It was founded in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1993 by United Kingdom-based Tempus Publishing, but became independent after being acquired by its CEO in 2004. The corporate office is in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. It has a catalog of more than 12,000 titles, and italong with its subsidiary, The History Presspublishes 900 new titles every year. Its formula for regional publishing is to use local writers or historians to write about their community using 180 to 240 black-and-white photographs with captions and introductory paragraphs in a 128 page book. The Images of America series is the company's largest product line. Other series include Images of Rail, Images of Sports, Images of Baseball, Black America, Postcard History, Campus History, Corporate History, Legendary Locals, Images of Modern America, and Then & Now. In 2010, Arcadia became the first major publisher to print all of their books on Forest Stewardship Council paper. All of the publishers books are also printed and manufactured in South Carolina on American-made paper. In May 2017, Arcadia acquired Palmetto Publishing Group, a Charleston-based self-publishing service that had been in business since 2015. In 2018, Arcadia was acquired by Lezen, a new company owned by Lili and Michael Lynton. In March 2019, Walter Isaacson became the editor-at-large and senior adviser for Arcadia Publishing, where he will be promoting books for the company as well as editing, new strategy development, and partnerships.
The History Press is a subsidiary publishing house, owned by Arcadia. Its books mainly deal with "narratives of local heroes, tragic losses, collections of homegrown recipes, historic mysteries, and everything in between." Some of their series include: American Legends, Forgotten Tales, and Haunted America. The History Press was originally a US subsidiary of the UK-based publisher of the same name. In 2014, the US-based portion of The History Press was sold to Arcadia Publishing.
Legendary Locals
Legendary Locals is an imprint of The History Press.
The books are printed in the United States. It handles its own sales and distribution with the following each accounting for one-third of the company's sales:
