Students Start Publishing Firm
A handy Baedeker for the uninitiated college weekender is the result of a mass of gathered information, personal experience and careful evaluation by three enterprising Dartmouth undergraduates. The Ripley Publishing Company of Hanover, N. H., with its three partners, William B. Jones, Donald E. Mose and Richard H. O'Riley, all of the Class of 1949, has made its debut into the world of authors and publishers with the aid of a digest-sized book called For Men Lonely:A Guide to 12 Women's Colleges.
This guide to the dozen most popular women's colleges in the East was the aftermath of a fretful night spent by one of its three author-publishers in the Northampton jail because he had not been able to find any other place to sleep after a Smith College dance. He and his pals decided that "there must be an easier way," and after ten months of personal research into the favorite haunts of women students at each of the colleges covered, they found the best florists in town, the best dining and dancing spots, and, what was uppermost in their minds when the idea for the book was born, the places where the weary college-man- down-for-the-weekend could rest his aching bones at night after a strenuous evening of rhumbas and fox-trots.
All three authors are mid-Westerners and claim no prejudice, but"as good Dartmouth men, they do lean a bit toward Smith." Bennington, Wheaton, Bradford, Skidmore, Smith, Wellesley, Vassar, Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr, Pine Manor, Mount Holyoke, and Connecticut are all treated with equal interest.
Having learned something about women and women's colleges, the trio decided to learn something about the publishing business too. After talking over the project with New York publishers and Dartmouth professors, the three students each contributed S5OO to start their new company. Research, writing, promotion and distribution were extra-curricular activities during weekends and vacations, providing a strenuous but practical education in the publishing game.
AGAINST A BACKGROUND OF BOOK JACKETS of their guide to eastern women's colleges, the suave owners of the Ripley Publishing Co. check page-proofs in their Ripley Hall quarters. From left to right, William B. Jones, Richard H. O'Riley and Don E. Mose, all of the Class of 1949.
