Norman Bolotin and Christine Laing formed The History Bank in 1979, having worked together in publishing beginning in 1973. Husband and wife nearly as long, we have written, developed and/or produced more than 200 books on a very broad list of topics.
Our selling and publishing are very closely linked. For example, we have written and published numerous books about the Civil War, using original items to illustrate the books, then selling the items both here in our store and also on ebay and in direct one-to-one sales with customers.
In 1992 the National Trust for Historic Preservation contracted with us to write a comprehensive history of the World’s Columbian Exposition, which was published in 1993 (the centennial of the exposition) in hardcover and in a $150 limited edition, then reissued in softcover in 2002 by the University of Illinois Press, ensuring it will be available in print for many more years. 2026 will mark 33 years our history of the Columbian Expo has been in print.
In 2017 we wrote the definitive history of the Midway Plaisance for UI Press as well.
We have copies of some of the books we have written available among the products for sale here.
In 2022 we worked with our son Zack Bolotin, whose firm Porchlight Design published our full-color book about Century 21 souvenirs, issued to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the fair.
Porchlight and The History Bank will publish our third WCE title, a complete
catalog and history of tickets from the exposition. I continue to work on the book; research was decades in the making and we are targeting publication in 2026.
World's fairs and their history have been on eof the major topics of both our publishing and our selling. We will have a major sale of world's fair items in early 2026, including items from the very first world's fair at London's Crystal Palace in 1851 through expositions held during the remainder of the 19th century and on through the great fairs of the 20th century.
Our blog, worldscolumbianjournal.com, is devoted exclusively to the WCE.
We worked for many years with Penguin Books and Scholastic to publish our 7-book series, Young Reader's History of the Civil War that has sold nearly 700,000 total copies. We have also written/published about the Holocaust, baseball, the Klondike gold rush and many other topics in the total of 200 books...serving schools, libraries, health care professionals, universities and museums, technical readers and a broad selection of history topics.
We are always available to answer any questions about the areas in which we write, sell, appraise and research. This includes accepting consignments on any of the topics in which we work. The consignment can be a personal collection, a museum collection or just a small number of items you wish to sell. We have sold collections for clients for as little as $5,000 to well over $1 million. We would be happy to talk with you and any questions you may have. Just ask!