In the 1920s, one of George Banta, Jr.'s brothers-in-law, Russell Sharp, created an elementary school workbook and turned to Banta Publishing to print it. Its expertise in publishing them helped make it a leader in production of other softcover books. In 1954, it adopted the name George Banta Company, Inc. and in 1971 it went public, traded on NASDAQ as BNTA. After 27 years, it moved to the New York Stock Exchange on December 18, 1998, where it traded under the symbol BN for the next eight years.