hugo gellert

Your question has two aspects, which may not be as related as you think, but I will try to address them both.

First, as to the history of the R. Long & R.R. Smith company: the following information was gathered by drawing on the expertise of the EXLIBRIS-L email discussion group. An index of Publishers' Trade List Annual contains this entry: "Long, Ray, & R.R. Smith, Inc., NY, 1932; Long & Smith, Richard R., Religion Publications. See Harper & Bros., 1934; see Julian Messner, Inc., 1935-1945." This would indicate that the company was transferred to Messner. Subsequently, "Julian Messner Co. became a division of Simon & Schuster in 1977; presumably all of their copyrights became the property of S&S at that time."

However, the work in question appears to have been first self-published as "...in pictures" in 1933: see this WorldCat entry - which lists publication info as: [White Plains, N.Y., Hugo Gellert, ©1933] A search in the library catalogs of the two institutions listed (Yale and NYU) did not find that edition. But this information makes it clear that the copyright was registered to Gellert, not the publishers.