James Terry White
BornJuly 3, 1845
Newburyport, Massachusetts
DiedApril 3, 1920(1920-04-03) (aged 74)
Manhattan, New York
Occupations
  • Publisher
  • poet
Notable workThe National Cyclopaedia of American Biography

James Terry White (July 3, 1845 – April 3, 1920) was an American publisher and poet. Given his wide range of interests and involvement in various businesses and cultural activities, he was reputed to be a Renaissance man.[1] In 1862, he joined the San Francisco publishing firm H. H. Bancroft & Co. In 1869, White founded a publishing company bearing his name, James T. White Co. in San Francisco; and in 1886, with his son George Derby White, moved its headquarters to New York City. The firm published the first edition of The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography in 1891. At the death of his son in 1939,[2] thirty-one volumes had been published, each containing about 1,000 biographies and 450 pages.[3][4]

Family successor of corporate positions

White was born July 3, 1845, in Newburyport, Massachusetts. White's uncle, Andrew Judson White (1824–1898), had entered the wholesale drug business in New York and London — mainly, he, along with two other family members, obtained the rights to Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills.

In 1891, he became a large shareholder in Yost Typewriting Company, of which, later, he became president and director.[5] When Union acquired Yost, he became a director of the Union Typewriting Co. When Andrew J. White died in 1898, his son, Raymond Sanford White (a Yale University graduate) assumed those roles. When Raymond White died in 1903, James Terry White (his cousin), assumed the role as president of the Yost Typewriting Company, president and director of the Onondaga Mining Company, president and director of Sulphrose Company, president and director of West Coast Rubber Company. He also became a stockholder in several banks and other business corporations of New York City.

Other affiliations

White’s Physiological Manikin

He had served as vice president of the National Press Bureau. White was an organizer and vice president of the Hudnut Pharmacy in New York City. He founded the Character Development League in New York City and, in 1885, invented White’s Physiological Manikin, a life-size illustration of human anatomical structure, surgical techniques, and even prenatal development despite the gender being male.[6]

Selected publications

As author

As publisher

References

General references

  1. Allibone's Critical Dictionary of English Literature: A Supplement; British and American Authors, two volumes, by John Foster Kirk, J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia (1891) OCLC 555027158
  2. The American Literary Yearbook — A Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of Living North American Authors; Volume 1, edited by Hamilton Paul Traub, Paul Traub, Henning, Minnesota (1919) OCLC 10093230
  3. Childhood in Poetry, A Catalogue, With Biographical and Critical Annotations of the Books of English and American poets Comprising the Shaw Childhood in Poetry Collection in the Library of the Florida State University, first edition, by John Mackay Shaw Gale Research, Detroit (1967) OCLC 576009
  4. A Dictionary of American Authors, fifth edition, revised and enlarged, by Oscar Fay Adams, Houghton Mifflin Co., New York (1904) OCLC 1188
  5. A Dictionary of North American Authors Deceased before 1950, compiled by William Stewart Wallace, Ryerson Press, Toronto (1951) OCLC 285718, 301528791
  6. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume 19, James T. White & Co., New York (1926)
  7. Who Was Who in America, A Component Volume of Who's Who in American History, Volume 1, 1897-1942, A.N. Marquis Co., Chicago (1943) OCLC 1432949

Inline citations

  1. ^ James Terry White Dies — Publisher and Poet Was Noted For His Great Versatility, New York Times, April 6, 1920
  2. ^ G. Derby White, 69, Book Publisher — President of the Firm Bearing the Name of His Father, Founder, Dies In Ridgewood, N.J., New York Times, March 15, 1939
  3. ^ Biography Index, A Cumulative Index to Biographical Material in Books and Magazines, Volume 6: September 1961 — August 1964, H.W. Wilson Company, New York (1965) OCLC 320499943
  4. ^ Obituary Notes: James Terry White, Publishers Weekly, April 10, 1920, pg. 1191
  5. ^ Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University Deceased During the Academic Year Ending in June 1899, pg. 643
  6. ^ Who's Who in New York State, Seventh Edition: 1917–1918 edited by Herman Warren Knox (1881–1931), Who's Who Publications, New York, pg. 1141 (1918) OCLC 63681682

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to James Terry White.
James T. White & Co., 1916–1932, box 48
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