John Alexander Hill (February 22, 1858 – January 24, 1916) was a co-founder of the McGraw-Hill Book Company, the predecessor corporation of today's

McGraw Hill Financial S&P Global Inc. (prior to April 2016 McGraw Hill Financial, Inc., and prior to 2013 The McGraw–Hill Companies, Inc.) is an American Public company, publicly traded corporation headquartered in Manhattan, New York City. Its primary areas of busi ...

and

McGraw-Hill Education McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...

. He was born in Sandgate, Vermont on Feb. 22, 1858. In the 1880s, prior to entering the publishing business, he owned and operated machine shops and worked as a

railroad engineer A train driver, engine driver, engineman or locomotive driver, commonly known as an engineer or railroad engineer in the United States and Canada, and also as a locomotive handler, locomotive operator, train operator, or motorman, is a pers ...

. Beginning in 1888, Hill worked as an editor at ''Locomotive Engineer'', and over the next few years he would produce several technical and trade publications. In 1896, he became president of the ''American Machinist Press''. He formed his own company, ''The Hill Publishing Company'', in 1902. From 1900 to 1902 he served as mechanical engineer for the General Manifold Company, custom-designing machinery. As head of Hill Publishing, he printed five weekly magazines: ''American Machinist'', ''Power'', ''Engineering News'', ''The Engineering and Mining Journal'', and ''Coal Age''. Hill had known

James H. McGraw James Herbert McGraw (December 17, 1860 in Harmony, New York Harmony is a town in Chautauqua County, New York, United States. The population was 2,108 at the 2020 census. The town is on the south border of the county and southwest of Jamestown. ...

, who had established ''The McGraw Publishing Company'' in 1899, for some time, and the two men shared similar interests. In 1909 they agreed upon an alliance and combined the book departments of their publishing companies into ''The McGraw-Hill Book Company''. Hill served as president of this combined company from 1909 to 1916, the year he died unexpectedly of a heart condition. The following year, the remaining parts of Hill's company merged with McGraw's to form '' The McGraw-Hill Publishing Company'', which later became ''The McGraw-Hill Companies''.

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* * * American publishers (people) American editors 1916 deaths 1858 births American company founders McGraw-Hill books American railroad mechanical engineers 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century American engineers {{US-business-bio-1850s-stub