Robert Hoe III (10 March 1839, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
– 22 September 1909, in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
) was an American businessman and producer of
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
equipment. He succeeded
Richard March Hoe as head of
R. Hoe & Company, which continued its preeminence among printing-press makers. He was one of the organizers and first president of the
Grolier Club
The Grolier Club is a private club and society of bibliophiles in New York City. Founded in January 1884, it is the oldest existing bibliophilic club in North America. The club is named after Jean Grolier de Servières, Viscount d'Aguisy, Tre ...
, the well-known
New York organization for the promotion of
bookmaking
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
History
The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795.
Range of events
Bookm ...
as an art. He was also one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Life
Hoe was an extensive collector of rare books and
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...
s as well as silver,
miniatures, and other art objects, his collections at the time of his death being valued at several million dollars. The catalogues of his library were unique and valuable from both a typographical and bibliographical standpoint. His collection was sold at auction during 1911 and 1912 with almost half going to
Henry E. Huntington including a
Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the " Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed ...
.
Following Hoe's death at his house in
Brunswick Square
Brunswick Square is a public garden and ancillary streets along two of its sides in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden. It is overlooked by the School of Pharmacy and the Foundling Museum to the north; the Brunswick Centre to the w ...
, London, a Mrs Brown from Lexington, Kentucky, daughter of his manager, sued Hoe's estate for $250,000, claiming that he had promised her a large sum of money before he died. She had been living in London, at the same address as Hoe, and two maids confirmed in court that they had a close relationship. A former husband of Mrs Brown also claimed that Hoe had paid him $20,000 as a settlement for a threatened "alienation-of-affection" suit. The matter was eventually settled out of court.
Family
On August 12, 1863 at Trinity Chapel,
Wavertree
Wavertree is a district of Liverpool, England. It is a ward of Liverpool City Council, and its population at the 2011 census was 14,772. Located to the south and east of the city centre, it is bordered by various districts and suburbs such as ...
near Liverpool, he married Olivia Phelps James (1837-1935), who was the daughter of
Daniel and Elizabeth Woodbridge (Phelps) James.
Olivia's brother was
Daniel Willis James
Daniel Willis James (April 15, 1832 – September 13, 1907) was the son of an American merchant who with his cousin, William Earl Dodge Jr., transformed Phelps, Dodge & Co. from a predominantly mercantile business into one of the largest copper p ...
. Robert and Olivia had 9 children.
Works
He edited Maberly's ''Print Collector'' (1880).
* ''Bookbinding as a Fine Art'' (Grolier Club; New York, 1886)
* ''A Short History of the Printing Press'' (New York, 1902)
Notes
References
*
*
Obituaryat query.nytimes.com
*
;Attribution
*
Further reading
* Consult a brief and fragmentary biographical sketch by Gilliss in the ''
New York Genealogical and Biographical Record'', volume XLI (New York, 1910).
Businesspeople from New York City
1839 births
1909 deaths
American book and manuscript collectors
19th-century American businesspeople
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