Alexander H. McGuffey

Alexander Hamilton McGuffey (August 13, 1816 – June 3, 1896) was an editor of the fifth and sixth of the series of McGuffey Readers. His brother William Holmes McGuffey edited the first four readers in the series. Alexander Hamilton McGuffy was born in Trumbull County, Ohio on August 13, 1816. His parents were intellectual, refined Scottish people.

He was hired by Woodward College in Cincinnati to be a professor of Belles-lettres.

Winthrop B. Smith planned to publish a series of elementary English text books, known as the McGuffey Readers. They were written by the McGuffey brothers, William and Alexander. William wrote the first four readers, and was believed to have had assistance from Alexander McGuffey, who wrote the Fifth and Sixth Reader. He entered into a contract with W. B. Smith on September 30, 1841 to create a rhetorical reading book. The McGuffey’s Rhetorical Guide or Fifth Reader of the Eclectic Series was published in 1844. When he died, he was survived by his wife and nine children.

Legacy