James Terry White

James Terry White (3 July 1845 in Newburyport, Massachusetts – 3 April 1920 in Manhattan, New York) 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. 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, thirty-one volumes had been published, each containing about 1,000 biographies and 450 pages.

Family successor of corporate positions

White's uncle, Andrew Judson White, MD (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. 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 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

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.

Selected publications

As author

• Flowers from Arcadia (1884) OCLC 14757573
• A Bouquet of California Flowers (1883) OCLC 21650990
• Captive Memories (1897) OCLC 1981536
• Christmas Greeting (1883) OCLC 58879585
• A Garden of Remembrance (1917) OCLC 16838347 and 647376327

As publisher

• The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 63 volumes, published from 1892 to 1984 OCLC 1759175

Resources

• Macbeth Gallery Records, 1838-1968, bulk, 1892-1953, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

James T. White & Co., 1916–1932, box 48

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 and 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

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