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 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 referen ...
. 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, 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
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