American publisher, born in Brunswick, ME, on the 21st of February 1814; entered a bookstore in New York in 1828; became a partner in the publishing house of Wiley and Putnam in 1840; resided in London (1840–47), conducting a branch house; returned to New York and began business on his own account in 1848; with the assistance of George William Curtis, established Putnam’s Magazine, which ran from 1853 to in 1868, and merged with Scribner’s Monthly in 1870. He was collector of internal revenue in New York from 1863 to 1866, when, with his sons, he founded the publishing house of G. P. Putnam and Sons (now G. P. Putnam’s Sons). He was one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in 1872 its honorary superintendent. He was also appointed chairman of the committee on art in connection with the Vienna Universal Exposition. Among his published works are Chronology; or, An Introduction and Index to Universal History, Biography and Useful Knowledge (1833); The Tourist in Europe (1838); A Pocket Memorandum Book in France, Italy and Germany (1848). He died in New York on the 10th of December 1872.
