EBSCO Industries, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, is a privately held, widely diversified corporation. It was founded in 1944 by Elton Bryson Stephens (hence the EBSCO acronym Elton B Stephens COmpany). EBSCO is one of the largest privately held companies in Alabama, and one of the top 200 in the nation, based on revenues and employee numbers, according to Forbes Magazine. In 1997 sales surpassed $1 billion. In 2006 sales exceeded $2 billion. EBSCO is a diverse company which includes over 30 businesses:

Elton Bryson Stephens earned money for college (he attended Birmingham Southern College) by selling magazines door-to-door. He soon became a sales manager and began hiring salespeople and sending them across the country to sell magazine subscriptions. In 1936, Stephens earned a law degree from the University of Alabama, but decided that managing the sale of magazines was more profitable than practicing law. In 1944, Stephens formed a partnership with his wife, Alys Robinson Stephens, to sell magazine subscriptions, personalized binders and magazine racks to the U.S. Armed Forces. They named this "Military Service Company", and over the next decade acquired several other companies that were eventually combined to form EBSCO Industries Inc. In 2011, EBSCO Publishing took over H. W. Wilson Company.