Douglas Black was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, the son of John William Black, a music critic and the editor of the Saturday edition of the Brooklyn Times, and Flora E. Blayney, a schoolteacher. From his parents, Black gained an appreciation for books.
Douglas received a B. A. degree from Columbia College in 1916 and an LL. B. from the Columbia University Law School in 1918.
After graduatind Black went to Europe as a field artillery sergeant with the American Expeditionary Force, returning a member of the French Legion of Honor. He passed the New York bar examination in 1919 and then joined the law firm of Kellogg, Emery and Inness-Brown, becoming a member in 1924. Black's connection with Doubleday started in 1914, when he worked in Doubleday, Page and Company's Pennsylvania Station bookshop. For three years he gained valuable book-trade experience while completing his undergraduate education. The association deepened during the 1920's and early 1930's, when, as an employee of Kellogg, Emery and Inness-Brown, he performed legal work for Doubleday.
Black acquired Doubleday as a client when he opened his own law firm in 1935, and he became a director of the publishing company in 1939. Black's intelligence, knowledge of the book industry, and ability to produce worthwhile results sufficiently impressed Nelson Doubleday, the president and chairman of Doubleday's board of directors, to ask him to become first vice-president of the publishing firm. Black accepted the post in January 1944 and rose to the presidency after Doubleday relinquished that position in October 1946. When Doubleday died in 1949, Black assumed complete responsibility for the business. He remained president until February 1961, when he became chairman of the board. He retired from the company in June 1964.
Black deserves credit for bringing several major projects to Doubleday. His friendships with Dwight David Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman helped the company win the publishing rights to General Eisenhower's Crusade in Europe (1948) and the first volume of President Truman's memoirs, Year of Decisions (1955). Black's affiliation with Columbia University undoubtedly helped the company acquire The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York (1953), a monumental work by John A. Kouwenhoven of Barnard College and sponsored by the Columbia University Bicentennial Committee. Black's experience working in the Pennsylvania Station bookshop made him sensitive to the needs of booksellers. As president of the company, he strove to have Doubleday sales personnel work more closely with booksellers, including requiring them to monitor stock levels personally and to perform reordering duties. Those actions lightened booksellers' work loads, kept inventories of Doubleday books in balance, and ensured that a cross section of products appeared before the public.
In 1953, Doubleday and Company instituted Anchor Books, a division that concentrated on publishing and distributing high-quality trade paperback books through bookstores rather than mass-market outlets. During Black's presidency, Doubleday became heavily involved in textbook publishing. Other publishers had been involved in the field for years, but Doubleday waited until the late 1950's and early 1960's, when America's renewed emphasis on education increased the market for textbooks. An ardent and articulate advocate of the freedom to speak, to write, and to exchange ideas, Black was unafraid to publish books that contained ideas different from his own or that held the potential to create public or legal controversy. For example, he published Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision (1950), a speculative book about ancient astronomical occurrences, after Macmillan chose to halt publication in the wake of a threatened boycott by scientists. In 1946 he produced Edmund Wilson's Memoirs of Hecate County, only to see the book declared obscene in New York. He also published Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1952) when no other company would do so.
Black fought censorship through the efforts of the American Book Publishers Council (predecessor of the Association of American Publishers), which he helped found in December 1942. As president from 1952 to 1954, he was responsible for the June 1953 document "The Freedom to Read, " which promoted reading and books. He also became chairman of the American Book Publishers Council Anti-Censorship Committee in 1954. During this period, he involved himself in issues related to international copyright law and U. S. postal rates for books.
Black divided his time between his Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan and his summer home in Shelter Island, New York, where he and his family dug clams and sailed on his yacht. Heavily involved in civic affairs, he became a member of numerous organizations and boards, as well as life trustee of Columbia University. Black died in New York City.
Douglas Black was a well-known and devoted president of Doubleday Company from 1946 to 1961. While president, Black led Doubleday through a period of substantial expansion and innovation. He sought to produce high-quality products and to organize the firm for long-term success. He increased the number of printing plants, retail bookstores, and book clubs associated with the company. He established editorial offices on the West Coast of the United States, as well as in London and Paris. He expanded the company's export department in order to compete in postwar European markets. Through Black's efforts, Doubleday became one of the first large publishing houses to recruit writers from, and to promote its products in, the western United States. He also established Anchor Books division, which sold one million copies of its books and won the Carey-Thomas Award for creative publishing.
A member of the Presbyterian church, Black became director of its national board of Christian education in 1942.
Black married Maude Thornell Bergen on September 11, 1920; they had one child.
