John V. Shoemaker. At age 27, Dr. Shoemaker had already distinguished himself as the only bona fide dermatologist in the city of Philadelphia and established a dispensary for skin treatments. He had also, with several associates, authored and circulated the Medical Bulletin, a popular monthly journal winning unsolicited approval of no less than the distinguished Professor Samuel D. Gross. The 29-year-old F.A. Davis saw an opportunity to relieve Dr. Shoemaker of his burden and put his own imprint on the Medical Bulletin. Dr. Shoemaker agreed and was thereby relieved. The year was 1879 and a long collaboration had begun.
The importance of the roles the versatile Dr. Shoemaker played in the company’s formation cannot be overstated. Active in the pursuit of affordable healthcare for all Philadelphians, one would assume his brief hand at self-publishing would be forever delegated to the upstart F.A. Davis Company. Dr. Shoemaker, it seems, made the fledgling company, whose financial health often teetered on the edge of despair, a frequent house call. His medicine bag routinely dispensed a publisher’s best medicine: viable manuscript. It was that rare prescription where overdose was wholly encouraged and Dr. Shoemaker responded in kind. His monthly Medical Bulletin was joined weekly by The Medical Register, which years later became The Times and Register.
Dr. Shoemaker’s areas of expertise included dermatology, pharmacology, and sexually transmitted diseases (especially syphilis), which yielded the following titles: Ointments and Oleates, Especially in Diseases of the Skin, Materia Medica and Therapeutics with Especial Reference to Chemical Application of Drugs, Heredity, Health and Personal Beauty, Poisons and their Antidotes. The diversity of his subject matter gives rise to the size of his practice.
Was not sleep deprivation among his specialties? He managed time for more writing: A Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Skin and A Treatise on Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, both of which went into multiple editions by 1904.
Dr. Shoemaker’s devotion to F.A. Davis Company went further. He became the only author in company history to serve on the Board of Directors. With all due respect, the only authors I know nearest to that class are the ones who act as if they’re on the Board of Directors.
By 1897 the company had run up an unpaid royalty balance of $1,300 due Dr. Shoemaker. He took legal action, but not really as adversary. When he filed a claim “against” F.A. Davis Company, he urged the court to allow F.A. Davis, the company, to raise more capital! In March 1897, with the company’s creditors presumably clamoring for restitution, the company’s inner circle, led by Dr. Shoemaker, sought possession of the company’s assets. In his deposition, George Creveling, Treasurer, orator, and co-complainant said: “the company will be worthless if permitted to be sold at the present time.” Translation: Please honorable court, don’t let the bank receivers sell off the assets of the company; let our newly founded syndicate be empowered to raise another $300,000 for the business operation. The judge acquiesced for a one-year term and then in 1898 extended it a second term.
At the turn of the century, the company’s unwelcome bankruptcy became a necessity, but the inner circle, not the court, took control, leaving all indications that F.A. Davis, the founder, had relinquished his command. In March 1900, the so-called Physicians and Student Publishing Company, led by Alonzo Davis, son of F.A. Davis, provided the legal alternative and financial protection to eventually reconnect F.A. Davis, the founder, to his company in April 1901.
Dr. Shoemaker’s support never wavered. Author, editor, stockholder, ambassador of good will, complainant, humanitarian, and board director, he saw F. A. Davis Company as a platform to showcase Philadelphia as a “great medical centre, attracting students to its schools, wealthy patronage to its physicians, capital, population, trade, all of those elements which our city so well deserves, but for which its merits entitle it to.” (Quoted from a testimonial letter he wrote dated January 28, 1892, on Medical Bulletin stationery.) Dr. Shoemaker served on the Board of Directors through 1901 and resigned once the company had regained its name, its leadership, and its financial stability. By then the royalties due him were presumably paid in full.
In 1892, 150 signatures appear on the pledge list of subscribers to preferred stock. Over 70% are identified as physicians. Most, if not all physicians, were well aware that the venerable Dr. Shoemaker had signed on. F.A. Davis pledged $50,000. John V. Shoemaker pledged $2,500. Their signatures are two lines apart, which may represent the greatest degree of separation between the lives of these proud men.
Truth be told, my dig into the company archives (i.e., one large neglected cardboard box) was inspired by a call I received from Jean D. Wilson, M.D., and enabled by the Chairman’s permission to enter his lavatory. Dr. Wilson, Professor of Internal Medicine at Southwestern Medical School, was preparing to write a one hundredth anniversary tribute piece in The Endocrinologist commemorating the 1907 F.A. Davis publication of The Internal Secretions and the Principles of Medicine, written by Charles E. de M. Sajous, M.D. Dr. Sajous is considered by many to be the Father of Endocrinology. Dr. Wilson, being one of the many, was thrilled to receive the sales numbers and customer testimonials found in the box. Sifting through the many gems I sensed a strong insinuation that Dr. Wilson should have been doing his anniversary piece six years ago, provided Dr. Sajous had delivered his manuscript on time. President F.A. Davis, in his 1907 annual stockholders report, casually referred to this landmark work as “Eternal Secretions,” a rare departure from his usually diplomatic narrative. There is nothing period sensitive, I’ve learned, with publishers waiting for tardy manuscript.
Dr. Sajous was an F.A. Davis heavyweight. He pledged $10,000 in the 1892 stock offering, second only to F.A. Davis. His achievements and their value to F.A. Davis Company have been long recognized by the company. Dr. Sajous’s majestic portrait hangs in the company lobby. In a kind of late author tag team, Dr. Sajous’s legacy has prompted me to cast a spotlight on the previously unheralded Dr. Shoemaker. From a dusty vessel made of cardboard to the hallowed archives of Thomas Jefferson University, the journey has been enlightening. As a result, Dr Shoemaker’s portrait, seen above, will join the greats of F.A. Davis Company past, in oil, on display. And then finally…the renovation will be finished.
Many thanks to F. Michael Angelo, University Archivist of Thomas Jefferson University who assisted me in my research.
Robert H. Craven, Jr.
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John V. Shoemaker, M.D.
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