James Herbert (McGrath) McGraw (1860 - 1948)

Born 17 Dec 1860 in Panama, NY

Ancestors

Husband of Mildred Whittelsey — married 8 Jun 1887 in Corfu, Genesse, NY

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Biography

James was born in 1860. James was the child of Patrick McGrath and Catherine McMahon. James passed away in 1948. ^[1] Believe he was the last of eight children. He and Mildred had five children. He adopted his brother Daniel's son James A. McGraw. JH McGraw was the co-founder of what was The McGraw-Hill Companies. He was the president of McGraw-Hill from 1917 to 1928. The McGraw Publishing Company and the Hill Publishing Company merged their book departments in 1909. He was born in the village of Panama in the northwest part of the Town of Harmony, New York in Chataqua county. JH McGraw is interred in Evergreen Cemetery in Morristown, New Jersey (Plot: Section 36, Lots 15&16, Grave 3).

James H. McGraw worked as a teacher in upstate New York, and augmented his income by selling subscriptions and advertising for a trade periodical, American Journal of Railway Appliance. In 1885 he spent his life savings --- $2,500 -- to become part-owner of the publication, and three years later he bought the business outright. After making a quick success of this and several other trade journals, he formed The McGraw Publishing Company in 1889 as a holding company for his magazines. The firm soon expanded into book publishing, and in 1909 McGraw's book division was merged with the book-publishing arm of John A. Hill's Hill Publishing Company, while both companies remained competitors in periodicals publishing. The combined business, McGraw-Hill Book Company, absorbed the original companies' periodicals division in 1917. In 1929, McGraw-Hill bought a struggling business-themed monthly called The Magazine of Business and re-launched it as a weekly, publishing its first issue (called The Business Week) six weeks before the stock market crash that began the Great Depression. Despite his great success in publishing, McGraw frequently said that he had enjoyed his time as a teacher more than anything in his business career.

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Sources

Information came from James A. McGraw's daughter Jean.No sources. The events of James's life were either witnessed by Ken Gillett or Ken plans to add sources here later.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Entered by Ken Gillett, Friday, December 27, 2013.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Ken Gillett for creating McGrath-720 on 27 Dec 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by Ken and others.