Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 08.djvu/460

 PUTNAM

PUTNAM

PUTNAM, George Haven, jMiltlislier. was born in London, En^'land. Ai>ril 'J. l:S44 ; son of Goorge Palmer and Victorine (Haven) Putnam. He was brought to New York in 1847 and was a pupil in t!ie public and Columbia grammar schools of New York city ; matriculated at Columbia col- lege in the class of 1864 ; studied in the College of tile Sorbonne. Paris, and the University of Gottiiigeii. 1801-62. and left Germany in August, 1860. tu enter the 176th regiment. New York volun- teei-s, organized largely by the Young Men's Christian association. He was promoted ser- geant, lieutenant, quarter-master and adjutant, and commissioned major ; served in the Red River campaign in Louisiana ; with Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley ; was a prisoner at Libby and Danville, and with Emory in the last cam- paign in Nortii Carolina. He was deputy col- lector of internal revenues under his father, 1865-66, and became a partner in his father's publishing house in 1866, the firm becoming G. P. Putnam & Son, and on the death of his father in 1872, G. P. Putnam's Sons, George Haven, John Bishop and Irving constituting the firm. They established the Knickerbocker Press as the manufacturing department of tiie publisliing busi- ness in 1S7."5. George H. Putnam was active in re- organizing the American Copyright league in 1887, originally organized by his father in 1851, and was its secretary during the contest for inter- national copyright, resulting in the bill of March, 1891. This service secured for him the cross of the Legion of Honor from France in 1891. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from B<jwdoin in 1895. and that of Litt. D. from the \S'estern University of Pennsj'lvania in 1897. He was married, first, in July, 1869, to Rebecca Kettell Shepard of Boston, Ma.ss., and after her death in July, 189.5, .secondly, April 27, 1899, to Emily James, daughter of Judge James C. Sinitii of Canan- daigua, N. Y. He wa-s admitted to membership in the Commonwealth club of New York, the Cen- tury association and the Autiiors and Aldine clute of New York, and was one of the founders of tlie City and Reform clubs of New York. He was also a member of the Swiss club of London, and an honorary menil>er of the National, Liberal and Cobden clubs of London, England. He was a founder of the Society for Political Education ; a mpml)er of the executive committee of the Civil Service Reform as.sociation ; and also a member of the New York Free Trade club, the National Free Trade league, and the Honest Money league. 1876-78. He is the author of: Atithom and Publishers (1SH3); Quest inns of Coypright (1^91); Authors avl Theu- PiMications in Ancient Times (1893); 77/e Artificial Mother (1894), Books and Their Makers in the Middle Ages (1896).

PUTNAM, George Palmer, publisher, was born in Brunswick, Maine, Feb. 7, 1814 ; son of Henry (1778-1822) and Katherine Hunt (Palmer) Putnam (1791-1869); grandson of Joseph Pearce Palmer ; great-grand.son of Gen. Joseph Palmer of the Continental army (1742-1804), and a de- scendant of John Putnam, born at Aston Abbotts, Bucks county, England, 1580 ; settled at Salem, Mass., 1640. He attended s';hool in Brunswick, Maine, two years, and when eight j'ears old went to Boston, Mass., where lie was helper in the carpet store of his uncle, Jolin P. Gulliver, 1822-26. In 1826 his mother removed to New Y'ork, wliere he was a clerk in a book store of George W. Bleecker for a short time. He became clerk for Jonathan Leavitt in 1830, and in 1836 was made junior partner in tlie firm of Wiley and Long, book im- porters, for whom he went to Europe in 1838 as buyer, forming the first American book agency in London. Soon after this the firm became Wiley and Putnam. He was in London, 1837-47, in charge of the English house, and in 1848 es- tablished the publisliing and bookselling house of G. P. Putnam, 155 Broadway. He was married in June, 1841, to Victorine, daughter of Joseph and Mary (Tuttle) Haven of Boston, Mass. He published Irving's Works ; Edgar Allen Poe's "Eureka;" James Russell Lowell's "A Fable for Critics ; " Bayard Taylor's " Views Afoot," and the first books of Cooper and Bryant in 1848. He established Putnam's Monthly \i\ 1853 ; organ- ized the copyright league in 1851, and admitted as partner John W. Leslie in 1854, the firm becom- ing G. P. Putnam & Co. In 1881 he organized the Loyal Publication society, which liad an impor- tant influence on public opinion at home and in Europe, and in 1862 he retired temporarily from the publishing business and accepted from Presi- dent Lincoln the collectorship of internal reve- nues for the eighth district of New York, serving 1862-66. He resumed the publishing business in 1866 with his son, George Haven Putnam, and they established the house of G. P. Putnam & Son, which in 1868 admitted anotlier son, John Bishop, and subsequently a tiiird son, Irving, and became G. P. Putnam & Sons, with a house in Bedford St., London, England. He was secretary of the Publishers' association, a founder and honorary superintendent of the Metropolitan Mu- seum of Art, and in 1864 was appointed chairman of the American committee on art, Vienna ex- position, 1873. He received the honorary degree of A.M. from Bowdoin college in 1853. He is the au- thor of: Chronology, An Introduction and Index to Universal Hixtory, Biography and Useful Knorcledge (IS'SS); Plea for International Cojyyright (1837); The Tourist in Europe (1H38); American Facts (1840); American Book Circular (1843); ^American Facts (1845); A Pocket Memorandum-