Bill Cohen
Bill Cohen graduated from Columbia College (Class of '71) with an undergraduate degree in
psychology. He jumped directly into the publishing industry with Human Sciences Press, now
part of Plenum Press, a division of Springer Science+Business Media. Starting as a clerk-typist,
Bill became Director of Marketing within a year, and was in charge of all publicity and sales efforts
for academic journal and book titles, managing a direct mail campaign reaching one million pieces
a year. At the age of 26, Bill left Human Sciences Press, Inc. with its President, Patrick McLaughlin,
to launch The Haworth Press, Inc. The name was taken from the township of Haworth in the United
Kingdom, which was home to the famous literary Bronte Sisters. At this period of time, Bill spent nights
and weekends at the School of Library Science Library at Columbia University to learn more about
librarianship, and particularly serials librarianship and the selection and acquisition of monographs.
Haworth Press began in Bill's bedroom office. From 1975 to 2006, the firm grew from one peer-review
academic journal to almost 200, and published almost 5,000 monographs and texts, based in a multi-
building office system with almost 200 employees in Binghamton, New York and Hazleton, Pennsylvania.
Its imprint, Harrington Park Press, focused on "cross-over" titles of interest to both academics and the
educated public, with a special strength in pioneer LGBT topics as well as in psychology and health care.
In 1994, Bill bought out Patrick's shares in the firm and moved it forward under single ownership. Patrick
died several years later after a long illness. In early 2007, Bill divested the firm to the Taylor & Francis
Group/Routledge, and joined with them in a consulting capacity for two years. He retained ownership and
trademark rights to Harrington Park Press. The imprint continues with this effort.
