The first biography of Jack D. Rittenhouse, the pioneering twentieth-century writer, printer, publisher, Western historian, antiquarian bookman, advertising executive, and chronicler of the golden age of Route 66. Jack Rittenhouse was a multi-dimensional individual for whom books were a way of life. He helped establish and elevate printing arts, writing, editing, and publishing in the emerging field of Western history. A founding member of the Western History Association, he is recognized annually by the Independent Book Publishers Association with their Jack Rittenhouse Award, "given in memory of the West's legendary bookman." Dropping out of college amid the Depression for lack of funds, Rittenhouse rode the rails to New York, where he picked up a job in the mail room at Alfred A. Knopf. At Knopf he would open all the incoming correspondence before delivering it to the offices upstairs, and in the evenings he would make notes on what he had learned about book publishing from reading the morning mail, which included correspondence from Willa Cather, H. L. Mencken, and many others. When he learned he could not advance in the publishing world without a college degree, he entered the advertising business and ultimately became a senior partner at a major firm. He collected books, vintage type, and printing presses and read widely on the history of the American West. Early in his career Jack quietly started his own bookselling business on the side. In 1946 he launched his own award-winning publishing venture, Stagecoach Press, with A Guide Book to Highway 66 and soon became known as an authority on The Main Street of America. Subsequently, he printed and published fifty Stagecoach Press books over the next twenty-one years. Jack Rittenhouse tells the story of a man recognized for his knowledge, scholarship, and devotion to the history of the West and to the books that brought it to life.
David R. Farmer is the former director of DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, with previous positions at the University of Tulsa, the University of Houston, and the University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Center. He holds BA and MA degrees from Trinity University and PhD and MLS degrees from the University of Texas at Austin.
"David Farmer has written the first-ever biography of Jack D. Rittenhouse, most certainly the dean of letters on the history of the American West. The many readers of his books have been waiting for such a work." - T. Lindsay Baker, author of Eating Up Route 66: Foodways on America's Mother Road "David Farmer's Jack Rittenhouse: A Western Literary Life takes the reader on a nonstop journey through the biographical pages of one of the Southwest's most distinguished and beloved bookmen. From the East to the West Coast, the Rittenhouse story is paved with adventures in a dazzling spectrum of the world of printing and publishing, a story that would one day earn him the title 'Dean of New Mexico Bookdom.' A true literary feast." - Pamela S. Smith, author of Passions in Print: Private Press Artistry in New Mexico, 1834-Present "This lively biography tells an implausible story. Put aside what you might imagine about the sort of man who collects old type, prints his own books, edits major scholars, and eventually becomes a leading dealer of Western Americana. Jack Rittenhouse spent part of his boyhood in a home without electricity, road the rails with hobos in his twenties, and found his way into publishing by way of a career in advertising. David Farmer, a great bookman himself, has tracked down the scattered archives of Rittenhouse's work to create this remarkable account of a man who loved books." - Martha A. Sandweiss, author of The Girl in the Middle: A Recovered History of the American West
