Charles H Kerr Company Publishers

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Charles H Kerr Company Publishers was established in Chicago, Illinois in 1886 by Charles Hope Kerr, originally to promote his Unitarian and vegetarian views. As Mr. Kerr became interested in the labor movement, his views evolved towards sympathy with the Socialist Party and the Industrial Workers of the World and so did his company's publications: its 1900 catalog promised books "on socialism, free thought, economics, history, hygiene, American fiction, etc."

Kerr was noted for his translation from the French of the radical workers' movement anthem, "The Internationale;" his version became the English words sung in the United States (although a different, anonymous English translation is sung in Britain and Ireland). Kerr's version was widely circulated in the IWW's Little Red Songbook.

During the First World War, the US government denied mailing privileges to all Kerr publications, alleging them to be seditious violations of the Espionage Act of 1917. Today, the Company advertises "Subversive literature for the whole family since 1886."