Field Enterprises was a private holding company founded on August 31, 1944, by Marshall Field III and others whose main asset was the Chicago Sun. That same year the company acquired the book publishers Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books.
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It also operated a syndicate, Field Newspaper Syndicate, whose most popular offering was the comic strip Steve Canyon. Comic-strip historian Allan Holtz has written regarding the origins of the syndicate and its relationship to the rest of the company:
Field... was a syndicate initially created by Marshall Field to sell features from his Chicago Sun newspaper. When Field started the Sun he found that Chicago was pretty much all sewed up with exclusive contracts on the better features. He resolved to purchase his own features and market them. Ironically, the Field Enterprises syndicate ended up being a better moneymaker than the Sun itself. It has been said that the flagship feature, Steve Canyon, was responsible for keeping the Sun afloat for many years.At some point, Field Newspaper Syndicate changed its name to Chicago Sun-Times Syndicate.
Other features included the editorial cartoons of Bill Mauldin and the "Ask Ann Landers" advice column.
Mergers
The Sun later merged with the Chicago Times to create the Chicago Sun-Times. Besides the Sun-Times, Field Enterprises also owned broadcaster Field Communications, founded Parade magazine and owned the World Book encyclopedia from 1945 to 1978.
Simon & Schuster and Pocket Books were sold in 1957 following the death of Marshall Field III. Parade was sold the following year. Field Enterprises was dissolved in April 1984 after the sale of the Sun-Times, the last of their valuable assets, to Rupert Murdoch the previous year. Murdoch & News Corporation sold the Sun-Times to Hollinger International (now the Sun-Times Media Group) in 1986. Hollinger was formerly controlled, indirectly, by Canadian-born businessman Conrad Black. Field Newspaper Syndicate was sold the same year to Hearst's syndication division, King Features Syndicate.