After over 10 years of inactivity, Hullihen called the University of Delaware Press “practically defunct” in a letter inviting H. Rodney Sharp to a meeting of the press board of directors to be held on June 3, 1939. He explained to the board that there were not sufficient funds for the press to engage in further publishing, so he hoped to have the board deem the press officially defunct and authorize the appropriation for the small balance in the press’s treasury for some other university purpose.
While he seemed to have no objection to the press’s closure, P.S. duPont certainly did not seem happy about it, nor did he feel compelled to “attend the funeral services of the University of Delaware Press.” He said that if his attendance was necessary at the June 3rd meeting, Hullihen should notify him by telephone, but that if the meeting was a formality and a quorum would be achieved without him, he would not attend.
The minutes for the June 3rd meeting were brief and signed only by Hullihen and Sharp, containing a resolution authorizing the transfer of the press’s remaining monies to the university’s general fund. The University of Delaware Press appeared to be permanently closed.
After the University of Delaware Press had been established in the 1920s, Hullihen also sought to establish a journal purely for the university’s faculty. The Committee on Faculty Publications was established to oversee the solicitation of articles and the printing of the new journal, Delaware Notes. The committee was comprised of a few faculty members who kept the journal publishing on an annual basis for many years. Eventually, one of the committee members sought to publish a book-length piece of scholarship, and turned to the defunct University of Delaware Press brand to do so.
