Thank you to this publisher. Ralph Nader was an obscure Washington lawyer and auto-safety authority when he began making the rounds of major publishing houses in early 1965. He hoped to generate interest in Unsafe at Any Speed, a book he had written savaging the car industry for its willingness to sacrifice safety for sleek design and power. Editor after editor turned him down, one with the quip, This was a very interesting manuscript, but I think it would be primarily of interest to insurance agents. That October, Nader gave the book to Richard L. Grossman, an independent New York publisher of political affairs and photography books. Mr. Grossman’s self-described non-establishment sensibility — he frequented draft-card burnings during the Vietnam War while wearing his World War II medals — was well-suited to the burgeoning consumer-advocacy movement that Nader spearheaded. Mr. Grossman, who died Jan. 27 at 92, rushed Unsafe at Any Speed to publication within two months. The whirlwind pace was critical, Nader said in an interview this week, because it allowed the release to coincide with congressional hearings that led in 1966 to the passage of the first comprehensive federal automotive safety standards. The book sold hundreds of thousands of copies, in part because of the media attention given to attempts by General Motors to harass and intimidate Nader. Grossman Publishers, which merged with the larger Viking Press in 1968, went on to print most of Nader’s exposes of air and water pollution and pesticides. He was an avant-garde guy and had a sense of what was coming, Nader said.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 04:04:39 +0000
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