Fred Hall was an assistant to Charles L. Webster, whom he succeeded as manager of SLC’s publishing company in 1888. He bought out Webster’s interest in the company for $12,000, becoming a one-third partner. Although SLC later attacked Hall as incompetent, and he certainly was inexperienced, there was little that could have been done to prevent the company’s collapse given its unrealistic publication commitments, the diversion of SLC’s capital into the Paige Typesetter, and the disastrous Panic of 1893. As a partner in the firm when it failed in April 1894, Hall suffered financial ruin, and was forced immediately to seek other employment.