W. W. Norton & Company is an independent American publishing house and prominent educational and trade book publisher, specializing in academic and trade books, particularly in history and social sciences. Founded in 1923 by William Warder Norton and Mary Dows Herter Norton as the not-for-profit People's Institute Publishing Company, it initially published lectures from the People's Institute at Cooper Union. The company has evolved into a major publisher emphasizing high-quality, enduring books across fiction, nonfiction, poetry, college textbooks, cookbooks, art books, and professional titles. It publishes approximately 400 books annually and is renowned for its Norton Anthologies (such as The Norton Anthology of English Literature) and Norton Critical Editions, which are staples in university literature courses. Since the early 1960s, Norton has been wholly owned by its employees, making it the oldest and largest worker-owned publishing house in the United States, allowing it to maintain independence and editorial integrity in a consolidating industry. The company's leadership has included Storer D. Lunt (1945), George Brockway (1957–1976), Donald S. Lamm (1976–1994), W. Drake McFeely (1994–2017), and current president Julia A. Reidhead (since 2017). It expanded internationally in the 1990s, launched its website in 1995, entered digital publishing in 1996, and celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023. Norton publishes notable authors like Michael Lewis, Rita Dove, Neil Gaiman, Joy Harjo, and Stephen King, and balances trade and college divisions while prioritizing long-term cultural impact over short-term profits.