At the turn of the 19th century Joseph Palmer Knapp created possibly the first conglomerate printing firm by teaming up with his old loyal customer James B. Duke, the head of American Tobacco and father of future heiress Doris Duke. Doris was widely known as the worlds richest girl, when she inherited 100 million dollars at the age of 12.
It was as a college student he first met Duke, who was very impressed that Joe was working through his lunch hour, selling printing for his father's firm, Major and Knapp. Duke became one of the Knapp's largest customers as the Knapp's printed "trading cards" and other premiums for Duke to offer in his cigarettes.
The partnership proved very successful and in a few years American Lithographic was the largest printer in the world. This small brochure produced in 1912 the year Doris Duke was born , was to introduce their custom printing of advertising specialties like calenders. It states they had annual revenues of close to ten million dollars. A nice little side business indeed.
