The company was established 1900 in New York's Tin Pan Alley by Maurice Shapiro, who had worked at Adelphi Music publishing company, and his brother-in-law, real-estate dealer Louis Bernstein (not to be confused with the Louis Bernstein better known as Leonard).
Shapiro and Bernstein, along with Decca Records and Columbia Pictures, formed a company called Mood Music in 1947 to publish songs from film musicals including The Jolson Story [REF].