This is a photograph of Emanuel Haldeman-Julius at age 60. In 1915, Emanuel Julius was invited to move to Girard and write for the Appeal to Reason, then the largest socialist periodical in the country.
While in Girard he married Anna Marcet Haldeman, a feminist in her own right. Following their marriage, Marcet and Emanuel decided to combine their surnames as a demonstration of their commitment to equality, and became Marcet and Emanuel Haldeman-Julius.
In 1919 they purchased Appeal to Reason and its printing plant. The Haldeman-Juliuses wrote and published their own work, including the novel Dust, published in 1921. They also began publishing what became known as the Little Blue Books: 3 ½ by 5-inch reprints of classical, educational, biographical, and other literature with heavy-paper covers. Originally the books were 25 cents each, but with mass advertising and greater volume, the price was reduced to a dime, later to a nickel. From 1919 until 1951, the Haldeman-Julius Press of Girard, printed more than 500,000,000 of the famous Little Blue Books in over 6,000 different titles.
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