The History of PCH Told in Buenos Aires

Just last week I took some vacation time and visited the beautiful city of Buenos Aires in Argentina to visit my extended family. Many years ago, 25 to be exact, my parents came from Argentina to build a new life here in the US. I was born shortly thereafter and was followed by 2 brothers and 2 sisters for a total of 5 children – that’s a lot of mouths to feed!

As you all know, I work at Publishers Clearing House and naturally my grandparents were interested in hearing about my job and about this great company. I told them all about the PCH Blog, our PCH Facebook Fan Page and the PCH Prize Patrol Youtube channel. I also told them about the rich history of PCH as an American icon. They were fascinated by our founders’ – Harold, LuEsther and Joyce Mertz – novel idea back in 1953 to send multiple magazine subscription offers in one mailing envelope (instead of one subscription offer per envelope). Believe it or not, that simple idea was how this company was started!

Today you all know Publishers Clearing House as the company that surprises cash sweepstakes winners across the United States and Canada with big million dollar checks. And most people don’t know that our company started in the Mertz family’s basement!

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of PCH we have good news. In the coming months we will be redesigning our Facebook Fan Page to tell the story of how Publishers Clearing House came to be.

I’m also happy to answer any questions you may have and will be posting some archived pictures I recently uncovered in upcoming posts.

As always, please respond in the comments and let us know what you think!

Regards,

Frank Alb

PCH Community