Jack Rittenhouse: A Western Literary Life

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