Collective Weekly

In 1958, the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company started a holiday tradition that lasted half a century. Company CEO David Luke initiated the American Classics Series (also known as the Christmas Classics), published annually through 2007. According to Scott Wallinger, a former Westvaco company officer, “the Luke family favored being a producer of non-commodity products and focused on paper grades that others found more difficult to make.” In an era when books were on paper and held in personal libraries, Scott continued, the company was a leading producer of a wide array of quality, unique printing papers that it sold to most of the leading book publishing companies. Privately published, the book was presented to major publishing companies and their purchasing staffs at the end of the year to show the company’s wide-ranging capabilities. Officers of the paper company also received a copy. The name of the series changed when the company changed names: it became Westvaco American Classics Series in 1969 and the MeadWestvaco American Classics Series in 2002.